| A | B |
|---|
| Santa Anna | President of Mexico who tried and failed to force the people of Texas to abide by the laws of Mexico. This resulted in the Texas Revolution and eventually independence |
| Sam Houston | led the Texas army during the Revolution against Mexico. He defeated Santa Anna at the Battle of San Jacinto and became the first President of the Republic of Texas |
| James K. Polk | President elected in 1844 who promised to achieve manifest destiny by getting control of Texas, Oregon, and California |
| General Zachary Taylor | sent by Polk to the Rio Grande to provoke Mexico into war. He later won victories in Northern Mexico during the resulting war |
| Stephen A. Douglas | Democratic Senator from Illinois who pushed the Compromise of 1850 through Congress, wrote the Kansas-Nebraska Act, supported popular sovereignty, ran for re-election against Lincoln in 1858, and ran for President in 1860 |
| Henry Clay | known as the "Great Compromiser," he wrote the Compromise of 1850 as his final compromise to try to preserve the Union |
| John C. Calhoun | Senator from South Carolina who was a leading spokesman for the South and who opposed the Compromise of 1850 |
| Harriet Beecher Stowe | abolitionist who wrote Uncle Tom's Cabin in response to the stronger Fugitive Slave Act that she hated |
| Abraham Lincoln | man who opposed American entry into the Mexican War, joined the Republican Party, opposed the further expanison of slavery, ran for the U.S. Senate in 1858, and was elected President in 1860 |
| John Brown | radical abolitionist who led violent raids in Kansas and at Harpers' Ferry to try to end slavery |
| Jefferson Davis | man elected as the first president of the Confederate States of America |
