The Impending Crisis
Chapter 13
Looking Westward
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Manifest Destiny*
– 1840s was the greatest wave of US expansion
since the Louisiana Purchase
– Two factors
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nationalist pride (superiority of “American Race”)
idealist vision of social perfection
– Mexicans, Indians, Blacks, etc “racially unfit” for
the system
– Spread
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penny press
political rhetoric
– broad and varied goals
Manifest Destiny (Am. West)
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Americans in Texas
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Originally claimed in Louisiana
Purchase, US later attempted
purchase from Mexico
Mexicans start plan to populate
it’s new country
thousands of Americans flooded
in
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Intermediaries
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Land was suitable for cotton
Stephen F. Austin
Created centers of power in Texas
that rivaled Mexican gov’t
1826 small group led revolt for
independence and was crushed
1830 Mexico passes laws barring
any American Immigration... too
late
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1835: over 30,000 Americans, white
and black, had settled in Texas
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Mexican-American Tensions*
– Main issues
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Americans felt strong ties with home country
Americans wanted to legalize slavery
– Mexican gov’t unstable
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Santa Anna seizes power
passes laws that order states to pay higher taxes
– Revolts
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Steven Austin imprisoned
sporadic fighting in 1835
Texas claims independence in 1836
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Mexican-American
Tensions* Cont’d
– Texas Difficulties
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organizing defense
division in government
Alamo and Goliad
– Victory Texas style
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Sam Houston and
“retribution” at San Jacinto
Texas independent nation
from 1836-1845
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Oregon
– “joint occupation” with
Britain
– fur trading
– evangelical interest & battle
– devastated Indian
population
– “54’40” or Fight!”
– Polk (privately) willing to
settle at 49th parallel with
British and does
Expansion and War
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The Democrats and
Expansion
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Election of 1844 was
expected to be between
Clay and Van Buren.
James K. Polk “darkhorse”
Democrat from Tennessee
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adamantly pro-expansionist
Jennifer Ong
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The Southwest and California
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Mexicans end diplomatic relations with US in 1845
after Texas annexation
Texas Border dispute
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Texas believed the border was the Rio Grande
Mexico believed it was the Nueces River
Polk sends a small army under General Zachary Taylor to the
Nueces line to “protect” Texas
California
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only 7,000 Mexicans... most are Spanish descendents
by 1845, 700 Americans in California, mostly centered near
Sacramento River
“Annexationists”
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cited racial differences between white Americans and Mexican
rivals
claimed Mexicans had the same right to land that Indians had:
none
Polk commits himself to “annexationist ideal” and
commits to acquiring both New Mexico and California
and issues silent orders
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The Mexican War
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Polk tries again to buy off
the Mexicans and Mexico
refuses
Polk responds by ordering
General Taylor to cross the
Nueces
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Jennifer Ong
for months Mexicans refuse to
fight
finally, Mexican troops cross
the Rio Grande and attacked a
unit of American soldiers
“War exists by the act of
Mexico herself.” in request for
Declaration of War
Mexico instead of Oregon*
Mexico City captured by
Gen. Zachary Taylor* Sept.
