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The Louisiana Purchase
The Louisiana Territory encompassed a large and largely unexplored tract of western land through which the Mississippi and Missouri rivers flowed. At the mouth of the Mississippi lay the territory's most valuable property in terms of commerce-the port of New Orleans. -
The War of 1812
War of 1812, was a conflict fought between the United States and Great Britain over British violations of U.S. maritime rights. It ended with the exchange of ratification's of the Treaty of Ghent. -
The Missouri Compromise
Missouri Compromise was an agreement passed by the U.S. Congress in 1820. Congress agreed to admit Maine as a free state and Missouri as a slave state. The compromise also banned slavery from any future territories or states north of Missouri's southern border. -
Jackson Versus Adams/ The Election of 1824
Recall the brief Era of Good Feelings that characterized U.S. politics during the two-term presidency of James Monroe. The era ended in political bad feelings in 1824, the year of a bitterly contested and divisive presidential election. By then, the old congressional caucus system for choosing presidential candidates had broken down. -
The Market Revolution
The market revolution was transforming American business and global trade, factories and mass production increasingly displaced independent artisans. Farms grew and produced goods for distant, not local, markets, shipping them via inexpensive transportation like the Erie Canal. -
The Second Great Awakening
Religious revivals swept through the United States during the early decades of the 19th century. They were partly a reaction against the rationalism that had been the fashion during the Enlightenment and the American Revolution. Calvinist teachings of original sin and predestination had been rejected by believers in more liberal and forgiving doctrines, such as those of the Unitarian Church. -
The Peculiar Institution
This was the practice or institution of keeping slaves —used formerly of slavery as an institution peculiar to the South in the U.S. -
The Frontier
The concept of the frontier remained the same from generation to generation. The same forces that had brought the original colonists to the Americas motivated their descendants and new immigrants to move westward. In the public imagination, the West represented the possibility of a fresh start for those willing to venture there.