Period 5 Concepts

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Manifest Destiny

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The 19th-century American belief that the United States was destined to expand across the continent.

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Annexation

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The acquisition of one state's territory by another state, generally without violence.

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Popular Sovereignty

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The concept that political power rests with the people, who can create, alter, and abolish government. People express themselves through voting and free participation in government.

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Nativism

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An anti-foreign sentiment that arose in the 1840s and 1850s in response to the influx of Irish and German Catholics.

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Secession

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Formal separation from an alliance or federation.

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Platform

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A formal set of principal goals that are supported by a political party.

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Confederacy

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A league or alliance of loosely connected states.

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Cotton Diplomacy

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Diplomatic methods employed by the Confederacy during the American Civil War to coerce Great Britain and France into supporting the Confederate war effort by implementing a cotton trade embargo against Britain and the rest of Europe.

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Habeas Corpus

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The right not to be held in prison without first being charged with a specific crime. During the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln suspended this.

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Greenbacks

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Paper money; first issued by the federal government in 1862 to help pay for the Civil War.