| abolitionist In the nineteenth century, one who worked to abolish slavery and free African American slaves. |
| aide-de-camp In the military, a senior officer’s assistant, one who often acts as the superior’s close confidant. |
| allopathy The form of medical practice that treats a disease by administering remedies that tend to counteract the effects of the disease. |
| amnesty An official pardon granted to a large group of people who have, or may have, committed an offense (usually of a political rather than criminal nature). |
| amphibious In military usage, referring to an assault planned for or executed by sea and land forces acting in coordination. |
| Anabaptist A member of a politically radical Protestant sect that advocated baptism only of adults and the separation of church and state. |
| annexation In a political context, the formal incorporation of a territory into a country or into another territory. |
| antebellum Literally, "before the war"; in the United States, the term refers to the roughly forty-year period before the start of the Civil War (1861). |
| antiextensionist In the mid-nineteenth century, one who opposed the spread of slavery but believed the federal government lacked the constitutional authority to abolish slavery where it already existed. |
| antinomianism In Christian theology, the belief that only faith is necessary for salvation and, hence, that one is not obligated to follow the moral law. |
| arbitration The process of submitting a dispute to an impartial body for judgment. |
| archetype The model or pattern for other things of the same type; also, a typical, ideal, or classic example of something. |
| aristocracy Government by a landed or otherwise privileged class, often hereditary in nature. The term is sometimes used loosely to refer the most powerful members of a society. |
| armistice In a war, a temporary agreement to suspend hostilities, either for a defined interval and purpose or in anticipation of a permanent peace accord. |
| artillery Large guns, such as cannon, used in war. The term is also applied to the branch of the armed forces that uses such weapons. |
| artisan A skilled craftsman or craftswoman. |
| ballad opera A form of musical theater, usually humorous or melodramatic, that typically employs familiar tunes with new words connected by spoken dialogue. |
| balloon framing A wood-framing system consisting of closely spaced, nailed light-lumber components; two-by-four-inch wall studs support floor joists and roof rafters, which are enclosed with a sheathing of boards and covered with wood siding or shingles. |
| baroque Referring to a style of seventeenth-century art characterized by drama, dynamism, grandiosity, complexity, and a highly developed naturalism both in the depiction of human figures and in the illusion of great spatial depth. |
| belles lettres Literature whose primary or only purpose is to entertain or delight rather than instruct or inform. |
| bicameral A term used to describe a legislative body having two branches, chambers, or houses. |
| black codes In the nineteenth-century United States, state and local laws intended to restrict the activities and liberties of African Americans, particularly former slaves. |
| bloodletting In the treatment of a disease, the practice of opening a patient’s vein to allow some blood (sometimes a substantial amount) to flow out. |
| brevet To confer upon an officer a usually temporary military rank, one higher than the rank for which the officer is receiving pay. |
| Calvinism A system of Protestant theology, first formalized by the Genevan Reformer John Calvin, stressing the sovereignty of God in all affairs, including salvation (that is, the predestination of some to eternal life). |
| canon An accepted standard or authoritative guide. |
| carpetbagger A northern businessman in the South during Reconstruction; especially, one who used political influence to exploit the unstable conditions there to the detriment of local residents and to his own advantage. The term referred to the cloth suitcase in which many of these northerners carried their belongings. |
| carte-de-visite A visiting card incorporating the subject’s photographic portrait. |
| cash crop A crop grown primarily for commercial purposes rather than domestic consumption. |
| cede To formally yield, resign, or surrender to another. |
| certiorari An order for court records issued by an appellate court when it has discretion whether to hear an appeal from a lower court’s ruling. |
| cession In diplomatic usage, a transfer of land or property from one nation to another, whether in return for payment or as the spoils of war. |
| chattel An item of movable property, as opposed to land or a building. Hence, chattel slavery is that form of bondage that treats a human being as an item of property equivalent to a plow or a horse. |
| chattel slavery The form of slaveholding wherein a human being is regarded as another’s chattel—that is, an item of tangible property. |
| circuit court A kind of American state or federal court that sits in more than one place in a given judicial district. |
| civil disobedience A form of nonviolent political protest in which participants subject themselves to arrest by refusing to comply with police instructions or civil laws, often those restricting assembly on public or private property. |
