APUSH Chapter 13 Study Guide/Notes

Notes
Manifest Destiny- South and North

After Missouri crisis politicians avoided policies that would cause regional issues

(ex. Texas annexation)

During 1840s Americans embraced ideology of God-given duty to expand to

Pacific Ocean

However, would the new territory be slave territory or egalitarian capitalist?

Push to Pacific

Manifest Destiny

John L. OSullivan, editor of Democratic Review, coined this phrase in

1845

Our manifest destiny is to overspread the continent allotted by

Providence for the free development of our yearly multiplying millions

Americans have god-given obligation spread across continent

Reflected sense of racial superiority to Western natives and Mexicans

Oregon

Farmers from Ohio River travel to fertile lands of Oregon Country

British-American agreement allowed settlement by people of both nations

American interest in Oregon increases dramatically in 1842

U.S. Navy discovers fine harbors in Puget Sound where NE merchants

traded with China

 Mild climate and rich soil

Oregon fever causes a thousand settlers to leave Independence, Missouri in

April 1843. Another 5,000 settlers follow in the next two years

By 1860 250,000 Americans travel Oregon Trail

Tough trail with many obstacles- over 34,000 died

10,000 settlers settle Oregon Willamette Valley

Limited voting to free white men

California

3,000 settlers leave Oregon trail at Snake River and go down California Trail

Mostly settled along Sacramento River where there were few Mexicans

Mexicans and Natives worked on huge ranches created by the Mexican

government and given mostly to specific families or political allies

Raised Spanish cattle

Ranches linked California to American economy

Merchants dispatched agents who bought leather from cattle to make

shoes and tallow to make soap and candles

Many agents married daughters of elite Mexican ranchers, the Californios,

and assimilated to their manners, attitudes, and Catholicism

American migrants in Sacramento Valley did not assimilate into Mexican society

Some consider annexing like in Texas

The Plains Indians

Migrants encounter ecology of Great Plains

Grass stretched for thousands of miles

 Not much rain

Buffalo and antelope

Buffalo-hunting Indians roamed western plains

Line of forts separated Indian territory and white settlements

Eastern river valleys were home to semi sedentary tribes and Indians that Andrew

Jackson removed

Corns and beans

Hunted buffalo

Some tribes developed horse-based culture

Comanches prominent in eastern plains

Pushed Apaches south

Pastoral economy

Families owned dozens of horses and mules

Traded along Santa Fe Trail

Poor men worked for richer Comanches

Smallpox epidemic in 1779 spreads from New Spain and kills half of Great Plains

peoples

Smallpox struck again from 1837 to 1840 killing up to half of tribes

Acquisition of weapons through trading causes conflict between tribes for land,

pushing each other around

Lakota Sioux dominate plains by 1830s

Sold buffalo hide down Missouri River

 Over hunting of buffalo reduced their population from 5 million to less than 2

million

Election of 1844

Policies would change towards Great Plains, West, and Texas

Politicians were reluctant to annex Texas into the U.S. but rumors of GB

encouraging Texas independence alarmed Americans

GB wanted California as repayment from Mexico for debt

Considered taking Cuba which American slave owners wanted

Southern expansionists said such plans could be thwarted by annexing Texas

Americans in Ohio River Valley and Great Lakes wanted American sovereignty

over Oregon Country from Spanish California to Russian Alaska

President John Tyler, who was pro slavery, called for annexation of Texas

Also supported northern expansion into Oregon

Tyler hoped to win re elected as a Democrat because he was kicked out of the

Whig Party

In April 1844 Tyler and Secretary of State Calhoun sent Senate a treaty to annex

Texas into the Union

Buren and Clay oppose this because they feared issue of slavery

Most southerners favored annexation and supported neither Van Buren or Tyler

Democrats choose Governor James K. Polk of Tennessee, a slave owner and

expansionist

Young Hickory

Had ambition of Jackson

 Embraced falsehood that Oregon and Texas already belonged to the US

Insisted US defy British claims and occupy all of Oregon till Alaskan border

Fifty-four forty or fight was his motto

Whigs nominate Henry Clay who advocated American System of tariffs, national

improvements, and national banking

Supported annexation for Southern votes

Whigs who refused to support expansion of slave states voted for James

G. Birney of Liberty Party

Polk narrowly wins but congressional Democrats lack s majority to ratify treaty

of Texan annexation. They decided to admit Texas through a joint resolution of

Congress which only require a house majority vote

Texas becomes 28th state in December 1845

War, Expansion and Slavery (1846-1850)

