E's

Question 1

Election of 1796

Answer 1

The second election for president and vice president of the United States, in which John Adams, the Federalist candidate, won the highest number of electoral votes, thereby becoming president; Thomas Jefferson, who ran under the opposition banner of e Republicans, received the second-highest number of electoral votes and thereby became vice president

Question 2

Election of 1800

Answer 2

The election in which Republicans Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr won handily against Federalists John Adams and Charles Pinckney; however, because both received the same number of electoral votes, the selection was left up to the House of Representatives; after a lengthy deadlock, Alexander Hamilton threw his support to Jefferson, and Burr accepted the vice presidency

Question 3

Election of 1808

Answer 3

The election in which Republican James Madison won the election over Federalist Charles Pinckney, but the Federalists gained seats in both houses of the Congress

Question 4

Election of 1824

Answer 4

The first national election in which members of the Electoral College were now almost universally elected by the people, rather than by the state legislatures, as in the early days

Question 5

Election of 1828

Answer 5

A national election characterized by a dirty campaign in which Adam’s supporters, calling themselves National Republicans, accused Jackson of adultery and the murder of several militiamen who had been executed for desertion during he war of 1812; Jackson’s followers, then called the Democratic Republicans, in turn defamed Adams and his programs and accused him of extravagance with public funds; Jackson won 56% of the popular vote and swept 178 of the 261 electoral votes; John Calhoun was elected vice president

Question 6

Election of 1832

Answer 6

The national election in which President Jackson soundly defeated Henry Clay in the presidential race and considered his victory a mandate from the people to destroy the Bank of the United States

Question 7

Election of 1836

Answer 7

The national election in which Jackson’s hand-picked Democratic successor, Martin Van Buren of New York, won, defeating three Whig Party candidates

Question 8

Election of 1840

Answer 8

An election with the largest voter turnout to date in which Whig candidate William Henry Harrison won a narrow popular victory, but swept 80 percent of the electoral vote

Question 9

Election of 1844

Answer 9

An election that involved the key issues of the annexation of Texas and Oregon, and slavery; the winner of the presidential race was Tennessee politician James K. Polk, who was a staunch Jacksonian and opposed protective tariffs and a national bank but, most importantly, favored territorial expansion, including not only annexation of Texas but also occupation of all the Oregon country

Question 10

Election of 1848

Answer 10

An election in which both parties sought to avoid as much as possible the hot issue of slavery in the territories; Whig candidate General Zachary Taylor, whose fame in the Mexican War made him a strong candidate, was elected president (although he knew nothing of politics, had never voted, liked to think of himself as above politics, and took no position at all with respect to slavery in the territories).

Question 11

Election of 1856

Answer 11

An election in which Democratic nominee James Buchanan of Pennsylvania won the presidency; his chief qualification for the nomination was that during the slavery squabbles he had been out of the country as American minister to Great Britain and, therefore, had not been forced to take public positions on controversial issues

Question 12

Election of 1860

Answer 12

The election in which Abraham Lincoln carried the North, led in popular votes, and, though he was short of a majority in that category, he did have the needed majority in electoral votes and was elected president

Question 13

Election of 1864

Answer 13

The election in which incumbent President Lincoln ran on the ticket of the National Union party (essentialy the Republican Party with loyal or “war” Democrats) with vice-presidential candidate Andrew Johnson, a loyal Democrat from Tennessee; following the news that General Sherman had taken Atlanta, they won a resounding victory

Question 14

Election of 1868

Answer 14

An election in which the Republican convention, dominated by the Radicals, drew up a platform endorsing Radical Reconstruction and nominated Ulysses S. Grant (who had no political record and whose views - if any - on national issues were unknown) as their presidential candidate. Despite his enormous popularity as a war hero, Grant won the presidency by only a narrow margin

Question 15

Election of 1876

Answer 15

An election that was disputed when Democratic candidate Samuel Tilden won the popular vote and led Republican candidate Rutherford B. Hayes in the electoral vote 184 to 165; however, 185 electoral votes were needed for election; twenty votes from the three Southern states still occupied by federal troops and run by Republican governments, were disputed, resulting in a vote by a specially created commission of Congress to give all twenty disputed votes - and the election - to Hayes

Question 16

Electoral College

Answer 16

An institution established as a check on the possible excesses of democracy, in which each state would have the same number of electors as it did senators and representatives combined; when first instituted, the person with the highest number of electoral votes would become president and the person with the second-highest number of votes would become vice president; it was later changed

Question 17

Electric Telegraph

Answer 17

An invention of Samuel B. Morse that was first used in 1840 to transmit business news and information using a code of short and long signals transmitted over wires

Question 18

Emancipation

Answer 18

The freeing of slaves in the United States

Question 19

Emancipation Proclamation

Answer 19

A declaration by President Lincoln freeing all slaves in areas still in rebellion as of January 1, 1863

Question 20

Embargo of 1807

Answer 20

Jefferson’s response to the cry for war after the “Chesapeake-Leopard” Affair in which he drafted a law prohibiting American ships from leaving port for any foreign destination, thus avoiding contact with vessels of the European powers led by the British or by the French

Question 21

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Answer 21

A mid-19th century American essayist and lecturer who authored “Nature” and “Self-Reliance”

Question 22

“Encomiendas”

Answer 22

Large manors or estates, developed by the Spanish as a system to deal with labor shortages in the Americas and as a reward to successful conquistadores, on which conquistadores ruthlessly managed Indian slaves

Question 23

Enlightenment

Answer 23

Embraced by some Americans, the British intellectual movement whose key concept was rationalism

Question 24

Enumerated goods

Answer 24

Products from the American colonies that could be shipped only to England or to other American ports

Question 25

Era of Good Feelings

Answer 25

The years following the War of 1812, in which the United States experienced rapid economic and social development as well as accelerated westward expansion

Question 26

Erie Canal

Answer 26

The first canal in the United States, completed in 1825, that linked the Hudson River at Albany, New York, with Lake Erie

Question 27

Essex Junto

Answer 27

The secessionst movement organized in 1804 by New England Federalists who saw the Western expansion as a threat to their position in the Union and who courted Aaron Burr’s support by backing him in a bid for the governorship of New York

Question 28

Executive Departments

Answer 28

Specified not in the Constitution but by Congress, the first executive departments were the state, treasury, and war, in addition to the offices of attorney general and postmaster-general