| A | B |
|---|
| Unionists | people in both parties who believed in |
| abolitionists | ardent opponents of slavery, mostly northerners |
| fire eaters | radical southern secessionists |
| diarrhea | one reason that Polk did not seek reelction in 1848 |
| Lewis Cass | Democratic nominee in 1848; hero of War of 1812 |
| popular sovereignty | doctrine championed by Lewis Cass and Stephen Douglass that said that the people of a territory should decide the issue of slavery |
| Zachary Taylor | Old Rough and Ready; Whig candidate in 1848 |
| Free Soil Party | favored the Wilmot Proviso; favored internal improvements and free homesteads for settlers |
| Van Buren | Free Soil candidate in 1848 |
| New York | Van Buren diverted enough Democratic support from Cass to ensure a Taylor win in 1848 |
| Sutter's Mill | site of the major gold find in California in 1848 |
| 49ers | people who went to California in search of gold |
| crime wave | California was extremely lawless from 1848 to 1856 |
| underground railroad | network of safe houses and paths to freedom in the north for escaped slaves |
| Harriet Tubman | most famous "conductor" of the underground railroad |
| self purchase | the major way in which slaves won their freedom in the antebellum period |
| 1,000 | number of runaway slaves per year in the old south |
| 4 million | total number of slaves in the United States in 1850 |
| Clay, Calhoun and Webster | the immortal trio who began the debate in the Compromise of 1850 |
| Henry Clay | the Great Compromiser |
| The Great Nullifier | John C. Calhoun, aged 68 when the Compromise of 1850 was proposed |
| John Greenleaf Whittier | poet and writer who condemned Daniel Webster's Seventh of March Speech |
| Seventh of March Speech | 1850 speech that became very influential in favor of unionist sentiment |
| Young Guard | young radical northerners in antebellum America who wanted to purify and purge the Union |
| William H. Seward | member of the Young Guard who said that men must obey a Higher Law than the constitution; an ardent abolitionist |
| Millard Fillmore | Vice President under Zachary Taylor; President in 1852 |
| Nashville | meeting place for radical "fire eaters", secessionists, in 1850 |
| Bloodhound Bill | another name for the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 |
| personal liberty laws | local laws that hampered enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 |
| Massachusetts refusal | the state made it a criminal offense to enforce the Fugitive Slave Act within its borders |
| William Lloyd Garrison | railed against the Fugitive Slave Act |
| effect of the Compromise of 1850 | hardened positions of fire eaters and brought more people into the abolitionist ranks in the north |
| Young Hickory of the Granite Hills | Franklin Pierce; nominated by the Democrats in 1852 |
| Winfield Scott | nominated in 1852 by the Whigs instead of Millard Fillmore |
| finality men | Georgia Whigs who voted for Daniel Webster even though he was already dead |
| Central America | seen as strategic to America, especially after the California gold rush |
| Clayton Bulwer Treaty- 1850 | Treaty between the US and Britain that prevented either from unilaterally building and controlling a Central American Canal |
| William Walker | the "grey-eyed man of destiny"; attempted to conquer Nicaragua and make it a slave state |
| filibusters | southerners who tried to conquer Latin American territory to expand slavery; were espescially fond of Cuba |
| Ostend Manifesto | American ministers drew up this document to urge the United States to offer $120 million for Cuba |
| Opium War | fought between China and Great Britain: ended in humiliating and debilitating Chinese defeat |
| Caleb Cushing | opened China to American Trade in 1844 |
| Treaty of Wanghia | agreement opening China to American trade |
| Tokugawa Shogunate | isolationist Japanese government of the 1800s |
| Matthew C. Perry | opened Japan for trade with the United States |
| Treaty of Kanagawa | Treaty opening Japan to American trade and Japan to western technology |
| Gadsden Purchase 1853 | land purchased for the purpose of building a transcontinental railroad |
| Stephen A. Douglas | Illinois politician who promoted the 1850 Compromise and the Kansas Nebraska Act |
| steam engine in breeches | Stephen A. Douglas |
| Little Giant | another Stephen A. Douglas nickname |
| Kansas Nebraska Act | idea of Stephen Douglas to allow popular sovereignty in the two territories and overturn the Missouri Compromise |
| Know Nothings | nativist political party |
| Republican Party | formed after the Kansas Nebraska Act |
| Conscience Whigs, Free Soilers and Know Nothings | formed the Republican Party in 1854 |