Many Democrats ignore the result of Texan annexation- war

The War With Mexico, 1846-1848

Civil wars in Mexico cause political instability and left economy stagnant and

government weak

Most of Mexicos revenue went off to pay debt to European bankers

Did not have many citizens in California or New Mexico but wanted to preserve

nations historic boundaries

Suspended diplomatic relations to the United States after Texan

annexation

Polks Expansionist Program

 Polk wanted to acquire Mexicos northern provinces

Wanted to cause a rebellion in California, similar to Texan rebellion

Secretary of State James Buchanan told merchant Thomas Oliver Larkin

to encourage Californios to seek independence and join US

Polk ordered navy to seize San Francisco bay and Californian coastal towns to

prepare for war

Captain John C Fremont ordered to explore Mexico with soldiers

They reach Sacramento River Valley in December 1845

Polk sent Louisiana congressman John Slidell to Mexico, telling him to secure

Rio Grande boundary for Texas and to buy California and New Mexico for $30

million

Mexican officials refuse to meet with him

Polk orders General Zachary Taylor and army of 2,000 soldiers to occupy

disputed land between Nueces River and Rio Grande

Waited for Mexicans to start a fight

A clash between Taylors army and the Mexican army in May 1846 gave Polk the

opportunity to declare war

To avoid simultaneous war with Britain Polk accepted British terms that

divided Oregon Country at the 49th parallel

American Military Successes

Americans in Texas quickly win

Taylor crosses Rio Grande and takes Matamoros

US navy takes Tampico

 By end of 1846 US owns most of Northeastern Mexico

California fights break out

John Sloat and 250 marines take over Monterey in California and declare

California will join the US

Settlers in Sacramento River Valley stage revolt and capture Sonoma

Declare independence of Bear Flag Republic

Polk captures Santa Fe and then goes to Southern California to solidify victory

California was captured by early 1847

Santa Anna almost defeats Taylor in northeastern Mexico at Buena Vista

Polk orders General Winfield Scott to capture Veracruz and seize Mexico City

with 14,000 soldiers

Mexico City was captured in 1847

Mexico was forced to make peace

A Divisive Victory

War against Mexico initially sparks explosion of patriotism but war soon divides

the nation

Northern Whigs, such as Charles Francis Adams and Chancellor James Kent

opposed war on moral grounds

Adams, Kent, and other conscience Whigs accuse Polk of waging a war of

conquest to add slave states and give slave-owning Democrats permanent

control of federal government

Many soldiers desert and antiwar activists denounce enlistees as murderers and

robbers
 Whig party takes control of Congress in 1846

Pledged to not seek any land from the Mexican republic

The Wilmot Proviso

Polks policies also split Democrats

In 1846, antislavery Democratic congressman David Wilmot proposes Wilmot

Proviso

Ban on slavery in any territories gained from the war

Antislavery democrats and Whigs quickly pass bill, dividing Congress

Proslavery congressmen work together to kill the bill

Democratic expansionists become more aggressive

Call for a huge annexation of Mexican territory south of the Rio Grande

Calhoun and other southern whites fear demand would extend costly war and

require assimilation of many mestizos

Favored annexation of only New Mexico and California

Polk and Buchanan accept Calhouns policy to unify party

In 1848 Polk and Senate sign and ratify Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo

United States paid Mexico $15 million for over of Mexican territory

Congress also passes Oregon Territory in 1848 and Oregon Donation Land Claim

Act in 1850, giving free farm-sized plots to settlers who moved there before 1854

