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| 1887, Also called the General Allotment Act, it tried to dissolve Indian tribes by redistributing the land. Designed to forestall growing Indian poverty, it resulted in many Indians losing their lands to speculators. |
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| Frederick Jackson Turner, Frontier Thesis |
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Definition
| American historian who said that humanity would continue to progress as long as there was new land to move into. The frontier provided a place for homeless and solved social problems. |
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| Proposed by Frederick Jackson Turner to explain America's Unique non-European culture, held that people who couldn't succeed in eastern society could move west for cheap land and a new start. |
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| Rich deposits of silver found in Nevada in 1859. |
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| Referred to the coinage law of 1873 which eliminated silver money from circulation. Name given by people who opposed paper money. |
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| 1878 - Authorized coinage of a limited number of silver dollars and "silver certificate" paper money. First of several government subsidies to silver producers in depression periods. Required government to buy between $2 and $4 million worth of silver. Created a partial dual coinage system referred to as "limping bimetallism." Repealed in 1900. |
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Term
| Sherman Silver Purchase Act |
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Definition
| 1890 - Directed the Treasury to buy even larger amounts of silver that the Bland-Allison Act and inflated prices. The introduction of large quantities of overvalued silver into the economy lead to a run on the federal gold reserves, leading to the Panic of 1893. Repealed in 1893. |
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| Use of two metals, gold and silver, for currency as America did with the Bland-Allison Act and the Sherman Silver Purchase Act. Ended in 1900 with the enactment of the Gold Standard Act. |
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| Proposed a plan for bimetallism with a standard of 16 to 1, with gold worth 16 times as much as silver. |
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| Movement of using silver in all aspects of currency. Not adopted because all other countries used a gold standard. |
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| Profits dwindled, businesses went bankrupt and slid into debt. Caused loss of business confidence. 20% of the workforce unemployed. Let to the Pullman strike. |
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| 1893 - Group of unemployed workers led by Jacob Coxey who marched from Ohio to Washington to draw attention to the plight of workers and to ask for government relief. Government arrested the leaders and broke up the march in Washington. |
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Term
| Repeal of Sherman's Silver Purchase Act |
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Definition
| 1893 - Act repealed by President Cleveland to protect gold reserves. |
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| Movement which focused on cooperation between farmers. They all agreed to sell crops at the same high prices to eliminate competition. Not successful. |
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| 1890 - The leaders of what would later become the Populist Party held a national convention in Ocala, Florida and adopted a platform advocating reforms to help farmers. |
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Term
| Populist Party platform, Omaha platform |
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Definition
| Officially named the People's Party, but commonly known as the Populist Party, it was founded in 1891 in Cincinnati, Ohio. Wrote a platform for the 1892 election {running for president-James Weaver, vice president-James Field) in which they called for free coinage of silver and paper money; national income tax; direct election of senators; regulation of railroads; and other government reforms to help farmers. The part was split between South and West. |
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| A leader of the Populist Party in the South. |
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Definition
| He was the Populist candidate for president in the election of 1892; received only 8.2% of the vote. He was from the West. |
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| A senator from South Carolina, he compared Cleveland's betrayal of the Democratic party to Judas' betrayal of Jesus. |
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| A speaker for the Populist Party and the Farmer's Alliance. One of the founders of the Populist Party. |
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| A rural reformer who ran against Mary Lease in the Populist Part election in Kansas. |
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| A leader of the Populist Party in Minnesota. |
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| Three-time candidate for president for the Democratic Party, nominated because of support from the Populist Party. He never won, but was the most important Populist in American history. He later served as Woodrow Wilson's Secretary of State (1913-1915) |
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| Election of 1896: candidates and issues |
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Definition
| William McKinley-Republican, North, industry and high tariffs. Williams Bryan-Democrat, West and South, farmers and low tariffs. The main issues were the coinage of silver and protective tariffs. |
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| Leader of the Republican Party who fought to get William McKinley the Republican nomination for president. |
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| 1900 - This was signed by McKinley. It stated that all paper money would be backed only by gold. This meant that the government had to hold gold in reserve in case people decided they wanted to trade in their money. Eliminated silver coins, but allowed paper Silver Certificates issued under the Bland-Allison Act to continue to circulate. |
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| Legal Tender cases, Minor vs. Happensett, Wabash, St. Louis & Pacific Railroad Company v. Illinois, E.C. Knight Company case, Pollock v. Farmer's Loan & Trust Company, and In Re Debs. |
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Term
| Supreme Court: Legal Tender cases |
