Material—January 29 - Chapter 18 pgs 390-399

• Wilmot Proviso•Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo• popular sovereignty • Election of 1848—Zachary Taylor• California Gold Rush—1848-1849 • increasing sectionalism and the Underground Railroad

Topic: Renewing the Sectional Struggle (1848 – 1854)

Aim: Analyze and explain how American politics grew increasingly polarized between North and South during the Taylor/Fillmore and Franklin Pierce.Aim: Identify and explain how the ideology of manifest destiny complicated maintaining a sectional balance between North and South.

problem: the increasing resistance to slaveryevidence: legislative confrontations in the Senate• Salmon P. Chase and the “Slave Power” conspiracy—Southerners sought control of the Federal government•Wilmot Proviso—David Wilmot of Pennsylvania—amendment to Treaty of Guadalupe Hildalgo—slavery should never exist in any of the territories to be gained from Mexico

•never became federal law, but:•It was endorsed by the legislatures of all but one of the free states•It came to symbolize the burning issue of slavery in the territories

Salmon Portland Chase (1808 –1873)— “Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men”

The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848):

• Confirmed the American title to Texas

• Yielded the enormous area stretching to Oregon, the ocean, embracing California

• The total expanse was about ½ of Mexico

• The United States agreed to pay $15 million for the land and to assume the claims of its citizens against Mexico in the amount of $3,250,000

Theme: American expansionism gained momentum in the 1840s, leading first to the acquisition of Texas and Oregon, and then to the Mexican War, which added vast southwestern territories to the United States and ignited the slavery question.

Theme: American international prestige grows as the United States expands. Successful military campaigns against Mexico along with well-negotiated treaties with Britain force Europe to respect America more, while Latin America begins to be wary of the Colossus of the North.

Lewis Cass (1782 –1866)

Cass’s “Doctrine of Popular Sovereignty

definition: sovereign people of a territory, under the general principle of the Constitution, should themselves determine the status of slavery.

Who liked this concept?

•Public liked it because it accorded with the democratic tradition of self-determination; also those ambivalent about slavery could remain so

•Politicians liked it because it seemed a comfortable compromise between:

- The free-soilers’ bid for a ban on slavery in the territories- Southern demands that Congress protect slavery in the territories.- Popular sovereignty tossed the slavery problem into the laps of the people in the various territories

Candidate/Party Home StateTaylor—Whig Louisiana

Fillmore—Whig New York

Cass—Democrat Michigan

Butler—Democrat Kentucky

What do the major party nominations in the 1848 election indicate about politics in the United States at that time?

•Free-Soilers’ party platform:•slavery not a moral evil, but an economic evil– it destroys the chances of free white workers to become self-employed and own businesses/farms•free soil without slavery would allow class mobility for whites•First widely inclusive party organized around the issue of slavery and confined to the North, they foreshadowed the emergence of the Republicans.

Explain how Zachary Taylor became the Whig candidate for president.To what extent do the results of the 1848 election indicate increased sectionalism?To what extent do the results of the 1848 election indicate a continued sectional balance?

The California Gold Rush

problem: Robbery, claim jumping, and murder commonplace—majority of Californians were decent and law-abiding citizens, needed protection:

Solution: statehood1. encouraged by President Taylor, they drafted a

constitution in 1849 that excluded slavery2. appealed to Congress for admission, bypassing the

usual territorial stage

The California Gold Rush

Material—January 30 - Chapter 18 - pgs 398 - 406

•the Underground Railroad and the Fugitive Slave Act•the Compromise of 1850•the Election of 1852 (End of the Whig Party)•the Ostend Manifesto•the Gadsden Purchase

Topic: Chapter 18—Renewing the Sectional Struggle (1848 – 1854)

Aim: Analyze and evaluate attempts by both Whigs and Democrats to overcome sectional differences.To what extent did the South’s actions indicate movement toward secession?

State of the Nation—1850—Advantage: the South1. Nation’s leadership: Zachary Taylor in the White House2. Boasted a majority in the cabinet and on the Supreme Court (example: Dred Scott decision

in 1857)3. Its cotton fields were expanding, cotton prices were profitably high (Crimean War)4. Few believed that slavery was seriously threatened

Oak Alley Plantation--Louisiana Southern Fears:

•15 slave states and 15 free states•Admission of California would destroy the delicate equilibrium in the Senate•Potential slave territory under the American flag was running short•Agitation in the territories of New Mexico and Utah for admission as nonslave states•California might establish a precedent.

