America’s History Chp 13: The Crisis of the Union 1844-1860
I. Manifest Destiny
A. The Mature Cotton Economy, 1820-1860
1. By 1820 the South produced more raw cotton than any other country in the world
 To increase output, some slave owners created the gang-labor system (group of workers tightly
watched by an overseer).
2. By 1860, nearly two million slaves were laboring in the lower Mississippi Valley and along the “black belt”
from Mississippi to Georgia.
3. Planters justified their power by arguing that slavery was a “positive good” that allowed a civilized lifestyle for
whites and provided tutelage for genetically inferior Africans. * This is a change in justification for slavery: Prior
to 1820 the arguments (1) necessary evil to maintain white living standards and (2) prevent racial warfare.
4. White politics and society in the South were deeply divided along the lines of class and religion.
 In theory, masters had unlimited power over their slaves.
 In practice, however, both social conventions and black resistance limited a master’s power (slaves
would slow work down on purpose, break tools, set barns on fire etc.).
5. The institution of slavery became a part of the fiber of American life, and white southerners wanted to
extend its sway across the entire continent.
B. The Independence of Texas
1. The Adams-Onis treaty guaranteed Spanish sovereignty over Texas.
2. After winning independence from Spain in 1821, the Mexican gov’t, short on population and cash for settling
the region (Texas was a haven for outlaws and violent Native Americans tribes such as the Comanche and
Apache) encouraged settlement by both Mexicans and migrants from the U.S.
3. Americans came in huge numbers for the cheap land and in 1829 won a special exemption from a law ending
slavery in Mexico.
4. By 1835 there were 30,000 Americans living in Texas who were unhappy and broke off into 1 of 2 groups:
 “peace party” who wanted more self-government
 “War party” who wanted independence from Mexico.
5. On March 2, 1836, the war party proclaimed the independence of Texas and adopted a constitution legalizing
slavery.
 Dictator; General Santa Anna led an army of 4,000 to crush the rebellion
 Santa Anna had two major victories over the Texans: Alamo and Goliad.
 However, on April 21, 1836 Sam Houston with reinforcements from America defeated Santa Anna in the
Battle of San Jacinto and forced Santa Anna to sign the Treaty of Velasco recognizing Texas
independence.
 Mexico did not recognize the treaty as being valid.
6. Presidents Jackson and Van Buren refused to allow the annexation of Texas.
 They its status as a slave state would divide the Democratic Party and lead to war with Mexico.
C. The Push to the Pacific: Oregon and California
1. In 1845 John L. O’Sullivan coined the phrase Manifest Destiny (he felt that Americans had a right to develop
the entire continent as they saw fit, which implied a sense of cultural and racial superiority).
2. The Oregon country stretched along the Pacific coast from the forty-second parallel in the south to 54th
parallel in the north and was claimed by both Great Britain and the U.S.
 Oregon fever raged in 1843 as thousands journeyed for months across the continent to the Willamette
Valley to pursue farming and the China fur trades.
 Some left the Oregon Trail and traveled south along the California Trail, settling along the Sacramento
River.
3. To promote California’s development, the Mexican government took over the California missions and
promoted large scale cattle ranching.
 The rise of cattle ranching created a new society and economy as agents from New England firms
assimilated Mexican life and married into the families of the Californios.
 Some hoped to emulate the Americans who colonized Texas and sought annexation into the U.S.
However, the American population in Ca was dramatically less than Texas had.
D. The Fateful Election of 1844
1. Southern leaders favored territorial expansion to extend the slave system and demanded the immediate
annexation of Texas.
2. In an effort to end joint occupation of Oregon, in 1843 a bipartisan national convention demanded that the
U.S. seize Oregon all the way up to the 54 parallel.
3. Texas was the central issue in the 1844 elections:
 Democrats selected James K. Polk who called for the annexation of Texas and taking all of Oregon.
 Whigs nominated Henry Clay, who suggested that he might support annexation of Texas.
 Polk’s method was more appealing and won the presidency. Congressional Democrats moved to bring
Texas into the Union.
II. War, Expansion, and Slavery (1846-1850).
A. The War with Mexico (1846-1848).
1. Mexico was determined to retain its territories, and when the Texas Republic accepted American statehood in
1845, Mexico broke off diplomatic relations with the U.S.
 President Polk ordered General Zachary Taylor to occupy the disputed lands between the Nueces River
and the Rio Grande.
 Polk also sent John Slidell to Mexico City to secure Mexican acceptance of the Rio Grande boundary and
to buy New Mexico and California.
 Polk also encouraged Thomas Larkin (American citizen in Ca) to lead a rebellion in Ca.
2. Mexican authorities refused to see Slidell and declared that the annexation of Texas was illegal.
 Sent troops to the Nueces River.
3. American Naval commanders in the Pacific were told to seize Ca’s coastal towns in case of war, and Captain
John C. Fremont’s heavily armed troops were sent deep into Mexican territory.
