Chapter 13: The Impending Crisis



Chapter 13: The Impending Crisis

I. Looking Westward

A. Manifest Destiny

• America was destined, by God, to expand its boundaries over the continent of North America

• Many arguments for expansion was an explicitly racial justification

o Americans defended westward expansion by citing the superiority of the “American Race”

• Indians, Mexicans and others were unfit to be part of “American” community

o Movement to spread both a political system and a racially defined society

• Henry Clay and other politicians feared expansion would reopen the controversy of slavery and threaten the stability of the Union

B. Americans in Texas

• The US renounced its claims to Texas in 1819

• In the early 1820s, Mexican govt. encouraged American immigration into Texas

o Hoped to strengthen economy and increase tax revenues

• Stephen F. Austin established the first legal American settlement in Texas in 1822

• Austin and others were effective in recruiting American immigrants and created centers of powers in the region to compete w/ the Mexican govt.

• By 1835, over 30,000 Americans had settled in Texas

C. Tensions between the US and Mexico

• In the mid-1830’s, General Santa Anna seized power as a dictator & imposed a conservative and autocratic regime

• New law increased powers of federal govt. at the expense of the state govts.

• Mexicans even imprisoned Austin in Mexico City claiming he was encouraging revolts

• In 1836, American settlers defiantly proclaimed their independence from Mexico

• Santa Anna led a large army into Texas & Mexican forces annihilated US garrison at the Alamo

• On April 23, 1836 Sam Houston defeated the Mexican army at the Battle of San Jacinto and took Santa Anna prisoner

o Santa Anna, under pressure from his captors, signed a treaty giving Texas independence

• President Jackson feared annexation might cause a sectional controversy and a war with Mexico

• The Texas question became the central issue in the election of 1844

D. Oregon

• Both Britain and the US claimed sovereignty in the region, known as “joint occupation”

• American interest grew in the 1820’s and 1830’s — a target for evangelical efforts

• White American began emigrating in the early 1840’s and soon outnumbered the British

• Measles spread through the Cayuse and in 1847 they attacked and killed 13 whites

• By the mid 1840’s American immigration had spread up and down the Pacific Coast

E. The Westward Migration

• Hundred of thousands migrated between 1840 and 1860, but largest number of migrants came from the Old NW in search of opportunity

• Groups headed for areas where mining and lumbering was the principal economic activity

• Those heading for farming regions traveled mainly as families

• Migrants harbored different visions of what new life would bring: Hoped for quick riches, acquired property for farming & speculation and others hoped to establish themselves as merchants

• Vast majority of migrants looked for economic opportunities

F. Life on the Trial

• Generally gathered in Iowa & Missouri, joined a wagon train, and set off with their belongings

• The major route west was the 2,000-mile Oregon Trail

• Other migrations moved along the Santa Fe Trail, from Independence, MO to NM

• Migrants faced considerable hardships; mountain and diverse terrain and epidemic diseases

• Conflicts between migrants and Indians created widespread fear

o More Indians than white people died in those conflicts

• Almost everyone walked the great majority of the time, to lighten the load for the horses

• Many expeditions consisted of friends, neighbors, or relatives who moved west together

II. Expansion and War

• In the 1840s, expansionist pressures helped push the US into a war that became a triumph for the advocates of Manifest Destiny

A. The Democrats and Expansion

• Nominated a strong supporter of annexation the previously unheralded James K. Polk

• Democratic platform, “that the re-occupation of Oregon and the re-annexation of Texas at the earliest practical period are great American measures.”

• Polk entered office with a clear set of goals and plans pertaining to them

• For the annexation of Texas, the president had won congressional approval

• Loose talk of war on both sides - US took form of the bellicose slogan “Fifty-four forty or fight!”

• In 1864, the Senate approved a treaty that fixed the boundary at the 49th parallel

B. The Southwest and California

• Mexican-American relations grew worse over boundary dispute between Texas and Mexico

o Texans claimed the Rio Grande

• Polk sent army under Gen. Zachary Taylor to Texas to protect against a possible Mexican invasion

• Part of the area in dispute was NM - flourishing commerce soon developed between Santa Fe and Independence, MO

• Americans were also increasing their interest in California

• Gradually, white Americans began to arrive

o First maritime traders, then merchants, and finally pioneering farmers

• President Polk committed himself to acquiring both New Mexico and California for the U.S

C. The Mexican War

• Polk dispatched John Slidell to buy off the Mexicans, but Mexican leaders rejected Slidell’s offer

• Polk ordered Taylor’s army in Texas to move across the Nueces River, to the Rio Grande

• Mexican troops crossed the Rio Grande and attacked a unit of American soldiers

• Congress declared war by votes of 40-2 in the Senate and 174-14 in the House

• The war had many opponents in the U.S:

o Whig critics charged that Polk had deliberately maneuvered the country into the conflict

o Many argued that the hostilities with Mexico were draining resources and attention away from the more important issues of the Pacific Northwest