| commodore A title formerly used in the U.S. Navy for the lowest-ranking flag officer; that is, one ranking above a captain and below a rear admiral. |
| common law The body of law, derived largely from custom and court decisions, that developed in England over the course of centuries and is the basis for most Anglo-American legal protections and most statute (written) law. |
| Conestoga wagon A long, broad, and sturdy covered wagon, first built around 1725, that was used to carry people and freight to the western territories of the United States. |
| contraband Materials whose transportation or possession is prohibited; especially, supplies or equipment that could benefit a belligerent’s enemies during wartime. |
| corsair A kind of pirate, usually one with an actual or de facto governmental license to prey upon the vessels and settlements of another country. |
| counterfeiting The production of more or less exact copies of currency by someone who is not legally allowed to produce currency. |
| coureur de bois A French or French Canadian trapper or frontiersman. Coureurs de bois often lived among the Indians and intermarried with them. |
| coverture The legal status of a married woman, wherein she is considered to be under her husband’s protection and any property she possesses passes into his control for the duration of their marriage. |
| Creole In the Gulf states, a descendant of European settlers of French or Spanish origin. In other areas of the South, the term refers to people of mixed racial heritage (usually French or Spanish combined with black). |
| crown colony A North American colony, such as Virginia or Georgia, over which full administrative control was in theory retained by the English monarch and the royal ministers, who appointed the governor and other officials. |
| customs duty A tax or fee on imports or exports. |
| de facto Latin for "in fact"; typically used in law to refer to a condition or an arrangement that may not be legally recognized but exists in actuality. |
| deism An Enlightenment-influenced form of religion that acknowledged the existence of a divine creator but denied his continuing involvement in the universe he had shaped. |
| deist An adherent of deism, a kind of "natural" religion based in reason and logic rather than revelation; broadly, a religious skeptic, a freethinker. |
| despotism A government or political system in which the ruler exercises absolute power. |
| district court A kind of American federal trial court with original (that is, not appellate) jurisdiction over certain cases in the district wherein it is situated. |
| diversity jurisdiction The power of the federal courts to hear cases between citizens of different states or between a citizen of a state and an alien. |
| dropsy A condition, often the result of other medical problems, in which large quantities of fluid collect in the body; now more commonly called edema. |
| dugout A shelter dug either entirely or partially in the ground, in the latter case with sod stacked to extend the walls above the surface (such a shelter is called a soddie). A wood-frame roof supports a covering of sod, thatch, or bark. |
| elect In the New Testament and in Christian theology, those who are to receive eternal salvation; especially, those who have been elected (that is, chosen) by God to receive salvation. |
| elector A member of an electoral college. In the United States, the electors of each state, on the basis of the popular vote in the general election, cast their votes (normally on a winner-take-all basis) to choose the president. |
| embargo An order or law that places restrictions on commerce. A typical embargo might ban the import of certain foreign goods or the export of similar goods to a given country. |
| emigrate To leave one country or region and settle in another. |
| empiricism In religion and philosophy, a form of skepticism, originating in the seventeenth century, which in its radical form holds that all knowledge derives from the senses and that nothing is knowable that does not proceed from experience. |
| empresario In what is now the Southwest, someone who in the nineteenth century received a land grant from the Spanish (later, the Mexican) government in return for promoting settlement in the granted territory. |
| Enlightenment An intellectual movement of eighteenth-century Europe that rejected traditional social, political, and religious arrangements and ideas in favor of new ones that were claimed to be based in logic, reason, and scientific observation. |
| entrepreneur A person who starts a new business or commercial venture by assuming a financial risk in the hope of a significant return on investment. |
| ephemeris A table showing the positions of the celestial bodies at specified times. |
| epidemiology The branch of medicine that studies the interactions of diseases and human populations; specifically, why diseases occur, why they spread as they do, and how they may be controlled. |
| established church A church named in law as the official church of a nation, a state, or some other political entity. An established church may be supported by taxes or may enjoy other privileges and benefits. |