4. Polk was trying to engineer an armed response by the Mexican officials so he could go to Congress to declare
war.
 That clash occurred between the Rio Grande and Nueces rivers between General Taylor and Mexican
troops.
5. To avoid simultaneous war with Britain, the president signed the Oregon Treaty, which divided the Oregon
region at the forth-ninth parallel.
6. General Winfield Scott’s troops seized Mexico City in September of 1847, Santa Anna was overthrown, and
the new Mexican government agreed to make peace.
B. A Divisive Victory
1.”Conscience Whigs” viewed the Mexican War as a conspiracy to add new slave states in the West, and Polk’s
expansionist policy split the Democrats into sectional factions.
 Many northerners joined a new “free-soil” movement, viewing slavery as a threat to Republicanism and
yeoman farmers.
2. Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848)
 U.S acquired Texas north of the Rio Grande, New Mexico, and California.
 Mexico received 15 million dollars.
3. Presidential Election of 1848
 Democrats chose Lewis Cass was an avid expansionist who proposed “squatter sovereignty” (later
known as popular sovereignty) and was deliberately vague on the issue of slavery in the West.
 Free-Soilers chose Martin Van Buren (stop the spread of slavery into the territories).
 Whigs chose General Zachary Taylor, a slave owner who had not taken a position on slavery in the
territories.
4. Taylor and his running mate Millard Fillmore won the election, but the electoral margin was thin due to the
free-soil ticket taking New York’s vote.
C. 1850: Crisis and Compromise
1. In 1848, flakes of gold were found in the Sierra Nevada foothills, and by 1849; forty-niners’ were pouring into
Ca in search of gold. The influx of settlers immediately led to
 Renewed national debates over free soil.
 Ca applying for statehood.
2. The admission of Ca as a state threatened the carefully maintained balance of slave states versus non-slave
states in the Senate.
3. Compromise of 1850 was ratified to pacify the North and the South
North
 Ca added to the Union as a free state
 Slave trade banned in Wash. D.C.
South
 Fugitive Slave Act passed
 Popular Sovereignty in the territories
III. The End of the Second Party System, 1850-1858
A. Resistance to the Fugitive Slave Act
1. The plight of runaway slaves and the appearance of slave catchers aroused popular hostility in the North and
Midwest, and free blacks and abolitionists defied the new law which the federal gov’t had no choice but to
enforce.
 Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852) evoked sympathy for slaves and outrage against
slavery throughout the North, increased northern opposition to the act.
 Northern legislatures enacted personal liberty laws, and in Ableman v. Booth (1857) the Wisconsin
Supreme Court said the act violated the Constitution. *Supreme later upheld the Constitutionality of the
Fugitive Slave Act.
B. Whigs’ Decline and the Democrats’ Diplomacy
1. Conflict of fugitive slaves split the Whig Party (between its Northern and Southern supporters); one-third of
the Whigs gave their support to the Democrats in the 1852 election.
2. Democrats were also divided over the extension of slavery vs. popular sovereignty. They settled on Franklin
Pierce.
3. Pierce won the election and pursued an expansionist foreign policy
 Ostend Manifesto- the U.S has the right to seize Cuba (please the South/frightened the North fearing
slavery would continue to spread). *The North blocked the Ostend Manifesto.
 To please the North the U.S. purchased the Gadsden territory in order to build a railroad line.
C. Kansas-Nebraska Act and the Rise of New Parties
1. Kansas-Nebraska Act, constructed by Democrat Stephen Douglas, divided the northern Louisiana Purchase
into two territories, Kansas and Nebraska, and voided the Missouri Compromise line by opening the area to
slavery through the principle of popular sovereignty.
2. The Kansas-Nebraska Act passed in 1854 and proved to be the end of the Second Party System.
 Anti-slavery northern Whigs and Anti-Nebraska Democrats formed a new party, the Republicans.
 A second new Party developed The American or “Know Nothing” party which had its origins in the antiimmigrant and anti-Catholic movement of the 1840. Both Whigs and Democrats will support the Know
Nothing party.
3. In 1855 the Pierce administration recognized the territorial legislature in Lecompton, Kansas, which had
adopted proslavery legislation (the majority of the people in Kansas were against slavery).
 Free soilers rejected the legitimacy of the territorial government; proslavery and antislavery sided
turned to violence. **The issue of slavery is becoming uncompromising and leading to violence for the
first time.
D. The Dred Scott Decision
1. In Dred Scott v. Sanford (1856), the U.S Supreme Court ruled that
 A slaves residence in a free state did not make him a free man (slaves are property and the gov’t
cannot take someone’s property from them).
 Africans Americans were not and could not be citizens.
 African Americans have no right to sue in a federal court.
2. Chief Justice Taney also went on to declare the Missouri Compromise unconstitutional and endorsed
Calhoun’s interpretation of popular sovereignty in the territories.
 Only when the settlers of a region wrote a constitution and requested statehood could they prohibit
slavery.