1847
Treaty of Guadalupe
Hidalgo and Nicholas Trist
The Sectional Debate
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Slavery and the Territories
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peace negotiations, Wilmot Proviso would have
prohibited slavery in any territory acquired from
Mexico... passed House, failed in Senate
Southern militants: believed new territories belonged to
anyone
While still President, Polk supported extension of
Missouri Compromise line west
squatter sovereignty = popular sovereignty, each
territory decides the status of slavery within it
General Taylor elected President in 1848 on “war hero”
status, avoids slave issue
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The California Gold Rush
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Gold discovered in California in 1848 forced slavery
issue to be addressed
Non-Indian population from 14,000 in 1848 to 220,000 in
1852
“gold mania”*
diverse population in California: Chinese, Free Blacks,
Mexicans, Europeans
Few found gold but urban centers swelled
Rising Sectional Tensions
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statehood = less responsibility for federal gov’t
“tipping the scales”
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California’s admittance to the Union as a free state (popular
sovereignty)
New Mexico
other issues
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District of Columbia
Texas: border disputes with New Mexico and debt
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The Compromise of 1850
– Henry Clay presented five provisions to the
Senate in January of 1850
– California be admitted as a free state
– rest of the lands acquired from Mexico, territorial
governments without restrictions on slavery
– Texas yield in it’s boundary dispute
– That the slave trade, but not slavery itself be
abolished in the District of Columbia
– Fugitive slave law
• The Compromise of 1850 Cont’d
– The debate lasted seven months and consisted of two phases
• first phase: voices in Congress consisted of older men ideals of the union
• Clay: made a broad plea for sectional conciliation and of nationalism
• Calhoun: insisted that the North rant the South equal rights in the
territories, agree to observe the laws concerning fugitive slaves, cease
attacking slavery, and “dual Presidency”
– second phase: voices in Congress consisted of younger
representatives
• William H. Seward: strongly opposed to the Compromise strongly
opposed to slavery
• Jefferson Davis: cotton grower, slavery necessary to economic interest
• Stephen Douglas: from Illinois, interested in railroads, sectional gain and
self-promotion...used “back room deals” instead of persuasive speeches
– new leaders were able to produce a compromise in 1850 due in part
to a strong economy
– Zachary Taylor compared to Millard Fillmore
– By mid September all the components of the compromise signed by
President
Crises of the 1850s
• The Uneasy Truce
– Election of 1852: Franklin Pierce, Northern Democrat
– Fugitive Slave Act
• one of the stipulations of the Compromise of 1850
• rekindled old slavery issues created new slavery issues:
southerners appearing in non-slave states to reclaim property
– Boston
• Mobs appear to oppose federal enforcement of law
• President Pierce sends in federal troops to make sure slave is
returned to slavery
• Tens of thousands of Bostonians lined the streets in protest
• “Young America”
– Nationalist movement in North and South
– Spreading of democracy worldwide, slavery as a minor distraction
– Expansion = slavery argument
• Cuba and Ostend Manifesto
• Hawaii
• Canada
• Slavery, Railroads, and the West
– Pike was wrong about the desert
– As expansion continued West, question arose… where to place the
center of the railroad industry?
• Northerners favored Chicago
• Southerners supported St. Louis, Memphis or New Orleans (all in south)
– Jefferson Davis is Pierce’s Secretary of War, wants railroad in the
South but there is several natural obstacles… sends James Gadsden
to buy what is today southern New Mexico and Arizona
– Gadsden Purchase ($10 million) intensified sectional debate
• The Kansas-Nebraska Controversy
– Douglas wants train to go through Chicago, but that
meant going through Indian Territory
– Proposes to incorporate a huge state in the territory west
of Iowa: Nebraska
– To appease South and pass the bill, Douglas offers some
changes
• splits territory into two parts (Kansas and Nebraska)
• repeals Missouri Compromise line
• agrees that both states would decide the issue of slavery based
on popular sovereignty
– Pierce signs into law in May 1854
– Huge effects
• destroyed Missouri Compromise, caused abolitionists to fear
• Whig, Northern Dems, and Free-Soilers merged into what would
become the modern Republican Party
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“Bleeding Kansas”
– People from North and South immediately begin
moving into Kansas
– In Spring of 1855 there were elections for
territorial legislature
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there were only 1,500 legal voters who lived in
Kansas but more than 6,000 people actually voted
– Missourians traveled in armed bands and traveled into
Kansas to vote
– Legislature is almost entirely pro-slavery
– Outraged free-staters defy the legislature and
conduct a separate election and construct a
separate constitution outlawing slavery
– President Pierce denounces free-staters as
traitors
• “Bleeding Kansas” Cont’d
– Pro-slavery forces attack free-state center in
Lawrence and burn the town
– John Brown
• considered himself an instrument of God’s will to get rid
of slavery
• he and his followers mutilated five pro-slavery
supporters to discourage pro-slavery groups from
entering the country (Pottawatomie Massacre)
• opened door to guerilla warfare, sometimes just for
land rather than ideology
– Symbols of sectional hostility
• “Bleeding Kansas”
• “Bleeding Sumner”
Jennifer Ong
• The Free-Soil Ideology
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North centered it’s belief on “Free-Soil” and “Free-Labor”
Lyceum Movement
South was a static society that was a threat to whites
growth vital, dismemberment unthinkable
• The Pro-Slavery Argument
– Anti-Slavery South
• Virginia almost votes for gradual manumission 1829-1832
– Militant defensiveness
• Nat Turner
• Cotton and the economy
• Antagonizing literary works
– slavery as “a good – a positive good”
• comparison drawn to factories in North
• racial inferiority of blacks
• Southern Protestant Church
– Southern values vs. Northern values
– Silencing opposition in the South
• Buchanan and Depression
– Democrat James Buchanan defeats Republican John C.