Treaties with natives extinguished Indian land rights of the new territory

Free Soil

Senate rejects Wilmot Proviso

 Northerners thwart southerner plan to dominate national life in the free-soil

movement

Slavery was an institution of aristocratic men that was dangerous to the

masses of people because it threatened equal distribution of land

Free-soilers organized Free-soil party in 1848

Abandoned Garrisonians and Liberty Partys emphasis on sinfulness of

slavery and natural rights of African Americans

Depicted slavery as a threat to republicanism and Jeffersonian ideal of a

free-holder society

Many farmers join the party including Frederick Douglass, the most prominent

black abolitionist

The Election of 1848

Polk declines to run for second term because of exhaustion from Whig and Free-

soiler opposition and dies three months after leaving office

Democrats nominate Senator Lewis Cass of Michigan

Expansionist who wanted to buy Cuba, annex Mexicos Yucatan

Peninsula and taking all of Oregon

Promoted idea of squatter sovereignty- allowed settlers in each territory to

determine the status of the territory as a free or slave state

Northern Democrats join Free-soil party, including Martin Van Buren

Became the partys candidate for president

Charles Francis Whig for vice president

Whigs nominate General Zachary Taylor

 Louisiana slave owner who defended slavery in the south but not in the

territories, winning him northern support

Taylor wins majority in electoral college but only because Free-soil party took

enough votes in NY to deny Cass victory

California Gold and Racial Warfare

In January 1848 workers in California discovered gold while working for John

Sutter

Sutter tries hiding discovery but Americans from Monterey and San Francisco

poured into the foothills as well as immigrants from other nations

By the end of 1849 nearly 80,000 people, mostly men, arrive in California to find

gold. They were known as the forty-niners

The Forty-Niners

Lived in crowded, chaotic towns and mining camps

Gambled, had saloons and prostitutes

Had system of legal rules to mimic laws east

Treated whites fairly but expelled Indians, Mexicans, and Chileans from

goldfields

When large number of Chinese came in 1850 whites demanded laws

expelling them from California

First miners at a site had easy pickings to gold

Illnesses such as diarrhea cause deaths

Miners were reluctant to go back home because of ambition or they were too tired

Some turned to farming

 Racial Welfare and Land Rights

American migrants brush aside Mexican and native land claims

150,000 natives in California in 1848, only 30,000 in 1861

White Californians performed campaigns of extermination against natives

Murder

Took land away from natives and only gave them five reservations

Enslaved natives

Mexicans and Californios were harder to remove

Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo protected Mexican property in California

Squatters reject legitimacy of the Californios claims to unoccupied and

unimproved land

Farmers in northern california discover they could grow most eastern crops

Ranchers gradually replaced Spanish cattle with American bred cows that yielded

more milk and meat

Agricultural machinery produced huge crops of wheat and barley which was sold

from San Francisco to Europe

Gold rush turns into wheat boom

1850: Crisis and Compromise

Rapid settlement of California qualified it for admission to the Union

Taylor advises settlers to skip territorial phase and immediately apply for

statehood to avoid slavery debate

Californians ratify state constitution prohibiting slavery and president urges

Congress to admit California as a free state

 Constitutional Conflict

4 distinct debates in Congress over expansion of slavery

Calhouns Plan

To uphold southern honor and slavery Calhoun proposes a dual

presidency, permanently dividing executive power between the North and

South

Also argued that Congress had no constitutional authority to regulate

slavery in the territories- insisted slaves were property, and Congress was

violating property rights. Congress, however, was already prohibiting

slavery in most of the Louisiana territory. Yet Calhoun asserted that

slavery follows the flag- that planters could by right take their slave

property into new territories. This won support in the deep south.

2nd Plan Supported by James Buchanan and other northern democrats

More moderate proposal to extend the Missouri compromise line to the

Pacific Ocean

Would give slave owners a separate state in California

Third Plan was squatter sovereignty

Settlers decide if their territory was allowing slavery

Stephen Douglas of Illinois led this idea

Put power in hands of people

Anti-slavery advocates refuse any plan that made California a slave state. Their

plan, the 4th plan, was to restrict slavery to its existing boundaries and eventually

get rid of slavery completely

 Plan led by William H. Seward

A Complex Compromise

Whig and Democratic politicians desperately worked to preserve the Union

Aided by Millard Fillmore, president in 1850 after Taylors death

Whig leaders Clay and Webster and Democrat Stephen A. Douglas pass five

separate laws known as Compromise of 1850

Fugitive slave act gave federal support to slave catchers

California admitted as a free state

Boundary dispute between New Mexico and Texas favored New Mexico

Abolished slave trade (but not slavery) in Washington D.C.

