Slavery

Okay, so this is seemingly a no-brainer.

But the institution of slavery in the U.S. was quite a bit different than in other countries…and by "a bit different" we mean "way worse." Rather than the casually abusive racism of Europe, American slavery was an entirely different sort of monster, designed with capitalist gusto and a complete disregard for Black people as anything more than personal property.

Yeah. It was mind-bogglingly messed up.

Louisiana Territory

The land purchased by Thomas Jefferson from France in 1803 when France was strapped for cash due to the whole "previous decade of war and revolution" thing. The whole chunk of land was purchased at the staggeringly low 42 cents per acre in 2010 dollars, making it the single greatest investment in U.S. history.

Constitutional Convention

The ConCon, as we like to call it, is meeting of elected representatives in order to either form or amend a constitution (a contract which sets down what powers a government is granted and what limits are imposed of government power).

This was done most famously for the formulation of the national Constitution that created the federal government in America, but it's happened at a state level numerous times in the country's history.

Three-Fifths Compromise

One of the more abhorrent events in U.S. history's long line of abhorrent events, the Three-Fifths Compromise was a compromise built into the Constitution in 1787.

The Constitutional Convention was at a bit of an impasse: the whole bicameral legislature thing had been decided, but the number of representatives based on population was skewed by the large population of slaves in the south.

A compromise was reached that stated that the slave population would count…but each slave would only be counted as three-fifths of a person. Yeah.

The single most important document in U.S. history originally mandated that the overwhelming majority of Black people America didn't count as whole persons. Not only was this morally reprehensible, but it also allowed slavery states to dominate the House of Representatives.

Popular Sovereignty

This shiny-sounding idea says that the authority and laws of a state are derived from the consent of its people. Sounds nice, eh?

Rather than have the federal government determine the laws of every individual state, state governments would be allowed a degree of autonomy to determine what was best for them. This was all well and good in theory, but in the U.S. this meant that only white men had the right to vote.

So rather than a majority determining the laws of the state, fewer than half the population had any say in any given state (and in slave-holding states this percentage was way lower).

Democratic-Republican Party

We know; we know. Today, this sounds like a utopian fantasy of American togetherness. But back when, it was the dominant political party of the early 1800s in the U.S.

It had grown out of the decentralized Anti-Federalist ideals of James Madison and Thomas Jefferson (the Federalists being for centralized "big" government). This party didn't see a great deal of competition from outside the party until the mid 1820s, but there was a ton of dissent within the party itself.

Huh. Dissent within a party called the "Democratic-Republicans"? Didn't see that one coming.

Federalist Party

This was the first political party in America—the OGs of early U.S. politics.

The Federalists were a group of like-minded politicians who believed in the value of a strong central government whose authority could not be superseded by the states unless under extreme circumstances…such as another Constitutional Convention.

While the Federalist Party was fairly powerful in the late 18th century, its power waned throughout the 1800s until it dissolved entirely in 1824.

Manifest Destiny

Basically, the central idea behind every movie starring John Wayne wearing a cowboy hat.

Manifest Destiny was the ideological justification for westward expansion across North America. In theory, this was a sort of divine right to colonize the West and have a shining Union stretching from sea to sea.

In practice, this translated to kicking out all of the Native Americans who happened to be occupying the land into which the U.S. was expanding, with the help of that classic combo of imperialism, guns and germs.

Western Territories

The territories that the U.S. had purchased in the Louisiana Purchase, but had not been incorporated into full states. On a map, this extended to about the middle of modern day Colorado, but there was a general feeling that anything in the West was up for grabs and America would take it all…current residents who had been there for thousands of years notwithstanding.

Slave Trade Acts

A series of trade agreements between Britain and the U.S. that limited, and then prohibited, further importation of slaves from Africa. This was a step in the right direction as these things go, but it didn't help the slaves already in America or Britain.

If anything it made life harder for these slaves, as the only way for slaveholders to acquire more slaves was through forced breeding programs. (We've said it before, and we'll say it again: history is infuriating and depressing. Go take an ice cream break to recover from this faith-in-humanity-imploding factoid.)

Indian Boundary Line

A series of geographic boundaries created by treaties between Native Americans and the American government. These were mostly ways to kick Natives further west after the Louisiana Purchase.

Bona Fide Purchaser

A legal term that designates a type of buyer, someone who is purchasing in good faith with no intention of deceit. In law governing sales of land, this is a remarkably important distinction: if you were to buy land from a sketchy seller and could demonstrate you were a Bona Fide purchaser, and then it turned out the seller didn't actually own the land in the first place, you would keep your land and the real owner would sue the pants off of the sketchy seller.

This is all good in theory, but proving good faith can be a kind of difficult task.