The Impending Crisis
Chapter 13
Territorial Growth
• An uneasy peace in the sectional conflict
between the South and the North held until
the 1840s when western expansion and
slavery intersected
• The nationalism that helped unify the country
also inspired territorial growth, and that
ultimately tore the nation apart
Questions to Consider
• How did the idea of Manifest Destiny
influence the settlement of the West?
• For what reasons did pioneers travel to the
West?
Looking Westward
• Westward expansion characterized settlement since
America’s very beginnings
• In the 1840s, that movement gained momentum and
adopted an ideological justification, known as
Manifest Destiny
• This vision of a territorial empire embodied pride in
the American democratic experiment and ideals of
social perfection, while it overlooked the
displacement and genocide of Native Americans
“American Progress”
By John Gast
Manifest Destiny
• In 1845, editor John L. O’Sullivan called the
movement to gain new territory Manifest Destiny,
and imbued it with a religious sanction; others
pointed to the burden of the “American race” to
fulfill the democratic promise
• The movement grew in the 1840s, partly fueled
by the new “penny press”
• Others, such as Henry Clay, feared its
consequences because the slavery question
would be reopened
Question to Consider
• How did American settlement of the
Southwest causes tensions with Mexico?
Americans in Texas
• Americans moved into Texas in the 1820s, encouraged
by the Mexican government (who had won its
independence from Spain in 1821) and lured by fertile
lands suitable for cotton cultivation
• In 1830 there were twice as many Americans as
Mexicans in Texas
• Missourian Stephen F. Austin established the first legal
settlement in 1822, and by 1835 there were over
30,000 Americans in Texas
• Settlers were exempt from paying taxes for 10 years
with a requirement to become Mexican citizens, abide
by Mexican law, & convert to Roman Catholicism.
Question to Consider
• How did Texas gain its independence?
San Jacinto
• Many of the American settlers were dissatisfied with
Mexican rule, and the discontent grew after General Santa
Anna seized power and attempted to exert more autocratic
control over the Mexican provinces
• Increasing conflict led American settlers living in Texas to
declare independence from Mexico in 1836
• The Mexican forces were ruthless in subduing the rebellion
and had several military successes including the Alamo (RP)
• However, a force led by General Sam Houston captured
Santa Anna, defeated his army at the Battle of San Jacinto
in 1836, and forced Santa Anna to accept an independent
Texas
Primary Source
“America’s Forgotten War”
Debate & Discussion
Click here & select TIMELINEMAP
to checkout a very cool interactive.
Opposition to Annexation
• Houston sought annexation by the United
States, but Northern politicians, as well as
President Andrew Jackson, fearing sectional
calamity with the addition of more slave
territory, opposed the plan
• Texas would remain the independent Lone
Star Republic until alliances between Texas
and European nations spurred Americans to
reopen the question in 1844
Oregon
• The Oregon Territory, a vast territory including
parts of present‐day British Colombia, Oregon,
Washington, Idaho, and Montana, had been
jointly administered by both the United States
and Great Britain since the 1818
Transcontinental Treaty
• Until 1820 there was little interest in the area
except among fur traders such as John Jacob
Astor
Oregon Territory
Settler/Indian Conflict
• However, efforts to convert the Indians and
counteract Canada’s Catholic influence attracted
American evangelicals
• Two of the most famous missionaries were
Narcissa and Marcus Whitman, whose efforts
were largely unsuccessful; they were killed by
hostile Indians in 1847
• By the 1840s numerous settlements had been
established and many urged America to take
possession of Oregon
Westward Migration
• Migration happened in waves and generally in
times of economic prosperity
• Settlers moved west for a variety of reasons,
but many hoped for economic advancement
• Southerners went to Texas, but most western
migrants came from the Old Northwest, and
some had moved several times before settling
permanently in the West
Oregon Trail
• The main westward route was the 2,000‐mile
Oregon Trail from Independence, Missouri, to
either California or the Oregon coast
• Over 300,000 traveled the trails between 1840
and 1860. A typical trip took about 6 months.
