PERIOD 5
WESTWARD EXPANSION
& THE
CIVIL WAR
1844-1877
Key Concept 5.1: The United States became more connected with the world,
pursued an expansionist foreign policy in the Western Hemisphere, and emerged as
the destination for many migrants from other countries.
John Gast 1872 American Progress
CHINESE IMMIGRATION
• 1840’s and 1850’s heavier immigration
1. Gold
2. Opium Wars w/ GB
3. Famine and Population
• California/Hawaii
1. 1870 9% of pop. Is Chinese k’u-li “hard strength”
2. plantation work in Hawaii sugar/pineapple plantations
3. 95 % BEFORE 1870 male with intent to return
4. First gold mines, then railroads, then urban businesses
• Backlash – “California for Americans”
Irish and German Immigration
• Irish
1. Potato famine 1845-1850
2. Cholera 1848, 1849
3. 5yrs ~ 1 million died (total population 8 million)
4. 1845- 1855 ~ 2 million left Ireland for America
cost of voyage ~ 3 British pounds
5. Coffin Ships- 5-6 weeks
most were Catholic and poor, usually one family member,
manual labors, domestics
6. Stayed in the cities – NYC, Boston, Philadelphia
• German
1. 1 million
2. Moved out to farms, mostly mid-west
German Immigration
• 3. Catholic but also many Protestants – Lutherans & Amish
4. Very ‘clannish’ more so than Irish
5. Lots of traditions Christmas tree, beer
• Native American Association 1837
“Know-Nothing” Party 1845
By 1850 – elected 8 Governors, 100 members of Congress,
numerous city mayors.
Platform – Anti-Catholic, Anti-Immigrant, want to ban immigrants
from becoming elected officials, 21 yrs to become a citizen
Election 1844
WHIGS
DEMOCRATS
• John Tyler seeks “nomination” –
Whigs – Expansionist platform
(JC Calhoun Sec. of State)
• James K. Polk – (TN) –unknown?
Democrat – Expansionist platform &
close association with Jackson.
54*40’ or Fight – control of
Oregon territory
• Henry Clay (Ky) Whig• James Birney – (NY) Liberty Party.
• JAMES POLK winner! (third party
candidate strikes again!)
• Martin van Buren – (NY) –
Democrat.Fails to get nomination because of
slavery issue & expansion of TX
opposition
Election of 1844
Polk- Winner
Clay – Loser
Texas admitted as STATE ? ? ?
What the heck TX is an
independent nation
right? So, how did
that happen?
“Mexican Immigration”
• Mexican Experience
1. Treaty of Guadalupe – Hidalgo 1848. Changes the border of the US much
farther south, thus lots of new residents - Mexicans
• Californios- former Mexican citizens now Americans
1850 California becomes a state
13,000 out 100,000 *
US Land Commission – set up after treaty/statehood and in essence
stole most of the land that had previously been owned by Mexicans
under the Mexican gov’t.
• Texas – Tejano (former Mexican citizen) will also feel the discrimination,
many will return to Mexico
• New Mexico- Hispanic fare a little better here because of long history of
the link between Santa Fe and St. Louis by cattle trail.
The Mexican Frontier
Reaction to Non White Americans
• Committees of Vigilance in California
mining camps- settled scores due to lack of trained,elected legal
officials.
1848-1860 – 163 Mexicans lynched
• Mexican Reaction
El Monte boys
Joaquin Murrieta
Mexican War 1846-1848
• June 1846 Bear Flag Republic – Capt. John C. Fremont “ruler”
Gen. Kearney occupied Santa Fe and headed for southern Ca.
• Feb. 1847 – Gen. Zach Taylor defeats Santa Ana in Buena Vista
• Gen. Winfield Scott marches inland from Vera Cruz and takes
Mexico City (the capital). All done!
• Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (Feb. 1848) Confirms TX. Cedes CA.
And generously adds NM,AZ,NV,UT to our nation.
• US pays $15 M to Mexico. 1853 Gadsen Purchase US buys from
Mexico. Pretty much look the way we do now by 1853.
Willamette and Puget Sound
-
Opposition to war with Mexico!
• Ulysses S. Grant – “One of the most unjust . . . Against a weaker
nation.”
• Abraham Lincoln- “Spot” Resolution
• Henry D. Thoreau – “On Civil Disobedience”
• David Wilmot – Wilmot Proviso
Think about the logistics for this one ! !
Race and Expansion
Mexico had long abolished slavery before the Mexican War
and Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.
TX allowed slavery and eliminated all rights that had been
given to freed slaves and Native Americans under Mexican
rule.