Organized the rest of the conquered Mexican lands into territories of New

Mexico and Utah, allowing popular sovereignty on slavery vote to

residents

Southerners still feared for the future and threatened secession

Militant activists in the South organized special conventions to protect rights of

south

The End of the Second Party System (1850-1858)

Religious leaders, conservative businessmen and leading judges call upon citizens

to support Compromise of 1850

Antislavery northerners refuse to accept compromise and proslavery southerners

plot to extend slavery to West, Central America and Caribbean

Destroys second party system

Resistance to fugitive slave act

 The act required federal magistrates to determine status of alleged runaway slaves

and denied them a jury trial or even right to testify

Aroused popular hostility in North and Midwest

Free blacks and white abolitionists ignore consequences and protect fugitives

Mobs help slaves escape slave catchers

Frederick Douglass abandons nonviolence and says slave catchers should be

killed until law is removed

In Christiana, Penn, shootout between African Americans and slave catchers kills

two slave catchers. But slaves charges are later dropped

Harriet Beecher Stowe publishes the novel Uncle Toms Cabin

Boosted opposition to slave act

Conveyed moral principles of abolitionism to arouse sentimentalism

Sold by hundreds of thousands, even in Britain

Legislatures in the north protects slaves and pass personal liberty laws

Guaranteed to all residents, including fugitives, the right to a jury trial

In Ableman v Booth Wisconsin Supreme Court proclaimed Fugitive Slave

Act unconstitutional because it violated Wisconsin state rights

Chief Justice Roger B. Taney upholds constitutionality of slavery in Supreme

Court in 1859

Whigs Disintegrate and New Parties Arise

Whigs ran General Winfield Scott as candidate in 1852 to unify party

Democrats consider Lewis Cass, Stephen Douglas, and James Buchanan

Advocated popular sovereignty

 Ultimately settled on Franklin Pierce of NH

Pierce won as Whigs were divided

Proslavery Initiatives

Pierce had expansionist foreign policy

Assisted northern merchants through trade with Japan

Sought extensive Mexican lands south of Rio Grande to give more land for

plantations in the south

Gadsden Purchase of 1853- Pierce buys land from Mexico that is now in

Arizona and New Mexico that opened the way for James Gadsden, the

negotiator, to build railroad from New Orleans to Los Angeles

Pierce encourages Cuba to declare independence from Spain and join United

States

Threatened war with Spain

Secretary of State William L. Marcy arranged for American diplomats in Europe

in 1854 to create Ostend Manifesto that urged Pierce to seize Cuba

Northern democrats denounced aggressive initiatives and scuttled plans

Kansas-Nebraska Act

Controversy over trans-Mississippi west in 1854 destroys Whig Party

Missouri Compromise prohibits new slave states north of 36 30 so southern

senators prevent creation of new territories there

Permanent Indian territory

Stephen Douglas wanted to open it up allowed transcontinental railroad from

Chicago to California
 Wanted to extinguish Native American rights on Great Plains and create

free territory called Nebraska

Largely opposed by Democrats who wanted Louisiana purchase to be

slave territories

Douglas amends bill so it repeals Missouri Compromise and organize by

popular sovereignty

Agreed to formation of Nebraska and Kansas territories

Argued to northerners that Kansas was not suited to plantations and it

would be a free state

Senate passes Kansas-Nebraska Act after weeks of debate

Republican and American Parties

Kansas-Nebraska Act destroyed Whig Party

Anti-Nebraska Democrats denounce act as a great scheme for extending slave

power

They join ex-Whigs and Free Soilers to form new Republican Party

Was a coalition of opposition to slavery

Slavery drove down wages of free workers and degraded dignity of

manual labor

Praised a society based on middle class working on land that they owned

themselves

Abraham Lincoln, ex-Whig from Illinois, conveyed partys vision of social

mobility

Independent farmers, artisans, and proprietors

 Middle class values- domesticity and respectability, religious commitment

and capitalist enterprise

Republicans face strong competition from American/Know-Nothing Party

Anti-immigrant and anti-Catholic

Wanted to mobilize native-born Protestants against alien menace of

Irish and German Catholics, prohibiting immigration and have literacy

tests for voting

Northern members were antislavery

Bleeding Kansas

Thousands of settlers rush into Kansas

Tested popular sovereignty

Missouri encourages citizens to cross state border and vote in Kansas in favor of

