Contradictions that Bind: Expansion
and Reform (1801-1861)
Related Topics Covered in Lecture 3
• Louisiana Purchase (1803) – Jefferson’s victory
• War of 1812 – A draw “spun” as a triumph
• Missouri Compromise (1820) – uneasy
handling of slavery issue
• Andrew Jackson’s background and rise of
Democratic Party – a gentleman of the
frontier epitomizing new realities of massbased politics
Jackson’s “War” on the National Bank
Nullification Crisis (1832-1833)
• Nominally fought over a protective tariff, but
slavery was the proverbial 800 pound
elephant in the room
• Could states render individual federal laws null
and void?
• Jackson battled his own vice-president, John
C. Calhoun, before a compromise was reached
Emergence of Whig Party
Trail of Tears
Election of 1840 – “Log Cabin and Hard
Cider” Campaign
Manifest Destiny
Mexican War (1846-1848)
Consequences of Mexican War
• Case of “territorial indigestion” – slavery
question exacerbated due to Wilmot Proviso
• Fears among anti-slavery advocates of “slave
power” conspiracy
• Heightened partisanship amidst claims of “Mr.
Polk’s War”
Spectrum of Opinion on Slavery
(In order of greatest defenders to
strongest opponents)
• Southern Democrats (siege mentality)
• Northern Democrats
• Free Soilers and, eventually, Republicans
Whigs
• Abolitionists
• John Brown
Free Soilers as Third Party
Compromise of 1850 – another “band
aid” fix
Uncle Tom’s Cabin
Kansas-Nebraska Act (“slave power”
conspiracy at work?)
Birth of Republican Party (1854)
• Moderate in that it advocated only containing
the expansion of slavery rather than
eliminating it where it already existed.
• At this point only a sectional party.
• Appealed to former Whigs and Free Soilers
“Bleeding Kansas”/Caning of Charles
Sumner
Dred Scott Decision by Supreme Court
(1857)
• Ruling occurred at a time when the majority of
justices were slaveholders and/or supported the
practice.
• Court found that Scott never should have been
able to bring suit in the first place.
• If a slave lives in a free territory, that has no
bearing on one’s legal status.
• Congress has no right to bar slavery in the
territories (thus Compromise of 1820 was null
and void).
Lincoln-Douglas Debates (1858)
John Brown’s Raid at Harper’s Ferry
Election of 1860
Useful Primary Sources
• Webster-Hayne Debate (1830)
• Speckled Snake reply to Andrew Jackson
(1830)
• “Appeal to the Christian Women of the South”
by Angelina Grimke (1836)
• “Annexation” by John O’Sullivan (1845)
• First Republican Party Platform (1856)
Useful Primary Sources
•
•
•
•
Excerpts from Hinton Helper’s The Impending
Crisis of the South (1857)
Excerpts from Lincoln-Douglas Debates (1858)
“On the Death of John Brown” by William
Lloyd Garrison (1859)
South Carolina Declaration of Independence
(1860)
“Cornerstone” Speech by Alexander Stephens
(1861)