AZ and NM won’t become states until 1912 due to the lack of
a majority white population to meet the requirements of
statehood entrance.
Migration to CA explodes after 1848 thus helping CA
become a state long before many of her neighboring states.
WHY?
BENEFITS of Mexican Cession
1848- Gold discovered in CA
1851 – Gold discovered in Victoria Australia (near
Melbourne)
1853-4 Trade with Japan opened up – Commodore
Matthew Perry
Problems of Mexican Cession & Gold rush
Diversity created tensions in the west just as tension
were bubbling east of the Mississippi
Manifest Destiny and the concept of Anglo-Protestant
superiority fueled economic, cultural, legislative
decisions.
From Union to Disunion
•1. Compromise of 1850
•2. Fugitive Slave Act 1850
•3. Uncle Tom’s Cabin 1852
•4. Kansas – Nebraska Act 1854
From Union to Disunion
•Compromise of 1850
1. California free state – admitted.
2. New Mexico and Utah territories with no votes in Congress.
3. Slave trade in DC prohibited
4. $ 10 M to Texas to resolved and reorganize border with New
Mexico.
5. Fugitive Slave ActReclaim runaway slaves
Federal and State help in process. (federal agents to assist)
From Union to Disunion
• Enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Act!
(now there’s the problem)
Double fee is given to the arsenal of
new Federal Slave Catchers,
when the court determines the
person captured is a slave
and returned.
$1,000 dollar fine helping a slave
escape.
From Union to Disunion
• Uncle Tom’s Cabin – 1852
(best selling book of the century other than Bible)
1. After reading the excerpt, How does Stowe transform
the slavery question from an abstract political issue to
a personal tragedy?
2. How does Stowe build understanding for Eliza and
therefore for all slaves in this short passage?
From Union to Disunion
• Kansas – Nebraska Act 1854
• Senator Stephan Douglas (IL) wants to build a transcontinental RR
from Chicago to Pacific Coast.
It brings the concept of ‘popular sovereignty’ to the forefront.
It ‘undoes’ the Missouri Compromise of 1820.
• 1854 Election
Creates a brand new party – Republican party (Northern Whigs,
FreeSoilers)
• Whig in essence disappear (no more Andy Jackson, right?)
From Union to Disunion
• Lecompton Constitution
• Bleeding Kansas
• Dred Scott
From Union to Disunion
• Lecompton Constitution1. Pro-Slavery Missourians pour into Kansas. Hold an election for a
constitutional convention & territorial representative to Congress
2. Northern abolitionists arrive. Claimed previous election illegal.
Proceeded to hold another election and created the Topeka
Constitution.
3. President Pierce has to disband the Topeka group. Original group
continues and creates LeCompton Constitution to be voted on.
6,226 (for slavery) to 569 Vote on slavery article
10,226 (pro slavery) to 162
4. Kansas applies for statehood but is denied and won’t become a
state until 1861.
From Union to Disunion
• “Bleeding Kansas” 1854 – 1858.
1. Sheriff shot serving warrants on free-staters
2. His successor was (sheriff’s) threatened the free-state
legistlature and and was killed.
3. John Brown – attacked a proslavery community Pottawatomie
killed and mutilated 5 settlers.
4. May 1858 proslavery forces shot 9 unarmed free-staters.
5 died.
• U.S. Army will slowly take control and end the violence.
Violence
Senator Charles Sumner of MA
Senator
Preston
Brooks
Reaction to “Crime Against Kansas”
Speech
1819-1857
Dred Scott Case 1856
• Originally loses case and on retrial in St. Louis, MO wins.
(1852)
• Mo S.C. turns over ruling and returns Scott to slavery.
He appeals and again loses. Appeals to Supreme Court
• Supreme Court rules AGAINST Scott.
1. Has no rights the court or US needed to honor.
2. Scott had no right to bring case. Ft. Snelling in a territory that
free only under Mo.Co. which had been determined
unconstitutional. Congress does not have the right to bar slavery
from territories.
Union to Disunion
• Panic of 1857
• Lincoln Douglas debates
• John Brown – Harper’s Ferry incident
• Election of 1860 and Secession
Panic of 1857
• Caused by by the declining international economy and overexpansion of the domestic economy. Because of the
interconnectness of the world economy by the 1850s, the financial
crisis that began in late 1857 was the first world-wide economic
crisis.
• Results – South little effected. Mostly the Great Lakes region and
the manufacturing North
What impact do you think this economic event would have on the
relations between the North? ( be able to discuss your views!)
Lincoln Douglas debates
• 306 × 239 - essentialcivilwarcurriculum.com
“A house divided . . .
