James Buchanan: Fourth Annual Message to Congress

Glossary

• absolved pardoned, excused
• the acts of 1793 and 1850 the original Fugitive Slave Act and its replacement, by the same name, under the Compromise of 1850
• apprehensions of servile insurrections fears of slave revolts
• the common Territories areas, primarily in the West, that had not yet become states and thus had not fully settled the slavery question
• the Confederacy the United States
• despotic dictatorial
• ere before
• the Executive the presidency
• intemperate uncontrolled
• invest formally and legally grant
• late recent
• pictorial handbills printed announcements or messages, an important means of communication at that time
• plenty smiles evidence of financial well-being is everywhere
• plurality a proportion of the votes that, while not a majority, is still larger than that of any other candidate or party
• privation need, suffering
• rounded upon built around
• without descending to particulars without getting into too much detail