• Contrary to myth and belief, Indians were more
helpful than harmful to those on the trail, and
despite its hardships, the death rate was not
much higher than in the United States as a whole
Trails West
Life on the Trail
• Most migrated in family groups and attempted
to re‐create patterns of life that they left on
the trail
• Women not only walked much of the day, they
also were responsible for domestic tasks when
the travel day ended
• Overland travel was a collective experience,
with families and often communities moving
together
Life on the Trail
Election of 1844
• Pressure from the increasing number of white
settlers west of the Mississippi eventually pushed
America to war with Mexico
• The main issue of the election of 1844 was
expansion, and Democrat James K. Polk ran on
that platform against Whig Henry Clay
• By combining the annexation of Texas and
Oregon under one umbrella, Polk hoped to
attract both Northerners and Southerners, and he
won the election
President James K. Polk
Compromise over Oregon
• By the time Polk took office Congress had
already approved the annexation of Texas
• Polk proposed that Oregon be annexed at 54
40’ north latitude
• When Britain rejected his offer America
considered a military solution as expressed in
the slogan “Fifty‐four forty or fight!”
• Neither country wanted war, so Britain
accepted Polk’s terms in 1846
Oregon Treaty (1846)
Question to Consider
• What resulted from the annexation of Texas &
the war with Mexico?
Texas Boundary in Dispute
• Tensions were developing over the boundary
with Mexico in the wake of the Texas
annexation
• Mexico had broken diplomatic ties with
Washington after annexation and claimed the
Nueces River as the boundary of Texas
• America claimed more territory with Rio
Grande as the boundary
Boundary Dispute
New Mexico & California
• Polk sent a small army commanded by
General Zachary Taylor to defend Texas
• Polk was also interested in the Mexican
provinces of New Mexico and California; both
areas had substantial populations of white
settlers
• Polk sent secret instructions to seize those
territories if war should break out
The Mexican War
• Having made preparations for war, Polk sent
envoy John Slidell to arrange for a purchase of
the territories
• When Mexico rejected the offer, Polk ordered
troops across the Nueces River to the Rio Grande
• Although it is not clear what actually happened,
the United States claimed that Mexico attacked
the American troops, and in 1846, Congress
declared war
• There was considerable opposition to the war,
which mounted alongside costs and casualties
Mexican-American War
Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo
• An American force under General Winfield Scott captured
Mexico City, the government fell, and a new government
expressed a willingness to negotiate
• In New Mexico Stephen W. Kearny captured Santa Fe and
California
• In 1848 Congress ratified the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in
which Mexico ceded California and New Mexico to the United
States and accepted the Rio Grande as the border of Texas
• The United States agreed to pay Mexico $15 million and accept
any financial claims settlers held against the Mexican
government
• The vast new territory held great promise but also created some
troubling issues for the United States
American Southwest
Questions to Consider
• The idea of Manifest Destiny was realized as a
result of the war with Mexico. What new
problem did the additional territories cause
for the United States?
• How did western expansion cause the North &
South to confront the issue of slavery?
Wilmot Proviso
• Polk accomplished his goals of expanding United States
territory however, each section of the country came to
believe he did so to its detriment
• In 1846, with the Mexican War raging, Pennsylvanian
David Wilmot proposed the prohibition of slavery from
any territory that was acquired from Mexico
• The Wilmot Proviso was countered by other proposals
regarding slavery, such as extending the Missouri
Compromise Line to the West Coast or squatter or
popular sovereignty (A plan to allow the residents of
each territory to decide for themselves the issue of
slavery)
Election of 1848
• The election of 1848 produced the Free Soil
Party, which supported the Wilmot Proviso.
• Some Free-Soilers condemned slavery as
immoral, but many wanted to preserve the
western territories for white farmers.
• Military hero and Whig Zachary Taylor won a
narrow victory, but the existence of this new
party signaled the inability of the existing
party system to deal with the issue of slavery
President Zachary Taylor
The California Gold Rush
The California Gold Rush
• The discovery of gold in California at Sutter’s Mill in
1848 started a migration that increased California’s
population from 14,000 to over 220,000 in slightly less
than four years
• Overwhelmingly male and ambitious, the 49ers created
a volatile society
• The lure of gold drew people form China, Europe,
South America, and Mexico to California
• Although relatively few found fortunes in the gold
fields, many remained in California on farms and in
cities, and this sharpened the national crisis over
slavery
49ers
Question to Consider
• How did the Gold Rush affect the issue of
slavery?
