APUSH UNIT 5.1-5.9

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The belief that native-born Americans are superior to foreigners- movement based on hostility to immigrants, especially Irish & Catholic ones.

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Nativism

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An American political group around the 1840s and 1850s that came after the Whig party, rose massively during 1854, fueled by fears of being overwhelmed by German and Irish immigrants, aimed to slow down/block immigration and naturalization in the US but had little success and died out during the election of 1856 due to opinions over slavery.

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The Know Nothing Party

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Belief that the United States was destined by God to spread its "empire of liberty" across North America. Served as a justification for mid-19th century expansionism.

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Manifest Destiny

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Slogan adopted by mid-19th century expansionists who advocated the occupation of Oregon territory, jointly held by Britain and the United States. Though President Polk had pledged to seize all of Oregon, to 54 40', he settled on the 49th parallel as a compromise with the British.

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Fifty-four forty or fight

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Amendment that sought to prohibit slavery from territories acquired from Mexico. Introduced by Pennsylvania congressman David Wilmot, the failed amendment ratcheted up tensions between North and South over the issue of slavery.

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Wilmot Proviso

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This treaty, signed on February 2, 1848, ended the war between the United States and Mexico. By its terms, Mexico ceded 55 percent of its territory, including the present-day states California, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, most of Arizona and Colorado, and parts of Oklahoma, Kansas, and Wyoming.

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Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo

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Notion that the sovereign people of a given territory should decide whether to allow slavery. Seemingly a compromise, it was largely opposed by Northern abolitionists who feared it would promote the spread of slavery to the territories.

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Popular sovereignty

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Antislavery party in the 1848 and 1852 elections that opposed the extension of slavery into the territories, arguing that the presence of slavery would limit opportunities for free laborers.

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Free Soil party

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What prompted Californians to organize a government and apply for statehood in 1849?

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California gold rush

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Informal network of volunteers that helped runaway slaves escape from the South and reach free-soil Canada. Seeking to halt the flow of runaway slaves to the North, Southern planters and congressmen pushed for a stronger fugitive slave law.

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Underground Railroad