slavery

NE Emigrant Aid Society dispatches free-soilers to Kansas

Pierce administration accepts legitimacy of proslavery legislature in Lecompton,

Kansas, but majority of residents favored free soil and refused allegiance to

Lecompton government

Both sides turn to violence in 1856

Horace Greeley of New York Tribune labels territory Bleeding Kansas

Proslavery force looted and burned down free soil town of Lawrence

Enraged John Brown, 56 year old abolitionist from New York and Ohio

who commanded a free state militia

 Brown had intellectual and moral intensity that won trust of influential

people

Brown and his followers murdered five proslavery settlers at

Pottawatomie

Started guerilla war in Kansas

Buchanans Failed Presidency

Republican party used anger over Bleeding Kansas to boost popularity

Demanded federal government prohibit slavery in all territories

Called for federal subsidies for transcontinental railroads, winning Midwestern

support

Republicans nominate Colonel John C. Fremont, free soiler who won fame in

Mexican-American war

Election of 1856

American Party split over nominee

South chooses Millard Fillmore

North endorses Fremont

Republicans win many Know-Nothing votes by demanding legislation bans on

immigrants and imposing high tariffs on foreign manufactures

Democrats nominate Buchanan

Pro Southern, pro popular sovereignty and experienced

Buchanan wins

Dred Scott Petitions for Freedom

1857- Dred Scott v Sandford

 Dred Scott was an enslaved African American who lived in Illinois for some time

Scott claimed that residence in a free state and a free state and territory made him

free

Buchanan opposes Scotts appeal and pressured justices to side with south

7/9 judges declared Scott was still a slave but disagreed on legal rationale

Taney wrote the most influential opinion

African Americans could not be citizens if they were either free or

enslaved and had no right to sue in federal court

Controversial, as blacks were citizens in many states and had access to

federal courts

Taney also said Fifth Amendment prohibited taking of property without

due process of law- southern citizens could move their slave property

north and still own them there. He called the Northwest Ordinance and

Missouri Compromise unconstitutional. Lastly, Taney said territories did

not have power to prohibit slavery, endorsing popular sovereignty

Taney basically declared Republican proposals to restrict slavery unconstitutional

Republicans accuse Taney and Buchanan of participating in Slave Power

conspiracy

Buchanan ignored that antislavery proposals had clear majority in Kansas and

refused to allow popular vote on proslavery Lecompton constitution and urged

Congress to admit Kansas as a slave state

Stephen Douglas was angry with president and persuaded Congress to deny

statehood to Kansas
 Buchanan resumed negotiations to buy Cuba in December 1858

Split Democrat party and nation

Abraham Lincoln and Republican Triumph (1858-1860)

As democrat party is divided sectionally Republicans gain support

Few southerners trusted Lincoln and he revived secessionist agitation

Lincoln's Political Career

Came from yeoman farm family who were continually on the move

Rejected becoming a farmer and became clerk in New Salem, Illinois

Entered middle class by mastering its culture, joining the New Salem Debating

Society, read Shakespeare, and studied law

An Ambitious Politician

Lincolns ambition and admiration for Henry Clay drove him into politics

Joined Whigs and won election to four terms in Illinois legislature

Promoted education, banks, canals and railroads

Adept in use of patronage and legislation

Lincoln believed human bondage was unjust but doubted that the federal

government had the constitutional authority to tamper with slavery

Neutral on Mexican War

Voted for military appropriations but also for Wilmot Proviso ban on

slavery in territories

Lincoln introduced legislation of gradual emancipation of slaves in DOC

Favored colonization of freed blacks in Africa or South America

 His neutral policies were attacked by both abolitionists and proslavery congress

members

Withdrew from politics by representing railroads and manufacturers

Returned to politics because of Kansas-Nebraska Act

Reaffirmed his opposition to slavery in the territories

Believed slavery had to end if republicanism was to endure

Lincoln-Douglas Debates

Abandoned the Whigs and quickly emerged as leading Republican in Illinois

Ran for U.S. Senate seat in 1858 held by Douglas

Lincoln argued that the pro slavery Supreme Court might soon declare that the

constitution does not permit a state to exclude territory

Because of Dred Scott he believed Supreme Court made Illinois a slave

state

Compared to Congress being divided to biblical passage that a house divided

against itself cannot stand

US cannot exist half-free half-slave

Senate race in Illinois attracted national attention because of Douglass

prominence and Lincolns reputation as a speaker

Douglas declared his support for white supremacy

Lincoln countered his racist attacks by arguing that free blacks should have equal