| evangelicalism A form of American Protestantism that stresses personal conversion, reliance on the Bible as the sole source of doctrinal authority, and the necessity of enthusiastic witness. |
| excise A tax on the manufacture, sale, or use of goods or on the carrying on of an occupation or activity. |
| federalism An approach to government in which power is divided between the central authority (in the United States, the federal government) and smaller regional units (states and cities). |
| filibuster In the mid-nineteenth century, a military adventurer; specifically, an American who provoked insurrections in Latin America. |
| First Party System The American political-party structure that existed from 1790 to around 1820; it was characterized by two strong national parties, the Democratic-Republicans and the Federalists. |
| Five Civilized Tribes A term applied to five American Indian nations—the Cherokees, Chickasaws, Choctaws, Creeks, and Seminoles—that absorbed many cultural features of their white neighbors, including plow agriculture, animal husbandry, European-style houses and dress, and even the ownership of black slaves. These nations originally dwelled in the Southeast before their forcible removal westward. |
| fractional-reserve banking A system in which a bank is required to have on hand only a small fraction of the cash that the bank has accepted from depositors. |
| Franciscan A member of the Roman Catholic Order of Friars Minor, founded by Saint Francis of Assisi in 1209 and dedicated especially to preaching, missionary endeavor, and charitable work. |
| freedman Someone freed from slavery; in the United States, especially in the decades before the Civil War, the term applied to a freed black man or woman. |
| freehold A form of property holding that, while not identical to unentailed ownership, guarantees the freeholder rights of use and heritability. |
| Free-Soiler In the pre–Civil War decades, someone opposed to the spread of slavery into territories where it was not yet established. |
| Free Soil Party A political party—in existence from 1848 to 1854 and composed largely of former northern Democrats and Whigs—whose founding principle was opposition to the extension of slavery into the western territories. |
| friar A member of a mendicant religious order; that is, one whose members give up ownership of personal property and thus must depend on others’ charity to survive. |
| gag rule In a governmental context, a legislative body’s decision to declare out of order any on-the-record discussion or debate of a sensitive issue. |
| habeas corpus A judge’s writ requiring the government to bring someone in its custody before the court for determination of the legality of the person’s confinement. Habeas corpus is the principal safeguard in Anglo-American law against improper imprisonment. |
| half-timber A type of vernacular Gothic construction in which a frame of widely spaced timber posts supports floor beams and roof timbers, all of which are connected by wood joinery. Wall spaces between structural members are filled with brick. |
| headright A legal grant of land, usually to settlers moving into an uninhabited area. |
| headright system An incentive-based system of land distribution devised by the English to encourage people to settle in the New World. |
| heroic medicine A system of medicine, prevalent in the United States from colonial times until the late 1800s, that employed bloodletting and purging to treat diseases. |
| homeopathy The form of medical practice that treats a disease by administering extremely dilute solutions of substances that would, in a healthy person, produce symptoms that mimic the effects of the disease they are intended to treat. |
| humor In medieval medical theory, a bodily fluid thought to govern a person’s health, temperament, and character. There were four humors in all. |
| immigrate To enter and settle in another country or region. |
| impeachment The process by which a public official charged with crime or misconduct can be removed from office. |
| impost A customs duty or tax. |
| impressment A form of forced military recruitment. The British practiced impressment extensively in the late 1700s and early 1800s and often abducted sailors from American merchant ships to serve in the Royal Navy. |
| incumbent A person who currently holds an elected office. |
| inferior court Any court subordinate to the chief appellate tribunal in a judicial system (in the United States, that tribunal is the Supreme Court). |
| inflation An ongoing increase in the cost of goods and services that is often attributable to their scarcity, their desirability, or both. |
| insubordination Disobedience to legitimate authority, especially military authority. In most armed services, insubordination is treated as a serious crime, one that may draw severe punishment. |
| internal improvements Public works projects, such as roads and canals, that are financed by government and are claimed to benefit the entirety of the sponsoring state or nation. |
| ironclad A kind of mid-nineteenth-century iron-sided warship, the rest of whose construction was wooden. The Virginia and the Monitor were the first steam-powered ironclads. |