IV. Abraham Lincoln and the Republican Triumph, 1858-1860
A. Lincoln’s Political Career
1. Lincoln served four terms as a Whig in the Illinois assembly. In 1846, Lincoln won election to Congress,
where he had to take a stand on the issue slavery.
 Felt slavery was unjust but did not believe that the federal government had the constitutional authority
to tamper with it.
 Lincoln wanted to stop the expansion of slavery and work towards gradual emancipation. He also
believed in the colonization of freed slaves were the only practical ways to address the issue.
2. Both abolitionists and proslavery activists derided his pragmatic policies, and for a while he withdrew from
politics in order to devote his time to law.
3. Lincoln later returned to attack the doctrine of Popular Sovereignty:
 Leave slavery where it is and do not extend it into the territories.
 Abandoned the Whig Party and joined the Republicans and emerged as their leader in Illinois.
 In his “House Divided” speech, he predicted a constitutional crisis over slavery.
4. In the 1858 Congressional elections he dueled Stephan Douglas for the U.S. Senate seat.
 Lincoln/Douglas debates brought Lincoln into the National spotlight (he went toe to toe with the best
public speaker in the U.S at the time and it was debatable who won)
 Douglas won the Senate race in 1858
B. The Party System Fragments
1. Southern Democrats divided into two groups:
 Moderates (Southern Rights Democrats) who pursued protection of slavery in the territories.
 Radicals who promoted secession (would go along with the moderates for now as long as there is no
move against slavery by the North).
2. In 1860, Northern Democrats rejected Jefferson Davis’s program to protect slavery in the territories.
3. The 1860 Presidential election had four Candidates:
 Abraham Lincoln- Republican supported in the Northeast, Midwest, and the Far West (didn’t even
campaign in the South).
 Stephen Douglas- Democrat supported in the North and Midwest (wasted time campaigning in the
South).
 John C. Breckinridge- Democrat supported in the deep South
 John Bell- Constitutional Union Party (former Whigs and Know Nothings) supported in the upper South.
4. Lincoln won the 1860 presidential election because the Democratic and Southern vote was split between
three candidates.
APUSH Chapter 13 SPRITE: The Crisis of the Union 1844-1860 Terms and Qs
I. Answer Terms and Qs in SPRITE format
Manifest Destiny
1. “Gang labor system”
7. “Black belt”
2. “Great American Desert”
8. Stephan Austin
3. General Antonio de Santa Anna
9. Battle of the Alamo
4. Battle of San Jacinto
10. Treaty of Velasco
5. “Oregon fever”
12. Thomas Oliver Larkin
6. James K. Polk
13. Presidential Election 1844
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
Republican aristocracy (South)
“War party”
Sam Houston
Manifest Destiny
54’40 line/Texas Annexation
War, Expansion, and Slavery, 1846-1850
19. American Annexation of Texas
25. John C. Freemont
20. Ulysses S. Grant
26. 49th Parallel
21. Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo
27. “Conscience Whigs”
22. “Free Soilers”
28. John Sutter
23. “Forty niners”
29. “Popular Sovereignty”
24. “Fire-eaters”
30.
31.
32.
33.
34.
Zachary Taylor
Winfield Scott
Wilmot Proviso
Presidential Election of 1848
Compromise of 1850
The End of the Second Party System
35. Personal Liberty Laws
40.
36. Ostend Manifesto
41.
37. New Republican Party
42.
38. John Brown
43.
39. Lecompton constitution
44.
45.
46.
47.
Franklin Pierce
Kansas-Nebraska Act
“Bleeding Kansas”
Dred Scott v. Sandford
Gadsden Purchase
Slave Power Conspiracy
Know-Nothing Party
James Buchanan
Abraham Lincoln and the Republican Triumph, 1858-1860
48. Abraham Lincoln
51. Stephan Douglas
49. Moderate Democrats
52. Radical Democrats
50. Presidential Election of 1860
53. “House Divided” speech
54. Brown’s Raid on Harpers Ferry
II. Qs to answer in FRQ Format- Intro with thesis under-lined, bullet points for body evidence and a
concluding statement (Choose two to write on).
1. Analyze the geographical and political effects of President James K. Polk’s policy of expansion.
2. Choose Four of the following events and describe how they increased tension between the North and the
South from 1850-1858: Fugitive Slave Act, publication of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Passage of
the Kansas-Nebraska Act, the outbreak of violence in “Bleeding Kansas,” Pierce’s support for American
expansion, the Supreme Court’s ruling in the Dred Scott case, and Buchanan’s support of the Lecompton
constitution.
3. Discuss Lincoln’s position on the following issues: Mexican American War, the Kansas-Nebraska Act, the Dred
Scott decision and the “slave power” conspiracy.
4. Describe how the following were compromise designed to postpone a confrontation over the issue of slavery
in the United States: Slave Trade and Commerce Compromise, Missouri Compromise, and the Compromise of
1850.