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Definition
| 1870, 1871 - A series of cases that challenged whether the paper "greenbacks" issued during the Civil War constituted legal tender, i.e., whether they were valid currency. The Supreme Court declared that greenbacks were not legal tender and their issuance had been unconstitutional. |
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| Supreme Court: Minor v. Happensett |
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Definition
| 1875 - Limited the right to vote to men. |
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Term
| Supreme Court: Wabash, St. Louis & Pacific Railroad Company v. Illinois |
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Definition
| 1886 - Stated that individual states can control trade in their states, but cannot regulate railroads coming through them. Congress has exclusive jurisdiction over interstate commerce. States cannot regulate or place restrictions on businesses which only pass through them, such as interstate transportation. |
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| 1895 - The Supreme Court ruled that since the Knight Company's monopoly over the production of sugar had no direct effect on commerce, the company couldn't be controlled by the government. It also ruled that mining and manufacturing weren't affected by interstate commerce laws and were beyond the regulatory power of Congress. It gave E.C. Knight a legal monopoly because it did not affect trade. |
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Term
| Pollock v. Farmer's Loan and Trust Company |
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Definition
| 1895 - The court ruled the income could not be taxed. In response, Congress passed the 16th Amendment which specifically allows taxation of income (ratified 1913). |
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| 1894 - Eugene Debs organised the Pullman strike. A federal court found him guilty of restraint of trade, stopping US mail, and disobeying a government injunction to stop the strike. He later ran for president as a candidate of the Social Democratic Party. |
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Term
| James G. Blaine, Pan-Americanism |
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Definition
| The 1884 nomination for the Republican presidential candidate. Pan-Americanism stated that events in the Americans affected the US and we thus had reason to intervene. |
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Term
| Venezuelan boundary dispute |
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Definition
| Dispute between the US and Britain involving the point at which the Venezuela/Columbia border was drawn. Britain eventually won the dispute. |
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Term
| Bering sea seal controversy |
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Definition
| A dispute between the US and Russia involving who could hunt seals in the Bering Sea. |
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| Term used to describe the sensationalist newspaper writings of the time. They were written on cheap yellow paper. The most famous yellow journalist was William Randolf Hearst. Yellow journalism was considered tainted journalism - omissions and half-truths. |
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Term
| Josiah Strong, Our Country |
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Definition
| In this book, Strong argued that the American country and people were superior because they were Anglo-Saxon. |
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Term
| Captain Alfred Thayler Mahan |
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Definition
| In 1890, he wrote The Influence of Sea Power upon History. He was a proponent of building a large navy. He said that a new, modern navy was necessary to protect the international trade America depended on. |
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| 1878 - The US gained the strategic port Pago Pago in Samoa for use in refueling US warships overseas. It was part of building an international military presence. |
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| 1873 - Spain and US government got into a squabble over the Cuban-owned Virginius, which had been running guns. Spain executed several Americans who had been on board. The telegraph was used to negotiate a truce. The incident was played up by the yellow journalists. |
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| When Cubans started to rebel, Spaniards began to reorganize prisoners into labor camps. |
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| Written by the Spanish minister in Washington, Dupuy de Lome, it was stolen from the mail and delivered to Hearst. He had called McKinley weak and bitter. It was played up by the yellow journalists. |
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| February 15, 1898 - An explosion from a mine in the Bay of Havanna crippled the warship Maine. The US blamed Spain for the incident and used it as an excuse to go to war with Spain. |
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| Assistant Secretary of Navy Theodore Roosevelt |
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Definition
| In charge of the navy when the Maine crisis occurred, he had rebuilt the navy and tried to start a war with Cuba. |
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Term
| Commodore Dewey, Manila Bay |
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Definition
| May 1, 1898 - Commodore Dewey took his ship into Manila Bay, in the Philippine Islands, and attacked the Spanish Pacific fleet there. The US had been planning to take this strategic port in the Pacific. Dewey caught the Spanish at anchor in the bay and sank or crippled their entire fleet. |
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| President Cleveland did not want to forcibly annex Hawaii, so he waited five years to do so. McKinley finally did it. Cleveland fleet the annexation overstepped the federal government's power. |
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| Queen of Hawaii who gave the US naval rights to Pearl Harbor in 1887. Deposed by American settlers in 1893. |
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| By the late 1800s, US had exclusive use of Pearl Harbor. In July 1898, Congress made Hawaii a US territory, for the use of the islands as naval ports. |
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| Given by Bryan on June 18, 1896. He said people must not be "crucified on a cross of gold", referring to the Republican proposal to eliminate silver coinage and adopt a strict gold standard. |
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