Week One 9/9 - 9/12 1. Precedent: A rule, law, or tradition that is followed by others.
2. Partisan: A person who supports one side of an issue.
3. Nullify: To cancel and make void. To overturn a federal law.
Week Two 9/30 - 10/4
4. Filibuster: To delay, or prevent legislation from being passed by making a very long drawn-out speech.
5. Sedition: Encouraging people to overthrow their government, usually in the form of treason or defamation.
6. Defamation: Writing or saying terribly untrue things about a person/organization etc.
7. Alien: An immigrant living legally in a country who is not a citizen. Week Three 10/7 -10/11
8. Laissez-faire: A theory of government that states the government should be involved in the economy as little as possible.
9. Secede: To withdraw from an alliance, federation or association.
10. Tariff: A tax imposed on imported goods. Week Four 10/14 - 1018
11. Free enterprise: An economic system where people can buy, sell and produce whatever they want.
12. Patent: A legal document which gives an inventor the exclusive right to profit from his invention for a set number of years.
13. Factory System: Bringing all the steps of manufacturing together under one roof. Week Five 10/21 - 10/25
14. War Hawks/Doves: War Hawks are those in a government who favor going to war. Doves are those in a government who do not favor going to war.
15. Embargo: An official ban on trade with another country.
16. Nationalism: A feeling that people have of being loyal to and proud of their country, often with the belief that it is better and more important than other countries. Week Six 10/28 - 11/1
17. Census: An official government count of a country's population. In the U.S. a census is conducted every ten years; the first was in 1790 - four million people were living in the country at that time.
18. Sectionalism: Loyalty to a particular region, or section, of a country, rather than the country itself.
19. Court-Martial: A trial of a soldier conducted by the military. Week Seven 1/4 - 1/8
20. Nativists: Anti-Catholic and anti-immigrant groups from the 1820-1850. These groups felt that the future of "native" - White American born - citizens was threatened by immigrants who worked for lower wages, brought crime and disease, and introduced Catholicism to Protestant America. In the 1850 the former a new political party known as the American Party, because members of these groups often answered questions about their groups' activities with the statement, "I know nothing" they became know as the Know-Nothing Party.
21. Tenant-farmer: A person who rents a land on a landlord's estate; he pays the landlord according to their landlord-tenant agreement. A tenant-farmer is usually poor.
22. Capital: Money needed to invest in a business; money invested in a business. Week Eight 11/11 - 11/15
23. Plurality: When two people run for election, the one with a majority wins. When three of more people run for election, the person with the most votes (which may not be a majority of the votes) has a plurality, and is elected.
24. Suffrage: The right to vote.
25. Bureaucracy: Permanent government workers involved in running the government who are not elected. Week Nine 12/9 - 12/13
26. Caucus: A meeting of members of the same political party to choose candidates for election or to decide on party policies.
27. Immigrant or emigrant: An immigrant is a foreigner who is already living in a country he wasn't born in. An emigrant is someone who has left his native country to settle in another country. Mr. Coughlan is an immigrant who emigrated from Ireland.
28. Manifest Destiny: This was a widely held belief that American settlers were destined to expand across the whole country until the reached the west coast. It was believed that God had destined this to happen. Week Ten 12/16 - 12/20
29. Homestead: To earn ownership of land by settling on it.
30. Yellow Journalism: Newspapers