US history

April 24, 2012midterm exam

the 1850s

midterm exam & paper # 1

• Do not sabotage yourself!– Turn in papers on time or you lose points.

• How are you studying?– If you do not use your notes & the power point

lectures posted on Facebook, you are sabotaging yourself.

• Create a study group.

follow directions!

• Why can you follow directions for short answers & maps, but not for multiple choice questions?

• If you answered 12 multiple choice (instead of 8), I gave you credit for % correct, not total correct.

• Final exam: no choices of multiple choice!

picnic in the park?

• Bornova Buyuk Park• does a Friday evening work? or?• rain date?• potluck – bring food or drink to share. • how many people will come?

history = context

You cannot understand the significance of the election of Obama or the murder of Trayvon Martin w/o understanding slavery.

history = context

You cannot understand the significance of Madonna or Hilary Clinton w/o understanding Seneca Falls women’s rights convention.

history = context

• You cannot understand US dominance w/o understanding US history.

1800 - 1850

• country grew dramatically in size -- continental US reached its present size. – except Gadsden Purchase, 1853, adding a small

strip along border w/ Mexico.• country grew dramatically in population.• industrialization, transportation, & technology,

changed life in North and West. • 2nd only to Britain in manufacturing. • major agricultural exporter.

• 31 states– 16 free– 15 slave

• more than half the people lived west of Appalachians.

• dramatic growth of cities.

• 23,000,000 population.

1850s saw a series of crises

sectional tensions increasing• would slavery be allowed to move into

territories gained from Mexican-American War?

• Northwest Ordinance (1787) – no slavery.• Missouri Compromise (1820) – drew line where slavery allowed/prohibited.

John C. Calhoun, South Carolina

• 1828 – 1832 controversy over tariffs, which S did not want.

• Calhoun: nullification – right of a state to declare a federal law null & void.

• previously used in other conflicts.• 1828 South Carolina threatened to secede.

Southern perspective

• Calhoun: states’ rights doctrine protects legitimate rights of a minority in a democracy ruled by a majority.

• anything less than full access to territories for slavery was unconstitutional.

• slavery had to be national, because whole nation owned the territories.

• (remember the Constitution: territories can become states when reach minimum population.)

• Southern strategy: keep numbers of slave and free states equal so power in Congress.

both N & S created stereotypes

• northern perspective: “the slave power” – phrase 1st used in 1844.

• N believed S economically backward & slavery immoral.

• S believed cotton benefitted the N & slavery benefitted all whites by ensuring their freedom & independence.

• S believed Black slavery better than white wage slavery & class divisions of the N.

multiple controversies

• Wilmot Proviso – should slavery be extended to new territories gained from Mexico?

• 1849 – California & Utah apply to be states.• border war between Texas & New Mexico.• debts of Republic of Texas.• end slavery in Washington, DC.• return of escaped slaves from N to S. • multiple compromises to resolve these issues.

Compromise(s) of 1850

• California admitted as free state.• Utah denied statehood because of Mormon

polygamy.• remainder of land from Mexico to be decided

by popular sovereignty.• Texas had to cede land to New Mexico

Territory, & federal government assumed Texas debt.

Compromise(s) of 1850 (continued)

• slave trade, but not slavery, outlawed in Washington, DC.

• stronger Fugitive Slave Law enacted.• compromises by Northern anti-slavery Whigs

& proslavery southern Democrats.• issue of slavery in territories was avoided, not

solved.

Fugitive Slave Act of 1850

• abolitionists urged slaves to escape. • slave catchers went to North to capture

runaways.• 9 N states passed laws they would not cooperate w/ slave catchers.

fugitive slaves

• Northerners upset at denial of legal & personal rights of escaped slaves.

• Southerners upset about infringement on their property rights.

• Solomon Northrup, 12 Years a Slave (1853).• many free Northern Blacks immigrated to

Canada to avoid possible enslavement.• 1850s: 322 fugitives returned to slavery; 11

freed.

• abolitionists stormed court in Boston to free Anthony Burns, 1854.

Anthony Burns

• Northerners radicalized.• Fugitive Slave Law made

slavery national.• more & more

Northerners came to believe slavery was wrong.

• few believed in equality.

• Burns went to Oberlin College, became a preacher, moved to Canada, died young, TB.

Harriet Beecher StoweUncle Tom’s Cabin (1852)

• all-time American best-selling novel (in proportion to population.)

• in ten years, sold more than 2,000,000 copies.

• Lincoln: “the little lady who wrote the book that made this great war.”

Kansas-Nebraska Act, 1854

• Stephen Douglas (D - Illinois) proposed to open Indian territory to settlers under principle of popular sovereignty re slavery.

• took Indian land.• effectively repealed Missouri Compromise.• opened land to warring pro- & anti-slavery factions.

political parties in crisis

• “Cotton Whigs” – wealthy N merchants, bankers, manufacturers, disapproved of abolitionism. Urged S politicians to vote against Kansas-Nebraska Act.

• bill passed.• N Whigs concluded compromise with South

impossible. • Kansas-Nebraska Act killed Whig Party. • political parties no longer able to be national

organizations.

“Bleeding Kansas”

• fraudulent elections.• Missouri frontiersmen

voted as Kansans.• abolitionists sent

settlers.• 2 state constitutions.• burning, looting,

murders.

nativismanti-immigrant attitudes & actions

• American Party formed 1850, partly a reaction to Democrats’ winning of immigrant, most Catholic, vote.

• secrecy – “I know nothing” – “Know-Nothings.”

• urban violence.• anti-Catholicism.

Republican Party

• founded 1854 as old Whig Party dissolved.• included many former Whigs, who wanted strong

national government.• 1856 presidential election -- 3-way contest:– Democrats, Republicans, Know-Nothings.– N wouldn’t vote for Democrats because of Kansas-

Nebraska Act.– Buchanan (D) won, but Republicans claimed “victorious

defeat.”• parties becoming sectional, not national.

positions hardening

• “freedom, temperance, Protestantism.”• “slavery, run, Romanism.”

reading for May 1

• Zinn & Arnove, Voices of a People’s History of the US, 2nd ed., p. 176 – 187.– Theodore Parker– Henry Bibb– Jermain Wesley Loguen– Frederick Douglass