The above quote was spoken by Henry David Thoreau. Thoreau is generally remembered as an important figure in the Transcendentalist movement of the nineteenth century; however, he also wrote and spoke excessively on the importance of civil disobedience. To Thoreau it was right and necessary to resist injustice in government through disobedience.  

Judith Sargent Murray is one of the most notable early American feminists. She was born in 1751 and did most of her writing at a time when few other women were speaking out against subservience to men. She authored On the Equality of Sexes in 1790—in the essay she outlined why women could be as capable of achieving intellectual greatness and economic independence as men. Murray has served as an inspirational figure for many later American feminists.

The term “Noble savage” was predominantly used to describe Native Americans in United States society. A “Noble savage” became somewhat of an idealized character in American culture, a mythical “other” figure that any encountered real-life Native American individual could be compared to. It was also a term used frequently in European and American literature to portray the natural virtues of man outside of “civilization”. 

The above quote, from evangelist Charles Finney, discusses a "Revival of Religion." Revivals of Religion were the key feature of the Second Great Awakening, a widespread religious fervor that spread throughout America in the first decades of the nineteenth century. The Second Great Awakening featured many religious revivals and saw new religions pop up all over the country. The Second Great Awakening made the nation much more religious by the start of the Civil War.

Transcendentalism, characterized by authors such as Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau, was an intellectual reaction to Enlightenment values in the early nineteenth century. Transcendentalists did not believe reason and logic alone were sufficient to understand nature and the world. Instead, transcendentalists sought to go out in nature, understand their emotions, and reflect on those feelings.

Beginning in the late 1820s, the Transcendentalist movement focused on establishing belief and principles through inner, individual spiritual experience. It opposed established and organized religion in favor of an individualized outlook. Its leading proponents were Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau.

The Transcendentalism movement arose in the first half of the nineteenth century in opposition to the state of American politics and society at the time. Transcendentalists believe in the core goodness of people, nature, and people in nature. They also opposed organized religion, which they felt corrupted the individual and prevented man from attuning himself to nature. Of these five, Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson are the two most famous for their Transcendentalist beliefs. Walt Whitman and Margaret Fuller were both also keen writers in support of the Transcendentalist cause. Nathaniel Hawthorne (author of The Scarlet Letter), however, was a very well known anti-Transcendentalist. His work focused on the deplorable nature of humans and the impious and impure nature of the human spirit. 

Again, this is another straightforward vocabulary question. Manifest destiny was the belief that Americans had a culture of superior values and thus had a quasi-divine mandate to spread across the continent and bring American culture and values to all—willing or not. “A jingoistic cry . . .” may have been a fairly tempting answer due to the buzzwords “jingoistic” and “conscience Whigs,” but if you remember your history (hopefully you do!) you’ll recall that conscience Whigs were against things like the Mexican-American War, and other [in]direct products of manifest destiny.

Although the majority of the passage could be referring to any one of a number of disenfranchised groups in American history. The opening line is very similar in character to that of the Declaration of Independence. The only manner in which it differs is to include both men and women as being endowed with certain inalienable rights; therefore, we can confidently suppose that it was written on behalf of women. The quote is taken from Declaration of Sentiments, adopted by the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848—the proscribed purposed of which was to gain the complete enfranchisement for women in the United States. 

In the Nineteenth Century, many Americans believed that the United States was ordained by God to expand westwards and occupy all the lands of North America, between the Atlantic and the Pacific. This ideology was expressed as Manifest Destiny. Although never universally accepted, it was a strong influencing factor in the way many American’s looked at the future of their nation. And, it was variously co-opted by political factions to support war with Mexico and territorial disagreement with Great Britain. The key terminology in the question here is “divinely ordained” for Manifest Destiny expressly stated that America’s westward expansion was a part of God’s will.