| Jacobite A supporter of the exiled Stuart dynasty of England and Scotland after the deposition of James II in the Revolution of 1688 (the so-called Glorious Revolution). |
| Jesuit A member of the Society of Jesus, an order of Roman Catholic priests founded by Saint Ignatius of Loyola in 1534. The Jesuits are known particularly for their educational and missionary work. |
| judicial review The assumption by the American judiciary, especially the Supreme Court, of the right to review laws and executive orders and, if the Court sees fit, to declare them unconstitutional. |
| jurisdiction The power of a court to decide a matter in controversy. |
| lame duck An elected official who has been rendered essentially powerless by the loss of the support and confidence of colleagues, constituents, or both. |
| land jobber A person who buys land from the government at reduced cost and sells it at a higher price to individuals. Land jobbing is associated with corruption. |
| libel The publication of false information with the intent of damaging a person’s reputation or position. |
| limited government A political arrangement that constrains, or limits, the role and power of government, whether through a constitution, laws, or some other means. |
| malaria A parasitic disease that attacks red blood cells and causes a recurring fever. Malaria is transmitted by mosquitos and is therefore often associated with marshes and other areas where standing water is found. |
| mandamus A judicial order commanding a public official to perform a specified act imposed by law. |
| manumit To free someone from slavery. |
| matériel Military supplies or equipment, especially guns and ammunition. |
| mercantilism An economic system that, in its application to Britain’s American colonies, involved close government control of trade and agriculture, the aim being to benefit the mother country at the expense of the colonies. |
| Middle Passage The second leg of the triangle trade, wherein enslaved Africans were transported across the Atlantic to the Americas. |
| midshipman In naval services, someone in training to become an officer. A cadet at the U.S. Naval Academy is given the rank of midshipman. |
| Millerite An adherent of the millenarian teachings of William Miller (1782–1849), who prophesied that Jesus would return and establish his earthly kingdom in 1843. Miller’s teachings are regarded as the foundation of subsequent Adventist sects. |
| minister A diplomat ranking just below an ambassador. |
| minister plenipotentiary A diplomat who, though slightly below an ambassador in rank, possesses full authority to speak and act for the government he or she represents. |
| miscegenation Marriage or sexual relations between people of different races. |
| mudslinging The attempt to damage the reputation of a political rival, whether by insult, invective, or the revelation (or invention) of embarrassing or damaging information from the rival’s past. |
| mysticism A belief in the possibility of achieving intuitive knowledge of spiritual truths through contemplation and meditation. |
| nationalism A belief or outlook that places loyalty to the nation above loyalty to locality, region, or political party. |
| neoclassic Referring to a revival or adaptation of classical art. |
| neutrality In foreign affairs, the diplomatic refusal of a nation to take sides in a conflict or dispute between other powers. |
| normal school An institution where elementary school teachers are trained. |
| nullification In American history, the action of an individual state or states to nullify, or declare null and void, a law enacted by the federal government. |
| Old Republican One of a group of Democratic-Republican congressmen from the South who opposed the nationalist policies of James Monroe and demanded a return to the states’ rights policies of Thomas Jefferson. |
| ostracism The ostentatious exclusion of someone from the social activities or public affairs of a community. |
| paper blockade A blockade that cannot be enforced because of a lack of naval resources. |
| papist Catholic; the word (derived from the Latin word for "pope") was used by seventeenth-century English Protestants as a term of derision and hostility. |
| patronage A system of political rewards whereby officials use their office and power to appoint supporters or favorites to posts for reasons other than merit. |
| patroon In the areas of Dutch settlement in the New World, the proprietor of a landed estate whose rights were often similar to those of a feudal lord. |
| picket A sentry or a group of soldiers whose duty it is to guard against a surprise assault. |
| plaintiff A person who initiates a legal complaint against another in civil court. |
| plantation1 A significant plot of land, often in the thousands of acres, on which cash crops, such as cotton and tobacco, are cultivated by workers who live on the land. Most plantations in the United States were in the South, and many relied on slave labor. |
| plantation2 In seventeenth-century usage, the establishment of a colony or settlement in a new area; also, the new settlement itself. |
| plurality In an election of more than two candidates, the number of votes obtained by the top vote getter, if he or she does not receive an absolute majority of 50 percent plus one. |