• Against itself cannot stand. I believe this gov’t cannot endure,
permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to
be dissolved - I do expect the house to fall but I do expect it will
cease to be divided.
• It will become all one thing , or all the other. Either the opponents
of slavery, will arrest the further spread of it, and place where the
public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate
extinction; or its advocates will push it forward, till it should become
alike lawful in ALL the States, old as well as new
North as well as South
Lincoln Douglas Debates
• 1858 for the Illinois Senator to Congress.
• 7 debates total. To determine the party of philosophy of each.
• Douglas attacks Lincoln mostly on the slavery issue. Claims we’ve
existing this long ‘half slave and half free’ like Washington,
Jefferson etc. Says Rep.party is trying to unite all slaves into one
party to destroy America
• Lincoln takes the high road. Explains he will protect Southern
constitutional rights. Doesn’t want to immediately end slavery.
Just doesn’t want it to spread – clearly on the moral side of the
issue.
• Douglas wins the senatorial election of 1858 of Illinois!
John Brown and Harper’s Ferry
• Harper’s Ferry is at the confluence of the Potomac and Shenandoah
Rivers in Maryland.Lightley guarded federal arsenal
• 16 white men and 5 black men
• Took hostages, cut telegraph wires, quickly attacked by town’s
people.
• Gen. Robert E. Lee is called to the scene, Brown refuses to
surrender, Lee gives order to attack and is quickly over. Brown
slightly wounded.
• Charged with insurrection and treason. Tried, found guilty and
sentenced to death on Dec. 2, 1859.
John Brown
• Brown told a New York Herald reporter,
“ You may dispose of me very easily . . . But this question is still to
be settled – this negro question I mean – the end of that is not yet.”
• Many dismissed as a fanatic, insane. Public opinion begins to shift –
especially in the North.
• Wm. Lloyd Garrison – “ a desperate self-sacrifice for the purpose of
giving an earthquake shock to the slave system.”
• South convinced the North are all lunatics and becomes an armed
camp
Election of 1860
• Republican Party – Lincoln is nominated fairly easily
• Constitution Party – John Bell of TN “Old Gentlemen’s Party”
• Democrats ( have to try twice) nominate Stephen Douglas
• Democrats also nominate Breckenridge (Southern Dems)
Election of 1860
• Lincoln wins the election with 40% of the national vote.
WHY?
1. Republican Party was new and attracted first time voters
2. United- one clear message, and their economic plan
appealed to many northerners.
3. Abolition !
1860 Results
Secession
• Dec. 20 1860 South Carolina leads the way and votes for secession
• Jan. 1861 – Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana vote to
seceed
• Feb. 1861 – Texas !
• Convention in Montgomery Alabama quickly organized the
Confederate States of America, elected a vice president and
President in about 6 days!
• Chicago Tribune “ let her go, and like a limb lopped from a healthy
trunk, wilt and rot where she falls.” said of SC secession.
Secession
• Lincoln’s Inaugural Address:
“ We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies.
Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of
affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every
battlefield, and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearthstone,
all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when
again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our
nature.”
Confederate Congress called for 100,000 troops.
Secession
• Ft. Sumter was a new installation in Charleston SC in the spring of
1861. Mjr. Anderson was a KY slave holder however was a strong
Union supporter. He remained at his post.
Outgoing President Buchanan tried to send a supply boat but
Confederate troops fired on the ship and it returned.
April 12, 1861 Confederate Pierre G.T.Beauregard attacked the fort
at 4:30 am until about the morning of April 13. Food and
ammunition running low Mjr. Anderson had to surrender.
• Ft. Sumter was now firmly in the hand of the Confederate. But, the
US flag had been fired upon and the war was started.
Let’s Review for a minute . . .
• Fugitive Slave Act
1. How did the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act contribute to
the rise of the Republican Party and the demise of the the Whigs?
• Bleeding Kansas & Dred Scott Decision
1. Why was the ‘victory’ over Kansas important to both pro/anti
slavery forces?
2. How did the Dred Scott Decision bring the US closer to a civil
war?
• Lincoln-Douglas Debates
1. What light did the L-D debates shed on views about race in 1858?
1861-1862 Sumter to Antietam
• Union Gen. Winfield Scott- Mexican War fame
- Anaconda Plan
• Ft. Sumter – 2 month waiting period
• 1st Battle of Bull Run (same as Battle of Manassas)- Clear
Confederate victory.
1. Lincoln calls for 1 Million recruits
2. Fired several generals
3. Created the Army of the Potomac- Gen. Geo.B. McClellan
4. Western Army separate organization – Mississippi River