Chapter 1 : Continuation Flashcards
Federal government
Federal: relates to the government of the United States
The White House: home is the US president elected by an electoral college (group of people representing the states of the US who are responsible of electing the president and Vice President)
The US Congress: drew up laws in the Capitol
The US Congress
The US Congress itself comprised two distinct institutions
The House of Representatives: represented the people the greater the population the state had the more representatives
The Senate: represented the states however the size of the state each state had 2 senators (senator was seen as the defender of states rights
The Senate was more important in protecting the rights of the slave states than the House of Representative
For a proposal to become a law, the approval of both the houses is needed
The political system is based on
Separation of powers: maintains a distinction between the different branches of government.
Checks and balances: makes them work together
Supreme Court
Responsible to decide whether the decisions and policies of the Congress, the president, and the states and the state governors kept to the constitution
However enforcing its judgements depended on the other branches of government
Slavery
Slaves were transported from west Africa
All the states south of the Mason-Dixon slavery increased
South was well suited to the rapid development of cotton production and use of slave labor.
Abolitionists were people who were strongly against slavery, people who wanted to abolish slavery
In the south people wanted to expand slavery slavery to protect the south’s position within a US constitution
Secession
Secession is the withdrawal of a group from a larger political entity, organization, union, or military alliance
The south wanted to secede as the Confederacy
Emancipation
Emancipation is the fact or process of being set free from legal, social or political restrictions which like liberation (the act of setting someone free from imprisonment, slavery or oppression
Opponents of slavery believed they could get rid of slavery by:
Peaceful emancipation: slavery could be abolished b agreement of key bodies (state assemblies/Congress)
Military emancipation: slaves are freed as a strategy to defeat rebellion (freed slaves might encourage a wider rebellion)
Violent emancipation: slavery could be abolished by force
Manifest destiny
(Obvious destiny where US is expanding from coast to coast east to west)
In 1836 Texas declared independence and looked to the USA for protection and America offered to annex Texas and they accepted and Texas joined the USA as the 28th state
Annex : add territory to one’s own territory by appropriation
The Wilmot Proviso
David Wilmot was a democratic member of the US House Of Representatives he proposed that any territory gained by US from the Republic of Mexico shall not be a slave state
The Wilmot Proviso was never passed by the Congress and Was rejected twice but the voting split for the Wilmot Proviso highlighted the sectional differences between members of the same political party and the differences started to become more and more prominent
Frederick Douglas
He was a former-slave that escaped slavery and became an abolitionist
He travelled widely and educated a wider audience about the political issue of slavery
He wrote many anti-slavery books
Mexican American war
Mexican American war was an armed conflict between the United States and Mexico from 1846-1848 which stemmed from the annexation of the Republic of Texas by the US
A peace treaty was negotiated and Mexico was obliged to surrender areas of its northern provinces to the USA. The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ended the war between Mexico and The United States, Mexico encoded 55% of its territory to the United States
Territorial Expansion
US started expanding from England to the US and expanded from east to west
In 1789 the USA was former British colonies
As the population increases the people move towards the West and the US gets richer
The major consequences was the movement of people into the new land as the major issue was when it came to deciding whether the proposed state would become slave or free because the two sections needed to keep in balance to avoid either North or South becoming more powerful
Henry clay
Henry Clay was a leader of the House Of Representative was responsible of the idea of the Missouri Compromise
Democrats
Democrats was a political party
Famous democrats: Andrew Jackson, Martin Van Buren, John Calhoun
They believed the USA was essentially a rural agricultural society and placed great importance in states rights
But they were apposed to expanding the power of the national government but were prepared to use the government to expand to the west gaining more farmland
Against tariffs since materials become more expensive to pay for roads that are not going to be used
The Whigs
Famous whigs: Henry Clay, Daniel Webster
Whigs wanted to develop the industrial power of the USA using tariffs to protect new industries, building canals and railroads
Stephen Douglas
Douglas was a leading Northern Democrat and was made the popular sovereignty
He believed that the populations of the individual states should decide on the issues of slavery
