Renewing the Sectional Struggle

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Renewing the Sectional Struggle

• Chapter 18 APUSH

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The Popular Sovereignty Panacea1848

• Post Mexican War Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo
• Northern anti-slavery advocates backed Wilmot
  Proviso
• South worried about slavery in western areas
• Whig and Democratic Parties split along
• North/South line

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Free Soil Party
Free Soil! Free Speech!
Free Labor! Free Men!

• Industrialists who wanted higher protective
  tariffs
• Barnburners discontented northern Democrats.
• Anti-slavery members of the Liberty and Whig
  Parties.
• Opposition to the extension of slavery in the
  newterritories! (Supported Wilmot Proviso)

WHY?
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The 1848 Presidential Election Results
v
Hero of Buena Vista
Father of popular sovereignty
Free Soil
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GOLD! At Sutters Mill, 1848
John A. Sutter
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California Gold Rush, 1849
49ers
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California Gold Fever

• Huge numbers of people flocking to California
  caused problems
• Increase in crime
• When the territorial government failed to protect
  its citizens, people turned to vigilante justice
• Behind the scenes, President Taylor encourages
  California to draft a Constitution that excludes
  slavery and then apply for admission to the U.S.
  as a state

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Sectional Balance and theUnderground Railroad
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Problems of Sectional Balancein 1850

• California statehood.
• Southern fire-eaters threateningsecession.
• Underground RR fugitive slave issues
• Personal liberty laws

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South in 1850

• SOUTH HAPPY
• Zachary Taylor as president
• Majority on Supreme Court
• Outnumbered in the House
• Equal in the Senate
• Cotton expanding- profits high
• BUT SAD BECAUSE
• 15 free and 15 slave states
• California admission is a problem
• New Mexico and Utah want admission as free state
• Texas claims part of New Mexico
• Northerners want to end slavery in Washington DC
• Runaway slaves assisted by Underground RR

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Impact of the Underground Railroad

• Harriet Tubman- rescues over 300 slaves
• In 1850, the South was losing roughly 1,000
  slaves per year through the Underground Railroad
  and runaways
• Led the South to push for a new, and harsher
  Fugitive Slave Law
• Northerners refusing to follow the Constitution
  and the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793

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Twilight of the Senatorial Giants

• Clays last great compromise. Urged both sides
  to make concessions, and the North allow a
  tougher fugitive-slave law Aided by Senator
  Stephen A. Douglas (Illinois)
• John C. Calhouns championed the South in his
  last great speech (two Presidents, each with a
  veto, approved of Clays purpose, but said they
  did not provide enough safeguards for the rights
  of Southern states.
• Uphold Clays measures - urged concessions like
  the Fugitive Slave Law. Why worry because the
  good Lord had decreed through geography and
  climate that slavery wont last in new Mexican
  territories (bankers of North liked this as they
  wont lose investments in South)
• Websters Seventh of March Speech turned the tide
  in the North toward compromise.

Henry Clay
John C Calhoun
Daniel Webster
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Twilight of the Senatorial Giants
Daniel Webster
Slavery is evil but disunion is a worse evil. He
despised abolitionists and never joined their
ranks
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Deadlock and Danger on Capitol Hill

• Young Guard of North speaks in the Senate- more
  interested in purging and purifying the nation
  than patching it up and preserving it
• William Seward - strongly antislavery - appeal to
  a higher law than the Constitution

Zachary Taylor President
Im with Seward - Im vetoing any Compromise!
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Compromise of 1850 (over the land acquired
specifically from the Mexican War).

• Texas would relinquish the land in dispute but,
  in compensation, be given 10 million dollars --
  money it would use to pay off its debt to Mexico.
• The territories of New Mexico, Nevada, Arizona,
  and Utah would be organized without mention of
  slavery. (The decision would be made by the
  territories' inhabitants later, when they applied
  for statehood.)
• Regarding Washington, the slave trade would be
  abolished in the District of Columbia, although
  slavery would still be permitted.
• Finally, California would be admitted as a free
  state.
• To pacify slave-state politicians, who would have
  objected to the imbalance created by adding
  another free state, the Fugitive Slave Act was
  passed.

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Luckily.

• Taylor dies
• Millard Fillmore -
• (lawyer from NY)
• takes over

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Millard Fillmore

• Fillmore, president due to Zachary Taylors
  death, supported the Compromise of 1850 and saw
  it as the final settlement of the question of
  slavery

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Compromise of 1850
What are the concessions to both sides?
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Temporary Peace

• Who got the best deal?
• Fugitive Slave Law

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FUGITIVE SLAVE ACT

• the Fugitive Slave Act was the most controversial
  part of the Compromise of 1850
• It required citizens to assist in the recovery of
  fugitive slaves.
• It denied a fugitive's right to a jury trial.
  (Cases would instead be handled by special
  commisioners -- commisioners who would be paid 5
  if an alleged fugitive were released and 10 if
  he or she were sent away with the claimant.)
• The act called for changes in filing for a claim,
  making the process easier for slaveowners.
• Also, according to the act, there would be more
  federal officials responsible for enforcing the
  law.

