Terminology


 * TE****RMINOLOGY -- IMPORTANT VOCABULARY WORDS**

There are various words that have been a part of the content of this website, and you may not know what some of the words mean. On this page the words and their definitions are listed.

To find a certain word, press CTRL+F, then type the word you wish to find in brackets. Ex: If you wanted to find "mercenaries" you would type [mercenaries] and you would find the definition. The search bar for Internet Explorer will come up like a pop up window, while Mozilla Firefox's will come up as a tool bar at the bottom of the page. If you are using a MAC, press APPLE F and type the word you are looking for.


 * __A Congress-__** The two year period where all representatives in both the Senate and the House serve together

Abolitionist- a person who supported the abolition of slavery in the U.S. Someone who was against slavery.


 * __Administration-__** The major offices in the executive branch of government


 * __Amendment-__** A change to the constitution of a nation or a state


 * __Amnesty-__**A general pardon by the government

__**Amputate-**__ to cut off (all or part of a limb or digit of the body)


 * __Anarchy__**- A country lacking government

__**Appeal**__- A review of the decision of a court by a higher court


 * __Arsenal-__** A place where weapons and [|ammunition] are stored


 * __Bias Rule__**- A rule for analyzing sources that states that every source has a bias, or a point of view or opinion, on everything so therefore, it is not a totally neutral source


 * __Blockade__**- To close off or block

__**Boycott**__- To refuse to buy goods from certain people or businesses

__**Bombardment**__ - to attack or batter with artillery fire

Carpetbaggers- Northerners who moved to the South during Reconstruction to help rebuild the government


 * __Casualties__**- A member of the armed forces lost to service throught death, wounds, sickness, capture or because of his or her whereabouts or condition cannot be determined

[|Caucuses-] Closed meetings to select candidates for president


 * __Cash Crop__**- A crop that is sold to make money instead of being given to the hungry


 * __Cede__**- To yield or grant

__**Charter**__- An official paper from a ruler and gives information and permission for people to settle in a certain area

__**Cherry Tree**__ - A gift of friendship to the United States in 1912 from the people of Japan.

__**Civil War**__ - A **civil war** is a [|war] in which parties within the same [|culture], [|society] or [|nationality] fight against each other for the control of [|political power].

__**Compromise**__- An agreement in which both sides in a dispute agree to give up something they want in order to achieve a settlement

__**[|Conservative]**__- Someone who believes in keeping things the way they were in the past; a conservative person would be one that would belong to the Republican party


 * __Constitution__**- The way in which a thing is composed or made up; makeup; composition. The establishment or formation


 * __Corrupt bargain-__** Means that Clay helped Adams with the election so Clay would be at the top of Adams administration


 * __[|Depression]-__** A period of slow economic activity with low prices and high unemployment

__**Direct Representation**__- Voters elect a person to work for that area


 * __Electoral College__**-The group established by the Constitution to elect the president and vice president. Voters in each state choose their electors

__**Electors**__- Under the Constitution, those named by state legislatures to choose a President and Vice President

__**Eluded**__- to avoid or to escape


 * Emancipation Proclamation** - a written document issued by President Lincoln during the Civil War that declared all slaves in states of rebellion if the states had not rejoined the Union by January 1, 1863

__**Embargo**__ **-** A government order that stops merchant ships from leaving or entering a country's ports


 * __Flabbergast__**- To overwhelm with shock, surprise, or wonder


 * __Flax-__** The fiber of a plant, manufactured into linen yarn for thread or woven fabrics


 * __Freedmen's Bureau__-** an organization started after the Civil War to help southern whites and especially freed slaves start new lives in the south; it was the only direct step taken by the federal government to help the south and former slaves


 * __Freedom of the Seas__**- The freedom to move about the seas without having to pay tributes


 * __Fury__-** unrestrained or violent anger, rage, passion, or the like

__**Impeached**__- To make a formal accusation against someone

__**Impressment-**__ To force American sailors to work on British ships

__**Inauguration**__- A ceremony installing a person in office


 * __Indentured servants__-** People who promised to work for someone for a given number of years, in exchange for having their ship's passage paid for them


 * __Indigo__**- A vegetable die that was primarily used in clothing

__**Infantry**__- Soldiers or military units that fight on foot


 * __Internal improvements__**- The system of roads and canals that are paid for by the federal government

__**Joint Occupation**__- When two countries decide to share and settle a certain territory (Ex: Oregon Territory was shared by Great Britain and the United States)

__**Joint Stock Company**__- A group of people that financed their own trip to the New World to establish a colony; established with a group because one person could not afford it themselves


 * __Jurisdiction-__** Area of law or area of the country in which a court has authority to hear cases


 * Ku Klux Klan** - A secret society organized in the South after the Civil War to reassert white supremacy by means of terrorism.


 * __Lame Duck__** - When any elected official comes to the end of his final term, where he can not be elected again


 * __Land Speculation-__** Buying money to sell at a large profit

__**Legal precedent**__ -- A previous case or legal decision that may be or must be followed in subsequent similar cases.