Rising Sectional Tensions
• President Taylor saw statehood as the answer to the question of
slavery in the territories and pushed for California to be
admitted to the Union as a free state in 1849; he also suggested
that New Mexico also should decide its status and become a
state
• At the same time other sectional issues clouded the horizon
• Antislavery efforts to abolish slavery in Washington D.C. as well
as Northern personal liberty laws prompted opposition from
slavery forces, which called for stricter legal guarantees for the
return of fugitive slaves
• Southern fears about the growing number of free states creating
an imbalance in the Senate were foremost, and some Southern
leaders began to consider secession as a solution
Clay’s Proposed Solution
• National leaders worked to craft a compromise to
address several issues arising from the bid for
California’s statehood in 1849 and 1850
• Henry Clay proposed an bill that included:
– admission of California as a free state
– creation of territorial governments in the other lands
acquired from Mexico with no restrictions on slavery
– abolition of the slave trade—but not slavery—in
Washington
– a more stringent fugitive slave law
• A prolonged debate followed, ending with the defeat
of the bill
Compromise of 1850
• New leaders stepped in, and employing both
pragmatism and self‐interest were able to achieve a
compromise
• Upon the death of President Taylor, who opposed the
measures, Senator Stephen A. Douglas from Illinois
proposed each of Clay’s measures separately and
crafted a series of deals that secured passage of each
• Unlike the Missouri Compromise twenty years earlier,
the Compromise of 1850 was not based on common
national ideals, but in sectional self-interest, and was
therefore not long‐lived
Compromise of 1850
Question to Consider
• What was the Fugitive Slave Act?
• What were the results of the Fugitive Slave
Act in the Northern states?
• The Fugitive Slave Act was meant to satisfy
southerners in the slavery debate. What was
an unintended consequence of the Fugitive
Slave Act?
Election of 1852
• An uneasy sectional truce amid economic
prosperity descended upon the nation after 1850,
but conflict emerged again in the 1852 election
• Democrat Franklin Pierce won mainly because
antislavery Whigs defected to the Free Soil Party
• In office, Pierce stood aside and avoided the
slavery issue while Northerners attempted to
prevent the enforcement of the fugitive slave law.
• Alarmed Southerners saw their position in the
Compromise of 1850 erode
President Franklin Pierce
Ostend Manifesto
• Hoping to divert attention from domestic
controversy, Pierce looked to expand
American ideals and influence abroad
• A proposal to annex Cuba by force outlined in
the Ostend Manifesto and an attempt to
annex Hawaii both fell to defeat at the hands
of antislavery and proslavery forces in 1854
Web Activity
"Bleeding Kansas"
Transcontinental Railroad & Slavery
• The issue of slavery in the territories became
connected to the route for a transcontinental
railroad
• Northerners and Southerners both pushed for
the eastern terminus in their respective
sections, and diplomat James Gadsden
acquired land from Mexico suitable for a
southern route
Kansas-Nebraska Act
• Senator Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois was vying for the
railroad hub to be in Chicago
• He proposed a bill to organize the Nebraska territory to
the west and allow the slavery question to be decided
by the territorial legislature, or “popular sovereignty”
• To gain Southern support he amended the bill to
include a repeal of the Missouri Compromise and the
division of Nebraska into two territories, Nebraska and
Kansas
• Called the Kansas‐Nebraska Act, it became law in 1854
with the support of all Southerners and Northern
Democrats
Birth of the Republican Party
• However, this act had disastrous consequences
for the party system
• The Democrats were badly divided along
sectional lines, and the Whig Party had all but
disappeared by 1856
• In addition the Kansas‐Nebraska Act prompted
the creation of the Republican Party, which rested
entirely on Northern support
• The Republican Party gained significant support in
the 1854 election
“Bleeding Kansas”
• Upon passage of the Kansas‐Nebraska Act both
pro‐and antislavery settlers poured into Kansas
• Proslavery forces formed a majority in the
legislature and legalized slavery
• Antislavery settlers met at Topeka, adopted a
constitution prohibiting slavery, and applied for
statehood
• These settlers moved to Lawrence, and several
months later, proslavery forces attacked and
sacked the town
Pottawatomie Massacre
• In retaliation, an ardent abolitionist John Brown
murdered five proslavery settlers at
Pottawatomie Creek, and civil war erupted in
“Bleeding Kansas”
• Violence was not limited to Kansas
• Abolitionist Senator Charles Sumner was attacked
on the floor of the United States Senate by South
Carolinian Preston Brooks after Sumner made a
vicious speech, “The Crime Against Kansas”
• Both Sumner and Brooks became heroes in their
respective sections of the country
“Tragic Prelude”
Free Soil Ideology
• The roots of the sectional hostility lay in deep economic
and territorial difference of the American vision