economic opportunities but not equal political rights

Lincoln asked Douglas how he could accept Dred Scott ruling which protected

slave property in the territories but also advocate popular sovereignty

 Douglas responds with Freeport Doctrine- a territorys residents could exclude

slavery by not adopting laws to protect it

Neither pleased proslavery and antislavery advocates

Democrats rejected Douglas into senate

Union Under Siege

Debates gave Lincoln national reputation and Republican party won control of US

house of representatives

Rise of Radicalism

Democrats divide into moderates and extremists

Moderates, who included Jefferson Davis, strongly defended protections for

southern slavery

Extremists, such as Robert Barnwell Rhett and William Lowndes Yancey

repudiated the Union and promoted secession

In October 1859 abolitionist John Brown led 18 heavily armed black and white

men on a raid on federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia

Hoped to arm slaves in massive rebellion to end slavery

Republicans condemn Browns unsuccessful raid but Democrats call his plot a

inevitable result of the doctrines and teachings of the Republican Party

When Virginia wanted to hang Brown transcendentalists Thoreau and Emerson

proclaim him a saint

Southerners feared republican intentions to ban slavery

Northern Democrats nominate Stephen Douglas for president and Southern

Democrats nominate John C. Breckinridge

 Election of 1860

Republicans had easy victory with divided democrats

Opposed both slavery and racial equality

National Republican Convention nominates Lincoln as presidential candidate

because he was more moderate on slavery than the best-known Republicans

Conveyed egalitarianism to smallholding farmers and wage earners

Lincoln won with absolute majority

Less than 1% of popular vote in south

Won every northern state

Breckinridge sweeps Deep South

Douglas won electoral votes only from Missouri and NJ

John Townsend warns that Republican administration would suppress inter-state

Slave trade

APUSH Chapter 13 Study Guide

People

James K. Polk

Governor James K. Polk of Tennessee, a slave owner and expansionist

Young Hickory

Had ambition of Jackson

 Embraced falsehood that Oregon and Texas already belonged to the US

Insisted US defy British claims and occupy all of Oregon till Alaskan border

Fifty-four forty or fight was his motto

Supported Mexican American war

Wanted to take Texas and California

President from 1844 to 1848

Did not run second term because of exhaustion

Frederick Douglass

Most prominent black abolitionist

Joined Free-soil Party

Turned to violence after fugitive slave act

Zachary Taylor

Famous General in Mexican-American War

Defeated Santa Anna

Whig nominee and president from 1848 to 1850

Louisiana slave owner who supported slavery in south but not in territories

Advised California to immediately apply for statehood

Died in 1850 and replaced by VP Fillmore

Lewis Cass

Senator Lewis Cass of Michigan

Democrat
 Expansionist who wanted to buy Cuba, annex Mexicos Yucatan

Peninsula and taking all of Oregon

Promoted idea of squatter sovereignty

Stephen Douglas

Supported squatter sovereignty

Persuaded congress to deny Kansas statehood after Buchanan ignores

antislavery majority vote

Nominated for president by northern democrats in 1860

Wanted to get rid of native American rights so transcontinental road could be

built on Great Plains

Debated against Lincoln in 1858 for Senate seat in Illinois

Proposed Freeport Doctrine

Harriet Beecher Stowe

Author of Uncle Toms Cabin

Boosted opposition to slave act

Conveyed moral principles of abolitionism to arouse sentimentalism

Sold by hundreds of thousands, even in Britain

John Brown

Abolitionist who took violent extremist measures

Proslavery force looted and burned down free soil town of Lawrence in Kansas

Enraged Brown, 56 year old abolitionist from New York and Ohio who

commanded a free state militia

 Brown had intellectual and moral intensity that won trust of influential

people

Brown and his followers murdered five proslavery settlers at

Pottawatomie

In October 1859 abolitionist John Brown led 18 heavily armed black and white

men on a raid on federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia

Hoped to arm slaves in massive rebellion to end slavery

When Virginia sentenced Brown to hanging, transcendentalists Thoreau

and Emerson proclaim him a saint

Abraham Lincoln

ex-Whig from Illinois, conveyed Republican Partys vision of social mobility

Came from yeoman farm family who were continually on the move

Rejected becoming a farmer and became clerk in New Salem, Illinois

Lincolns ambition and admiration for Henry Clay drove him into politics