| popular sovereignty In the pre–Civil War decades, the doctrine whereby the legislature in a territory seeking statehood would decide whether or not to allow slavery there. |
| populist A politician who seeks to draw support primarily from the common people and claims to stand for their interests. |
| preemption right The right to purchase something, especially government-owned land, before others. |
| privateer A privately owned ship that is authorized by a government to attack and capture enemy vessels; also, the commander or a crew member of such a ship. |
| privy council An advisory body to the English monarch that formerly served as the highest legislative body. |
| proprietary colony A North American colony, such as Carolina or Pennsylvania, granted by the English crown to one or more owners, or proprietors, who had full authority to govern as they saw fit. |
| proprietor In American colonial history, a person who received from the British crown the grant of full ownership of a colony, whereby he had the right to form a government and distribute land as he saw fit. |
| protectionism An economic policy that uses tariffs and import quotas to shield domestic products or industries from foreign competition. |
| protectionist An adherent of protectionism. |
| protective tariff A tariff whose primary purpose is, not the acquisition of revenue, but the protection of a domestic product or industry from foreign competition. Also called a protectionist tariff. |
| protectorate A territory that, while more or less free in practice to govern itself, is formally dependent upon another state. |
| putting-out system An early kind of piecework manufacturing system: an entrepreneur provided ("put out") materials to rural families and paid by the piece for finished goods. |
| Quaker A member of the Religious Society of Friends, founded by George Fox around 1650. Quakers espouse pacifism and reject formal ministry and worship. |
| ratification The process through which a document or a course of action acquires official approval. |
| ratify To formally validate, confirm, approve, or accept. |
| recession The part of the business cycle wherein the economy is shrinking rather than expanding. A recession often leads to wage reductions and increased unemployment. |
| redoubt A stronghold; a defensive fortification. |
| Reformation The early-sixteenth-century religious movement, originating with Martin Luther, that broke away from the Roman Catholic Church on moral and doctrinal grounds and, in so doing, created a number of independent Christian churches collectively called Protestant. |
| republic A form of government in which the people have ultimate sovereignty but in which power is exercised by their representatives (usually elected) rather than directly. |
| republicanism A theory of government that places supreme power in the citizenry or in the people, who rule not directly but through elected representatives for whom usually only certain citizens may vote. |
| reservation An area of land set aside by the U.S. government for an American Indian nation. |
| revival A period characterized by a vivid reawakening of Christian (usually evangelical Protestant) religious activity and fervor; also, a highly charged meeting where such fervor is openly expressed by preacher and congregants alike. |
| romance In recent times, a novel dealing with love and adventure. In earlier centuries, a narrative, often set in the remote past or a faraway place, whose characters and situations frequently have a mysterious or adventurous cast. |
| romanticism A literary movement of European origin that began in the late eighteenth century and took firm root in the early nineteenth. The movement emphasized freedom from classical forms and the priority of feeling over thought and of the imaginative over the practical or the mundane. |
| sachem An American Indian chief; the name was used especially by the Algonquian-speaking peoples of the Northeast. |
| sawyer Someone who processes trees into usable lumber. |
| scalawag A white southern businessman or politician who cooperated with the Reconstruction government in his state. Like carpetbaggers, scalawags were seen as exploiters of the misery of the defeated. |
| school In the arts, a group of artists who acknowledge seeking similar goals or holding a common philosophy or outlook; also, the outlook or principles of such a group. |
| secession Formal withdrawal from an organization or affiliation. In American history, the term refers to a state’s withdrawal from the Union established by the U.S. Constitution. |
| Second Party System The American political-party structure that existed from 1824 to around 1854; it was characterized by the development and decline of the Whig Party, the emergence of the Jacksonian Democratic Party, and the appearance and disappearance of several minor parties. |
| sedition Conduct that encourages insurrection against an established government. |
| segregation Separation or isolation, whether intentional, desirable, or otherwise. In American history, the term is associated with the condition of involuntary race-based separation that was enacted in law in most of the South and Southwest, especially from the 1880s through the 1960s. |
| Separatist In English history, one of a group of Protestants who separated themselves from the Church of England because they believed it could not be adequately reformed from within. |