• Taylor captured Monterrey in September 1846, but he let the Mexican garrison evacuate without pursuit

• Polk ordered other offensives against New Mexico and California

• Col. Stephen W. Kearney captured Santa Fe with no opposition, then proceeded to California, where he joined John C. Fremont and the American navy: the so-called Bear Flag Revolution

o By the autumn of 1846 he had completed the conquest of California

• General Winfield Scott launched a bold new campaign

• Scott advanced towards Mexico City & never lost a battle before finally seizing the Mexican capital

• February 2, 1848 - agreement w/ Mexican govt. on the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo

o Mexico agreed to cede California and NM to the US

• America gained vast new territory, but it also acquired a new set of troubling and diverse issues

III. The Sectional Debate

• Polk gradually earned the enmity of northerners and westerners alike, who believed in his policies and favored the South at their expense

A. Slavery and the Territories

• Wilmot Proviso: amendment to the bill prohibiting slavery in any territory acquired from Mexico

o Bill passed in the House, but failed in the Senate

o Southern militants contended that all Americans had equal rights in the new territories, including the right to move their “property” (slaves)

• Others supported a plan known as the “squatter sovereignty,” and later “popular sovereignty”

o Allowed the people of each territory to decide the status of slavery there

• The presidential campaign of 1848, Whigs nominated General Zachary Taylor of Louisiana, opponents of slavery found the choice of candidates unsatisfying

o Out of their discontent emerged the new Free-Soil Party, its candidate Martin Van Buren

• The emergence of the Soil-Party as an important political force, signaled the inability of the existing parties to contain the political passions slavery was creating

o Led to the collapse of the second party system in the 1850s

B. The California Gold Rush

• James Marshall found traces of gold in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada’s

• Hundreds of thousands of people from around the world began flocking to California

• California migrants (a.k.a Forty-niners) threw caution to the wind

o Abandoned farms, jobs, homes, families; piled onto ships and flooded the overland trails

• Gold rush also attracted some of the first Chinese migrants to the western U.S

• Chinese were free laborers & merchants, hoping to profit from other economic opportunities the gold boom was creating

• Gold rush created serious labor shortage, led to exploitation of Indians that resembled slavery

• By early 1850s, CA, which had always been a diverse population, had become remarkably heterogeneous

• Conflicts over gold intersected with racial and ethnic tensions to make the territory an unusually turbulent place

• Rush became another factor putting pressure on the US, to resolve the status of the territories- and of slavery within them

C. The Compromise of 1850

• Henry Clay believed that no compromise could last unless it settled all the issues in dispute between the sections

• Among the bill’s provisions were:

o Admission of California as a free state

o Formation of territorial govts. in lands acquired from Mexico, w/out restrictions on slavery

o Abolition of the slave trade in the District of Columbia

o New and more effective fugitive slave law

• Calhoun insisted that the North grant the South equal rights in the territories, that it agree to observe the laws concerning fugitive slaves

• Daniel Webster delivered an eloquent address in the Senate, trying to rally northern moderates to support Clay’s compromise

• William H. Seward of NY staunchly opposed the proposed compromise

o Ideals of Union were to him less important than the issue of eliminating slavery

o Slavery issue was less one of principles and ideals than one of the economic self-interest

o Stephen A. Douglas was a spokesman for the economic needs of his section and especially for the construction of railroads

▪ His career was devoted to sectional gain and personal self-promotion

• On July 9, 1850, Taylor suddenly died and was succeeded by Millard Fillmore of NY

• Fillmore supported compromise & used powers of persuasion to swing northern Whigs into line

• Compromise of 1850 was not a product of widespread agreement, rather a victory of self-interest

IV. The Crises of the 1850’s

A. The Uneasy Truce

• Franklin Pierce attempted to maintain party-and national-harmony by avoiding divisive issues, and particularly by avoiding the issues of slavery

• Northern opposition to the Fugitive Slave Act intensified quickly after 1850

o Mobs formed in some northern cities to prevent enforcement of the law

o Several northern states also passed their own laws barring deportation of fugitive slaves

B. “Young America”

• Seized Cuba, the Ostend Manifesto enraged antislavery northerners, who charged the administration with conspiring to bring a new slave state into the Union

C. Slavery, Railroads, and the West

• Transcontinental railroad had become part of the struggle between the North and South

• Northerners favored Chicago while Southerners supported St. Louis, Memphis, or New Orleans

• In 1853, Davis sent James Gadsden to Mexico, where he persuaded the Mexican govt. to accept $10 million in exchange for a strip of land that today comprises part of Arizona and New Mexico

o Gadsden purchase only accentuated the sectional rivalry

D. The Kansas-Nebraska Controversy

• Stephen A. Douglas introduced a bill in January 1854 to organize a huge new territory, Nebraska