Southern Anger:North seeking the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia—ten-mile area of free soil between slaveholding Maryland and slaveholding Virginia•loss of runaway slaves via the Underground Railroad

By 1850 southerners demanded new and more stringent fugitive-slave law:•1793 law proved inadequate to cope with runaways (responsibility for catching runaway slaves fell on officials of the states from which the slaves came)•Slave owners were the losers—abolitionists lost nothing by helping slaves escape•estimates vary from 6,000 escaped to 100,000 over the Underground Railroad’s history

Why was the Fugitive Slave Law (1850) so controversial?

1. fleeing slaves could not testify on their own behalf

2. were denied a jury trial3. cases decided by Federal

commissioner who handled the case of a fugitive: If the runaway were freed, he was paid five dollars—And ten if not freed

Harriet Tubman –1820 – 1913

Harriet Tubman worked for the Union Army during the Civil War: first as a cook and nurse, and then as an armed scout and spy.

• first woman to lead an armed expedition in the war which liberated more than 700 slaves in South Carolina. •She became active in the women’s suffrage movement in New York until her death

The Road to the Compromise of 1850:

problem(s):

• Free-soil California wanted admission•“Fire-eaters” in the South threatened secession—planned Nashville meeting•Conscience Whigs and radical abolitionists (William Seward: “there is a higher law than the Constitution”• Texas claimed land north of the 36’30” line• Zachary Taylor threatened a veto if any compromise increased likelihood of Southern secession –firmly in favor of maintaining the Union at any cost

Advantage North:

•California, a free state, tipped the balance permanently against the South (and California had access to trade with Asia—transcontinental railroad)

•Territories of New Mexico and Utah were open to slavery—basis of popular sovereignty

•The iron law of nature—the “highest law”—in favor of the free soil.

Who got the better deal in the Compromise of 1850?

Advantage South:

• Needed more slave territory to restore the “sacred balance”—popular sovereignty or the Caribbean—Cuba

•The South had halted the drive toward abolition in the District of Columbia

•South gained the new Fugitive Slave Law(1850)—”the Bloodhound Bill.”

the Fugitive Slave Law increased anti-slavery movement:•Mass. made it a penal offense for any state official to enforce the new federal statute•Other states passed “personal liberty laws”•non-committal Whigs pressed by conscience Whigs•Free Soilers saw “Slave Power” conspiracy•Northern Democrats under pressure

Candidate Party/State

Winfield Scott Whig/Virginia

Millard Fillmore Whig/New York

Franklin Pierce Democrat/New Hampshire

William King Democrat/Alabama

John P. Hale Free Soil/New Hampshire

Daniel Webster Union Party/Massachusetts

Election of 1852

Results:1. devastating defeat of Whigs2. increased internal tension in Whig party between pro-slavery Southerners and anti-slavery Northerners,

the Whig Party quickly fell apart 3. some Southern Whigs would join the Democratic Party4. many Northern Whigs would help to form the new Republican Party in 1854. 5. Some Whigs in both sections would support the so-called “”Know Nothing”party in the 1856 presidential

election.

Southern “slavocrats” looked southward—the spread of the “Slave Power” conspiracy:Option #1: Nicaragua—attractive because of possible canal

• William Walker grabbed control and installed himself president in July 1856 and promptly legalized slavery—”filibustering”

Option #2: Cuba—attractive because of existing slave population, large territory, sugar•Ostend Manifesto described the rationale for the US purchase Cuba from Spain (Polk had offered $100 million) while implying that the U.S. should declare war if Spain refused

problem: transportation California and Oregon were 3000 miles west of the nation’s capital, sea routes were too long, covered wagon travel was slow and dangerous

solution: a transcontinental railroad—and the South wanted the route (Secretary of War-Jefferson Davis (Virginia), James Gadsden (South Carolina)—Ambassador to Mexico)

controversy: Gadsden Purchase (1853) cost $10 million, intensified “Slave Power” Conspiracy and territorial issues—popular sovereignty

Chapter 18—Key Themes

Theme: The sectional conflict over the expansion of slavery that erupted after the Mexican War was temporarily quieted by the Compromise of 1850, but Douglas’s Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 exploded it again.

Theme: In the 1850s, American expansionism in the West and the Caribbean was extremely controversial because it was tied to the slavery question.

Theme: Commercial interests guided American foreign policy in Asia and contributed to sectional tension within the United States, as regions tried to secure the terminus to a transcontinental railroad.