__**[|Liberal]**__- Someone who believes in making changes in our government; someone who is liberal would belong to the Democratic political party

__**Livestock**__- A domesticated animals in an agricultural setting to grow food and to watch animals.

__**Loose Construction**__**-** Broad interpretation (Ex: Of the United States Constitution)

__**Mercenaries**__- Professional soldiers who fight for anyone who will pay them

__**Metaphysics**__- Philosophy that examines the nature of reality. examines relationship with mind and matter, and fact and value

__**Moderate**__- Someone who believes in both conservative and liberal ideas and would most likely be able to vote for anyone as president from either political party


 * __Monarchy__**- A country ruled by a single person, usually a king or queen


 * __National Anthem__**- A song of praise for a country that shows nationalism

__**Nationalism**__- A feeling of pride our devotion to one's country or nation

__**Native**__- One who originated from a certain land

__**[|Nazis]**__ - A member of the National Socialist German Workers' Party, founded in Germany in 1919 and brought to power in 1933 under Adolf Hitler

__**Neutral**__- To not take a side in a conflict


 * __Nullification-__** To declare null or void

Patent- something that is bought for an invention that says that no one can steal, improve, or change the invention unless granted by the person that invented it


 * __Patronage-__** The power to make appointments to government jobs


 * __Pet Banks-__** The banks that the federal money gets placed in

__**Plantation-**__ a usually large farm or estate, esp. in a tropical or semitropical country, on which cotton, tobacco, coffee, sugar cane, or the like is cultivated, usually by resident laborers.

__**Philosophy**__- Love and pursuit of wisdom, investigation of truth knowledge an conduct

__**Plurality**__- The greater number of votes


 * __Popular Soverenignty__**-The ability of a state or territory to decide for itself whether or not to allow slavery.

__**Pound**__- A unit of currency, originated in [|Great Britain] as the value of a pounds mass of silver


 * __Prejudice__**- An attitude or opinion about a person group or race without taking time to judge fairly


 * Primary Election**- When voters pick candidates for an election


 * __Primary Source__**- An actual first-hand account of an event that has survived the past

__**Propaganda**__- A message or a group of messages that try to influence the opinions of people or their behavior


 * __Puritans__-** A member of a group of English protestants who lived in the 16th and 17th centuries that had very strict religious discipline


 * __Pursue__**- To go after or to proceed in accordance with


 * __Quartered__**- To house and feed troops without the people's consent during the Revolutionary War


 * __Ratify__**- To approve


 * __Reconstruction__** - the period referred to when the government of the US attempted to resolve the issues of the American Civil War after the Confederacy was defeated and slavery ended.

__**Repealed**__- To withdraw or take back

__**Re-election**__- After being president, you are made president for a second term


 * Resistance** - The act or an instance of resisting or the capacity to resist.

__**Revenue**__- 1) The income of a government from taxation, excise duties, customs, or other sources, appropriated to the payment of the public expenses; 2) The amount of money regularly coming in

__**Royal Colony-**__ A colony ruled by a governor and council chosen the the British crown, and having a representative assembly elected by the people

__**Rural-**__ Country areas with few people living there

__**Scalawags**__- Southerners who sided politically with the North to gain power (considered traitors by other Southerners)

__**Secession **__ - The withdrawal of 11 Southern states from the Union in 1860-1861, precipitating the U.S. Civil War.

__**Secede**__- To withdraw from an alliance, federation, or association, such as a from a political union, a religious organization, etc.


 * __Secondary Source__**- An account that has been written by a different author who was not at the actual event

__**Seized**__- To take hold of suddenly or forcibly; grasp: //to seize a weapon//


 * __Sectionalism-__** Rivalry based on the special interests of different areas of a country

__**Sharecropping**__- former slaves and southerners would work the land of another southerner for a share of the crop (virtual return to slavery)

__**Skirmish-**__ a fight between small bodies of troops, esp. advanced or outlying detachments of opposing armies.

__**Solicitor**__**__-__** an officer having charge of the legal business of a city

Society - When a group of people come together with similar beliefs and faith. Live the same way as each other most of the time.


 * __Specie-__** Gold and silver coins


 * __Separatists-__** religious group of the Puritons, they disapporved of the Catholic churh and came to America to start a new, improved church.

__**Strict Construction**__- Narrow interpretation of something


 * __Suffrage__**- To give a person or group the right to vote

__**Spies-**__ a person employed by a government to obtain secret information or intelligence about another, usually hostile, country, esp. with reference to military or naval affairs.

__**Spoils system**__- the practice of rewarding political supporters with government jobs


 * __Tariffs__**- Taxes placed on imported goods


 * __Telegraph__**- A system of transporting signals to a distant place via and electric device which has a sending instrument and a recieving instrument connected by a communication channel.

__**Tension**__- the act of stretching or straining.


 * __Time and Place Rule__**- A rule for analyzing sources that says the closer in time and in place a source is recorded to the actual event, that the more accurate the source will be


 * __The Congress__**- The Senate and the House of Representatives combined


 * __Theater__-** A region where a lot of action is taking place

__**Transportation**-__ The movement of people and goods from one place to another


 * __Traitor__**- A person guilty of disloyalty to the government


 * __Turnpike__-** Road built by a private company and charge a fee to use it


 * __Tyranny__**- The unjust use of power in a government


 * __Universal manhood suffrage__**- a form of voting rights in which all adults males within a nation are allowed to vote, regardless of income, proptey, religion, race, or any other qualification


 * __War__**- A [|conflict,]when sides of an opinion disagree, and fight for there opinion, becuase they believe it is correct. In the form of battle, protesting,etc.

__**World War II**__- A the war (1939-45) between the Allies (Great Britain, France, the Soviet Union, the U.S., etc.) and the Axis (Germany, Italy, Japan, etc.)

__**Watergate scandal**__- General term used to describe a complex web of political scandals between 1972 and 1974. The word specifically refers to the Watergate Hotel in Washington D.C.


 * __Veto__**- To cancel or postpone a law or decision