Unit 1: Chapter 3, Sections 3–4

(To transcend means to "rise above.") Transcendentalism taught that spiritual discovery and insight would lead a person to truths more profound than could be reached through reason.

The first and most widespread of the reform efforts of the early 1800s was the temperance movement, a campaign to eliminate alcohol consumption.

Abstinence means refraining from doing something.

While most reformers worked to improve society at large, some formed utopian communities, small societies dedicated to perfection in social and political conditions.

The abolitionist movement, or the movement to end slavery, was started by a group of free African Americans and whites.

One controversial resolution called for women's suffrage, or the right to vote.

Irish and German immigrants often faced discrimination, the unequal treatment of a group of people because of their nationality, race, sex, or religion.

A New York journalist named John L. O'Sullivan captured this sense of mission when he wrote that it was the nation's manifest destiny, or undeniable fate, to possess the entire continent.

Later, the Republic of Texas voted to be annexed by the United States. To annex means to "join" or "attach."

Henry Clay of Kentucky proposed a plan that would become known as the Compromise of 1850. Seeking a middle ground on the slavery debate, Clay proposed five separate laws, two of which favored the North and two of which favored the South...

A prejudice is an unreasonable, usually unfavorable, opinion of another group that is not based on fact.

Its members promoted nativism, a movement to ensure that native-born Americans receive better treatment than immigrants.

In early February 1861, delegates from the seven states met in Montgomery, Alabama. There they created a new nation, the Confederate States of America, also called the Confederacy.