• To make the measure acceptable to southerners, Douglas inserted a provision that the status of slavery in the territory would be determined by “popular sovereignty”

o In theory , the region could choose to open itself to slavery

o Douglas agreed to an additional clause explicitly repealing the MO Compromise

o Agreed to divide the area into two territories - Nebraska and Kansas

▪ KS was more likely to become a slave state

• President Pierce supported the bill, and it became law in May 1854

• No legislation in US history produced so many immediate, sweeping & ominous consequences

o It divided and destroyed the Whig Party and divided the northern Democrats

o Most important, it spurred the creation of a new party, the Republican Party

E. “Bleeding Kansas”

• White settlers from both the North and South began moving into the area

• Pro-slavery forces elected a majority to the legislature, immediately legalized slavery

• Free-staters elected their own delegates, adopted a constitution excluding delegates

o Chose their own governor and legislature and petitioned Congress for statehood

o Pres. Pierce denounced them as traitors, threw the full support of the federal govt. behind pro-slavery territorial legislature

• Pro-slavery posse, consisting mostly of Missourians sacked Lawrence, burned the “governor’s” house and destroyed several printing presses

• Among the most fervent abolitionists in Kansas was John Brown who considered himself an instrument of God’s will to destroy slavery

• Gathered six followers and murdered five pro-slavery settlers, known as the Pottawatomie Massacre

• Bleeding Kansas became a symbol of the sectional controversy

F. Free-Soil Ideology

• Tensions were reflections of the two sections’ differing economic and territorial interests, also reflections of a hardening of ideas in both North and South

• South was engaged in a conspiracy to extend throughout the nation and thus destroy northern capitalism, and replace it with the aristocratic system of the South

o Only solution to “slave power conspiracy” was to fight the spread of slavery and extend the nation’s democratic ideals to all sections of the country

G. The Pro-Slavery Argument

• Result of many things: Nat Turner uprising in 1831, expanded cotton economy into the Deep South, and the Garrisonian abolitionist movement

• In The Pro-Slavery Argument, Calhoun stated slavery was good for the slaves, because they enjoyed better conditions than industrial workers in the North

• The defense of slavery rested on arguments about biological inferiority of African-Americans

H. Buchanan and Depression

• Buchanan won a narrow victory over Fremont and Fillmore

• A painfully timid and indecisive president at a critical moment in history

• In the year Buchanan took office, a financial panic stuck the country, followed by a depression that lasted several years

I. Dred Scott Decision

• Supreme Court projected itself into sectional controversy w/ its ruling in Dred Scott v. Sanford

• Federal courts claimed Scott had no standing to sue - he was not a citizen, but private property

• Supreme Court was so divided that is was unable to issue a single ruling on the case

• Chief Justice Robert Taney declared that Scott could not bring a suit in the federal courts because he was not a citizen

• Slaves were property and the Fifth Amendment prohibited Congress from taking property without “due process of law”

• Consequently, Congress possessed no authority to pass a law depriving persons of their slave property in the territories

o Missouri Compromise, therefore, had always been unconstitutional

• The statement that the federal govt. was powerless to act on the issue was drastic and startling

o Southern whites were elated, but northerners expressed widespread dismay

J. Deadlock over Kansas

• Majority of people of Kansas opposed slavery

• In 1861, after several southern states had already withdrawn from the Union, Kansas entered the Union-as a free state

K. The Emergence of Lincoln

• Lincoln-Douglas debates attracted enormous crowds and received wide attention

• Lincoln’s increasingly eloquent and passionate attacks on slavery

• Douglas had no moral position and Lincoln’s opposition to slavery was more fundamental

• Lincoln believed slavery was morally wrong, but was not an abolitionist

• He would arrest the further spread of slavery – preventing expansion into the territories

• Lincoln lost the election but emerged w/ a growing following in and beyond the state

L. John Brown’s Raid

• JB made plans to seize a mountain fortress in VA and foment a slave insurrection in the South

• He and 18 followers attacked and seized control of US arsenal in Harpers Ferry, VA

• He found himself besieged in the arsenal by citizens, local militia and US troops under the command of Robert E. Lee

o Convinced white southerners that they couldn’t live safely in the Union

M. Election of Lincoln

• Presidential election of 1860 had the most momentous consequences of any in American history

• Democratic Party nominated Stephen Douglas

• Disenchanted southern Democrats nominated John C. Breckenridge of KY

• Conservative ex-Whigs formed the Constitutional Union Party w/ John Bell, TN. as their candidate

• Republican convention chose Abraham Lincoln as their nominee

o Appealing for reputation of eloquence and firm but moderate position on slavery

• Lincoln won presidency w/ majority of electoral votes but only 2/5 of fragmented popular vote

• Election of Lincoln became the final signal to many white southerners that their position in the Union was hopeless

• Within a few weeks of Lincoln’s victory, the process of disunion began

o Quickly led to a prolonged and bloody war between two groups of Americans

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