| sharecropper A kind of tenant farmer who works a parcel of land owned by someone else in return for a wage or an agreed-upon portion of the crop produced. |
| slave power Slaveholders of the South, understood or characterized as an oppressive and dangerous class or political force; the term was coined by abolitionists in the antebellum era. |
| social-contract theory An eighteenth-century theory of governance that assumes that individuals agree to be governed and, in return, the government agrees to protect their rights. |
| sovereign immunity A judicial doctrine that precludes an individual from bringing suit against a government without its consent. |
| sovereignty Autonomy; freedom from external control. |
| specie Coined money, typically made from a precious metal (gold or silver) and considered to have an intrinsic value, unlike paper money. |
| spectral evidence In the Salem witch trials, testimony that an accused person’s spirit, or spectral shape, had appeared to the witness at a time when the accused’s physical body was elsewhere. |
| squatter In American history, a settler or frontier vagabond who claimed public land for his own use, without a deed or other proof of ownership. |
| suffrage The right to vote or the exercise of that right. |
| suffragist In the nineteenth century, one who worked for the extension of the right to vote (suffrage), especially to women. |
| sun dance A ceremony of the Sioux and other Indian nations that involves dancing, singing, praying, fasting, and often the ritual mutilation of some young men of the tribe. |
| temperance Restraint or moderation in conduct or thought; especially, restraint in or abstinence from the consumption of alcohol. Some American temperance movements have sought to enforce restraint with legal bans on the manufacture and sale of alcoholic beverages. |
| tomahawk claim A form of land claim made by frontiersmen and settlers whereby they would notch trees, using an ax or a tomahawk, with a personal identification mark. |
| Tory Before and during the American Revolution, an American colonist who remained loyal to the British crown (hence, often also called a Loyalist). |
| transcendentalism A nineteenth-century American philosophical, literary, and social movement. An imprecisely definable compound of Puritanism, idealism, and oriental mysticism, transcendentalism embodied a generalized protest against accepted doctrines, whether religious or cultural. |
| treaty A formal agreement made between two or more nations. |
| typhoid fever An infection caused by a bacteria and characterized by intestinal distress, rashes, and a high fever. Before the development of antibiotics, typhoid fever was often fatal. |
| unalienable In a legal context, not surrenderable or transferable; thus, unalienable rights are rights that can neither be taken nor be given away. |
| unicameral Referring to a legislature consisting of only one chamber; such a legislature governed the United States under the Articles of Confederation. |
| Unitarian A member of a Protestant denomination that does not accept the doctrine of the Holy Trinity and holds that God exists only as a single person, a unitary being. |
| Universalism A system of theology of liberal Protestant origins that asserts that all humanity will ultimately be saved from eternal damnation. |
| variolation The process of producing immunity to smallpox by inoculating someone with a dilute form of the smallpox virus, whose source would be a dried blister or pus from an infected person. |
| vassal In feudal societies, a person sworn to the service of a lord, from whom in turn the vassal received protection. In other societies, a person or group whose partly autonomous, partly dependent position resembles feudal vassalage. |
| vernacular architecture A manner of building that pragmatically adapts a given style or styles to the resources, capabilities, and needs of the people in a particular time and place. |
| veto Latin for "I forbid"; in the U.S. constitutional system, the power of the president to refuse to sign an act of Congress and thereby prevent the act from becoming law (Congress can override a presidential veto with a two-thirds-majority vote). |
| vigilante Someone who voluntarily acts to suppress crime and punish criminals, often in concert with other like-minded individuals (a vigilance committee). |
| wampum Beads of polished shells strung in strands, belts, or sashes and used by North American Indians as money, ceremonial pledges, and ornaments. |
| war belt A form of wampum that constituted a formal invitation to an Indian nation or tribal group to join the sender in making war on another nation, group, or community. A war belt recipient who accepted the invitation would share in all the risks and spoils of the war. |
| War Hawk An American who supported war against Great Britain during the early years of the 1800s. |
| wattle and daub A method of enclosing building walls between a framework of wooden poles by interweaving a lattice of willow wands and plastering it solid with clay. Such buildings are traditionally roofed with straw thatching on a wood frame. |
| weathercock A weather vane constructed in the form of a rooster. |