Fremont in close election that was altered by a third party
candidate
– weak leadership* in a time of crisis
– financial panic as a result of Crimean War ending in
Europe
• The Dred Scott Decision
– thrust of rulings was a major defeat in anti-slavery
movement; affirmation of South’s argument that the
Constitution allowed slavery
– Taney: No person of African descent could be a citizen,
blacks had no rights at all under the Constitution.
– Angry North, abolitionists and Republicans
• Deadlock over Kansas
– President Buchanan supports pro-slavery
government in Kansas
– Next election anti-slavery groups mobilize and
vote out pro-slavery legislators, and reject the
pro-slavery Lecompton Constitution by more than
10,000 votes
– Buchanan tries to ensure that Kansas enters
Union as slave state
– Kansas wouldn’t enter the Union until 1861 as a
free state
Jennifer Ong
• The Lincoln / Douglas Debates
– Election for Illinois Senate in 1858
– Democrat Incumbent Stephen Douglas v. Republican Challenger
Abraham Lincoln
– Douglas’s Argument:
• Defended popular sovereignty
• Accused Republicans of promoting a war of sections, wishing to interfere
with Slavery in the South, and of promoting social equality of the races
• No opinion on the issue of slavery
– Lincoln’s Argument:
• Properly denied the charges because he nor his party had ever advocated
any of these things
• Accused the Democrats of conspiring to extend slavery into the territories
and possibly into the free states as well
• Lincoln opposed slavery… in the interest of poor white laborers, believed
slavery was morally wrong, but he was not an abolitionist
• “house divided against itself cannot stand” believed by restricting slavery
that it would come to a natural end
• Significance:
• “Freeport Doctrine” or “Freeport Heresy” as it would become known in the
South won Douglas the Illinois election but cost him the presidency.
• Attracted enormous crowds that would increase Lincoln’s national
prominence
• John Brown’s Raid
– Plan: to take over a military arsenal in Virginia to which
black slaves might flee to and start a slave insurrection in
the South
– funded by “Secret Six” abolitionists in the North
– Attack on Harper’s Ferry didn’t inspire the uprising John
Brown had hoped
• local militia, citizens and troops led by Robert E. Lee put down the
rebellion
• Brown surrenders after six of his men are killed (two of his own
sons)
• Brown and six others are hanged
– Results
• white Southerners feel that they cannot live safely in the Union
• increased fear of slave rebellion
• R.W. Emerson glorifies Brown as a hero… made him a martyr*
South
North
Jennifer Ong
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The Election of Lincoln: 1860
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“Most momentous consequences of any election in
history”*
Democrat party divided between Northern and Southern
interests
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North wants popular sovereignty, South walks out
Charleston and Baltimore
Douglas and Breckinridge
Republicans unite, gather a large base of support: not
just abolitionist, but economic through social programs
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high tariff
internal improvements
homestead bill
railroad to Pacific built with Federal funds
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The Election of Lincoln: 1860 Cont’d
– Republicans pass up Seward and go with
Abraham Lincoln
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visible enough to be respected, obscure enough to
have few enemies
radical enough to please the antislavery faction,
conservative enough to satisfy ex-Whigs
– Constitutional Union Party
– Lincoln wins the electoral vote… but only wins
2/5 of the fragmented popular vote
– Within a few weeks of Lincoln’s victory, process
of disunion begins