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Effects of Fugitive Slave Act

• For slaves attempting to build lives in the
  North, the new law was disaster.
• Many left their homes and fled to Canada.
• During the next ten years, an estimated 20,000
  blacks moved to the neighboring country.
• For Harriet Jacobs, a fugitive living in New
  York, passage of the law was "the beginning of a
  reign of terror to the colored population." She
  stayed put, even after learning that slave
  catchers were hired to track her down.
• Anthony Burns, a fugitive living in Boston, was
  one of many who were captured and returned to
  slavery.
• Free blacks, too, were captured and sent to the
  South. With no legal right to plead their cases,
  they were completely defenseless.

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FURTHER EFFECTS. . .

• Passage of the Fugitive Slave Act made
  abolitionists all the more resolved to put an end
  to slavery.
• The Underground Railroad became more active,
  reaching its peak between 1850 and 1860.
• The act also brought the subject of slavery
  before the nation.
• Many who had previously been ambivalent about
  slavery now took a definitive stance against the
  institution.

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Was the Compromise a success?

• The Compromise of 1850 accomplished what it set
  out to do -- it kept the nation united -- but the
  solution was only temporary. Over the following
  decade the country's citizens became further
  divided over the issue of slavery. The rift would
  continue to grow until the nation itself
  divided.

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Why Not Begin The Civil War in the 1850s?

• South - happy to since Northerners not following
  laws (Fugitive) and promises
• North - time to expand and create more wealth and
  population
• Time for moral strength of the North to build

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Defeat and Doom for the WhigsUPCOMING ELECTION
OF 1852

• Democrats - Franklin Pierce- enemyless,
  inconspicuous, pro-Southern northerner. Endorsed
  Compromise 1850 and Fugitive Slave Law
• Whigs - didnt pick Webster or Fillmore. Instead
  went with military guy- Gen Winfield Scott. OK
  with Compromise of 1850
• Whigs split and begin to die in this election.
• End of national parties and rise of purely
  sectional parties.
• RIP Whig Party - kept Union together through
  electoral strength in South and through leaders
  like Webster and Clay
• Henry Clay and Daniel Webster both die during the
  1852 campaign.

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1852 Presidential Election
v Franklin Pierce Gen. Winfield Scott
John Parker Hale Democrat
Whig Free Soil
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1852Election Results
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Franklin Pierce

• Manifest Destiny
• Nicaragua - William Walker
• British challenged Monroe Doctrine

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Expansionist Young America in the 1850s
American influence in Latin America in the 1840s
and 1850s
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American Influence in Latin America

• Treaty between the U.S. and New Granada
  (Colombia) in 1848- Americans get the right to
  transit across the isthmus of Panama in return
  for maintaining the neutrality of the route.
• 1855- first transcontinental railroad completed
• Clayton-Bulwer Treaty- U.S. and Britain agree
  that neither country would fortify or seek
  control over any future waterway
• William Walker tries to gain control of
  Nicaragua, but the countries of Central America
  ally together to overthrow him, and he dies
  before a firing squad

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• CUBA -
• Sugar mills
• Ostend Manifesto - 120 million offered and if
  Spain refuses then US would be justified in
  taking Cuba (Monroe Doctrine)

Northern free soilers furious Pierce recalls the
Ostend Manifesto
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Spreading American influence in Asia

• Treaty of Wanghia- U.S. and China
• Most favored nation status- U.S. gets all
  trading terms given to other powers
• Extraterritoriality- Americans accused of
  crimes in China to be tried by American
  officials, not Chinese courts
• Secured by Caleb Cushing
• Trade with China greatly increases, and new
  opportunities for missionaries

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Japan

• Japan had been largely insulated from the outside
  world
• July 1853- Commodore Matthew Perry sails into Edo
  (Tokyo) Bay
• Promises to return in one year to get Chinese
  reply to request for free trade and friendly
  relations
• Returns in February 1854 with more ships, gives
  the Japanese gifts
• Treaty of Kanagawa signed on March 31, 1854
• Proper treatment of shipwrecked sailors
• American coaling rights in Japan
• Establishment of consular (diplomatic) relations
• May have only been a foot in the door, but it
  blasts Japanese isolation wide open

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Pacific Railroad and Gadsden Purchase

• Transportation problems after Mexican War
• California and Oregon isolated
• RR promoters - where run the line? Where end it?
  Run it south of Mexican border?
• Gadsden Purchase 1853
• Where will that RR go?
• Northerners argue that if running the railroad
  through organized territory is the argument, why
  not organize Nebraska?

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Douglas and Kansas-Nebraska

• Slice Territory of Nebraska into two territories,
  Kansas and Nebraska
• Decision on slavery by popular sovereignty
  (assumption is that Kansas would become slave and
  Nebraska free
• Doing this would require overturning the Missouri
  Compromise
• Why do this? Personal gain for Douglas, angling
  for the presidency in 1856?
• Douglas fails to see that hundreds of thousands
  of northerners are going to detest Douglas
  position on what they consider a moral issue.

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Kansas-Nebraska Act

• Repeals the Missouri Compromise, and indirectly
  the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850
• Will shatter the Democrats
• Leads to the emergence of the Republican Party
• Dissatisfied Whigs, Democrats who opposed
  Kansas-Nebraska, Free-Soilers, Know-Nothings
• SECTIONAL PARTIES HAVE EMERGED