Joined Whigs and won election to four terms in Illinois legislature

Promoted education, banks, canals and railroads

Adept in use of patronage and legislation

Lincoln believed human bondage was unjust but doubted that the federal

government had the constitutional authority to tamper with slavery

Neutral on Mexican War

Voted for military appropriations but also for Wilmot Proviso ban

on slavery in territories

Lincoln introduced legislation of gradual emancipation of slaves in DOC

 Favored colonization of freed blacks in Africa or South America

His neutral policies were attacked by both abolitionists and proslavery congress

members

Returned to politics because of Kansas-Nebraska Act

Reaffirmed his opposition to slavery in the territories

Believed slavery had to end if republicanism was to endure

Abandoned the Whigs and quickly emerged as leading Republican in Illinois

Ran for U.S. Senate seat in 1858 held by Douglas

Lincoln argued that the pro slavery Supreme Court might soon declare that

the constitution does not permit a state to exclude territory

Because of Dred Scott he believed Supreme Court made Illinois a

slave state

Compared to Congress being divided to biblical passage that a house

divided against itself cannot stand

US cannot exist half-free half-slave

Senate race in Illinois attracted national attention because of Douglass

prominence and Lincolns reputation as a speaker

National Republican Convention nominates Lincoln as presidential

candidate because he was more moderate on slavery than the best-known

Republicans

Conveyed egalitarianism to smallholding farmers and wage earners

Lincoln won with absolute majority

 Terms

Manifest destiny

John L. OSullivan, editor of Democratic Review, coined this phrase in 1845

Americans have god-given obligation spread across continent

Reflected sense of racial superiority to Western natives and Mexicans

Fifty-four forty or fight

Motto of James K. Polk who wanted US to defy British claims and occupy all of

Oregon until Alaskan border

Conscience Whigs

Whigs who accused Polk of waging a war of conquest to add slave states and give

slave-owning Democrats permanent control of federal government

Free soil movement

Northerners thwart southerner plan to dominate national life in the free-soil

movement

Slavery was an institution of aristocratic men that was dangerous to the

masses of people because it threatened equal distribution of land

Free-soilers organized Free-soil party in 1848

Abandoned Garrisonians and Liberty Partys emphasis on sinfulness of

slavery and natural rights of African Americans

Depicted slavery as a threat to republicanism and Jeffersonian ideal of a

free-holder society

Squatter (popular) sovereignty

 Allowed settlers in each territory to determine the status of the territory as a free

or slave territory

49ers

Those who moved to California in search of gold in 1849

Lived in crowded, chaotic towns and mining camps

Gambled, had saloons and prostitutes

Had system of legal rules to mimic laws east

Treated whites fairly but expelled Indians, Mexicans, and Chileans from

goldfields

When large number of Chinese came in 1850 whites demanded laws

expelling them from California

Personal liberty laws

Legislatures in the north protect runaway slaves with personal liberty laws

Guaranteed to all residents, including fugitive slaves, the right to a jury

trial

American/Know Nothing Party

Anti-immigrant and anti-Catholic

Wanted to mobilize native-born Protestants against alien menace of Irish and

German Catholics, prohibiting immigration and have literacy tests for voting

Northern members were antislavery

Bleeding Kansas

Popular sovereignty test

 Missouri encourages citizens to cross state border and vote in Kansas in favor of

slavery

NE Emigrant Aid Society dispatches free-soilers to Kansas

Pierce administration accepts legitimacy of proslavery legislature in Lecompton,

Kansas, but majority of residents favored free soil and refused allegiance to

Lecompton government

Both sides turn to violence in 1856

Proslavery forces loot and burn down Lawrence but abolitionist forces led by

John Brown kill 5 pro slavery activists at Pottawatomie

Events

Wilmot Proviso

Bill that David Wilmot proposed banning slavery in all territories gained from the

Mexican-American War

Rejected by Senate due to southern opposition

Compromise of 1850

Whig leaders Clay and Webster and Democrat Stephen A. Douglas pass five

separate laws known as Compromise of 1850

Fugitive slave act gave federal support to slave catchers

California admitted as a free state

Boundary dispute between New Mexico and Texas favored New Mexico

Abolished slave trade (but not slavery) in Washington D.C.