• The North embraced a “free soil” and “free labor” ideology
in which all citizens would have the opportunity to control
their labor and property
• It claimed that slavery hurt all involved by denying both
democracy and opportunity and that the Southern
aristocratic society was stagnant and rejected progress
• In the Northern mind, a Southern conspiracy existed to
expand slavery and close avenues to opportunity
• Republicans adhered to these principles and to a strong
and powerful union
The Pro-Slavery Argument
• Southern response tended to focus on slavery as a
“peculiar institution,” by which they meant to emphasize
the paternalistic aspects of the institution
• Beginning in 1832, Thomas Dew proclaimed slavery as a
“positive good” rather than the earlier apology of it as a
“necessary evil”
• It put slaves in a better position than Northern “wage
slaves” and was a system in which the two races could live
together in peace
• Even more central was slavery’s role as the basis for the
orderly and civilized Southern way of life
• In this view biologically inferior slaves fit in a hierarchical
social order that provided security for all
Election of 1856
• The presidential election of 1856 took place in the turmoil
of this sectional discontent
• Multiple candidates again divided the electorate
• Democrat James Buchanan of Pennsylvania won a close
contest, defeating Republican John C. Fremont, who
opposed the Kansas‐Nebraska Act and the expansion of
slavery in the territories but supported internal
improvements, and Know Nothing candidate Millard
Fillmore
• Buchanan proved to be a weak and indecisive president
• He was plagued by an economic depression throughout his
term of office
Question to Consider
• How did the Dred Scott Decision contribute to
the growing split between North & South?
The Dred Scott Decision
• The Supreme Court enflamed sectional conflict when in 1857 the
Court issued its decision in Dred Scott v. Sanford
• Scott, a slave taken to free territories, sued for his freedom, arguing
that residence in a free state liberated him from slavery
• Scott who was once owned by an army surgeon had been taken
from Missouri to Illinois and then into Wisconsin, which prohibited
slavery
• The Court, headed by Roger Taney of Maryland, decided that blacks
were not citizens and had no right to sue in the courts
• Further, the Court declared that Congress had no authority to
deprive citizens of slave property and therefore the Missouri
Compromise was unconstitutional
• The case proved a spectacular victory for proslavery advocates
Deadlock over Kansas
• Tensions in Kansas continued to simmer, and
Buchanan endorsed Kansas’s admission as a
slave state
• Slavery was legal under the Lecompton
Constitution, but Kansas voters had twice
rejected this constitution
• Kansas entered the Union in 1861 as a free
state, after the Civil War had begun
Lincoln-Douglas Debates
• In 1858 the senate campaign between Democrat Stephen
A. Douglas and Republican Abraham Lincoln placed both
candidates in the national spotlight
• Douglas was already a national figure, and even though
Lincoln lost the contest, Lincoln’s fame spread as a result
• The two engaged in a series of debates that centered on
the issue of slavery
• Douglas took no moral stand on slavery and maintained the
position of popular sovereignty for slavery in the territories
• Lincoln argued that he was not an abolitionist but that he
opposed slavery’s expansion into the territories
• According to Lincoln, American democratic principles
rested on the principle of free labor
John Brown’s Raid
• John Brown’s raid on Harper’s Ferry, Virginia, hardened
lines between the sections to the breaking point
• The fanatic abolitionist overpowered the arsenal there,
planning to arm slaves and lead a rebellion
• His plan was thwarted by troops under the command
of Robert E. Lee
• Brown, along with six of his followers, was executed for
treason
• His actions provided positive proof to Southerners that
there was a Northern conspiracy afoot to end slavery
The Election of Lincoln
• The presidential election of 1860 again demonstrated the
continuing breakdown of the political party system in America
• After several attempts and two conventions, the Democrats
nominated two candidates
• Northerners chose Stephen Douglas of Illinois and Southerners
chose John C. Breckenridge of Kentucky
• Conservative former Whigs nominated Tennessee’s John Bell,
putting the Union above all else, and Republicans nominated
Lincoln with a platform supporting measures to gain as wide a base
as possible but opposing the expansion of slavery in the territories
• In 1860 Lincoln won a majority in the electoral college but only 40
percent of the popular vote, all from Northern states
• The message to many Southerners was unmistakable, and very
soon after the election, the process of disunion began
The Nation Divided
• The strong forces promoting nationalism
throughout the nineteenth century were
eventually eclipsed by the central issue of slavery
• Although slavery was essentially an economic
issue, it became a social, moral, and political
issue
• When parties no longer had national
constituencies or consensus, the political system
broke down
• Each section came to consider the other the
enemy, and national unity collapsed