 Organized the rest of the conquered Mexican lands into territories of New

Mexico and Utah, allowing popular sovereignty on slavery vote to

residents

Gadsden Purchase

1853- Pierce buys land from Mexico that is now in Arizona and New Mexico that

opened the way for James Gadsden, the negotiator, to build railroad from New

Orleans to Los Angeles

Ostend Manifesto

Secretary of State William L. Marcy arranged for American diplomats in Europe

in 1854 to create Ostend Manifesto that urged Pierce to seize Cuba

Kansas- Nebraska Act

Missouri Compromise prohibits new slave states north of 36 30 so southern

senators prevent creation of new territories there

Permanent Indian territory

Stephen Douglas wanted to open it up allowed transcontinental railroad from

Chicago to California

Wanted to extinguish Native American rights on Great Plains and create

free territory called Nebraska

Largely opposed by Democrats who wanted Louisiana purchase to be

slave territories

Douglas amends bill so it repeals Missouri Compromise and organize by

popular sovereignty

Agreed to formation of Nebraska and Kansas territories

 Argued to northerners that Kansas was not suited to plantations and it

would be a free state

Senate passes Kansas-Nebraska Act after weeks of debate

Dred Scott v. Sanford

1857- Dred Scott v Sandford

Dred Scott was an enslaved African American who lived in Illinois for some time

Scott claimed that residence in a free state and a free state and territory made him

free

Buchanan opposes Scotts appeal and pressured justices to side with south

7/9 judges declared Scott was still a slave but disagreed on legal rationale

Taney wrote the most influential opinion

African Americans could not be citizens if they were either free or

enslaved and had no right to sue in federal court

Controversial, as blacks were citizens in many states and had access to

federal courts

Taney also said Fifth Amendment prohibited taking of property without

due process of law- southern citizens could move their slave property

north and still own them there. He called the Northwest Ordinance and

Missouri Compromise unconstitutional. Lastly, Taney said territories did

not have power to prohibit slavery, endorsing popular sovereignty

Lincoln-Douglas debates/Freeport Doctrine

Senate race in Illinois attracted national attention because of Douglass

prominence and Lincolns reputation as a speaker

 Douglas declared his support for white supremacy

Lincoln countered his racist attacks by arguing that free blacks should have equal

economic opportunities but not equal political rights

Lincoln asked Douglas how he could accept Dred Scott ruling which protected

slave property in the territories but also advocate popular sovereignty

Douglas responds with Freeport Doctrine- a territorys residents could exclude

slavery by not adopting laws to protect it

Neither pleased proslavery and antislavery advocates

Democrats rejected Douglas into senate

Questions

1. How did westward expansion threaten war with Britain & Mexico?

Britain

Was interested in seizing California as payment from Mexico because of debt

Disputes between American/British Border in Oregon Country

Mexico

Expansionists annexed Texas into the US to ward Britain off of claims in the west

Mexico cut off diplomatic relations with US

Border dispute of Texas at Rio Grande

Idea of Manifest Destiny encouraged some expansionists to remove the Mexicans

from the west and rebel like Texas

 2. How did the Fugitive Slave Act lead to the undoing of the Compromise of 1850?

The act required federal magistrates to determine status of alleged runaway slaves and

denied them a jury trial or even right to testify

Aroused popular hostility in North and Midwest amongst antislavery activists

Free blacks and white abolitionists ignore consequences and protect fugitives

Mobs help slaves escape slave catchers

Legislatures in the north protects slaves and pass personal liberty laws

Guaranteed to all residents, including fugitives, the right to a jury trial

The northerners rejection for the Fugitive Slave Act made them reject the compromise as

a whole, especially when Taney upholds the act in 1859

3. Why did the southerners conclude that the North was bent on extinguishing slavery

in southern states?

Radical abolitionists use violence against south

John Browns raid on Harpers Ferry to start a slave rebellion

Thought this was a result of the teachings of the Republican Party

Election of 1860- Lincoln Winning

His opinion on slavery was that it was a threat to the republicanism of the nation

Slavery needed to stop for republicanism to continue

Thought the south should not secede- America cannot exist as a half-free half-

slave country

Assumed Lincoln would push his beliefs onto the south