5.2
- W expansion = very important to Americans (ORV, Louisiana Purchase, etc.)
- 1845: Sullivan gave W expansion name of Manifest Destiny
- Manifest Destiny = expand from sea to sea, given by God
- practical reasons: more access to resources
- gold in CA → CA Gold Rush - people from E rushed to CA, then to CO, Dakotas, NV
- wanted new economic + homesteading opportunities
- Preemption Acts: made vast tracts of land available for cheap
- migration required money → largely middle class, not poor
- religious refuge
- 1844: election of Polk - big believer in Manifest Destiny → eyes on TX + OR to add to America
- TX belonged to Mexico, but more Americans than Mexicans living in territory → 1829: Mexican gov made two requirements for them - must convert to Roman Catholicism, no slavery → = intolerable to American settlers → ignored laws → Mexico shut down border → Americans ignored
- 1834: new Mexican dictator wanted to clamp down on immigrants → Texans revolted against Mexican gov (Houston), declared TX independent republic (1836) → Mexico sent forces N → Mexican victory at Alamo → Battle of San Jacinto, captured Mexican general, forced him to sign treaty granted them independence (even though didn’t have authority to do that → Mexico didn’t recognize independence)
- application for statehood = complicated - Jackson + van Buren wouldn’t annex b/c would cause war, John Tyler worked for it but was rejected by Senate
- OR Territory - GB + US competing claims
- GB: profitable fur trade, there for longer; US: wanted it, more Americans than British settlers
- Polk wanted to annex OR + TX (and CA) → interpreted election as mandate from people to do so
- John Tyler pushed through annexation of TX, Polk made agreement w/ GB about OR
5.3
- Mexican-American War
- causes: issue w/ TX → conflict → tensions did cool down in aftermath, nothing would happen if TX stayed independent, but wanted to be annexed by US → Tyler started it, Polk followed through w/ annexation
- Polk sent Slidell to Mexico City to ask Mexican gov to sell more land to US (NM + CA, they said no), settle location of S border of Mexico (Mexico gov: Nueces River; US: Rio Grande, Mexico unwilling to negotiate)
- 1846: Polk advanced American troops onto disputed land (Zachary Taylor) → conflict w/ Mexico → Polk = outraged, wanted war w/ Mexico → Congress granted war
- small amount of American territory gained enough ground to claim CA + NM Territories, conquered + occupied Mexico City →forced Mexican gov to negotiation table
- effects:
- 1848: Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo → huge amount of land for US
- Rio Grande = S border of TX; outlined deal for Mexican cession (sell CA + NM to US); 1853: Gadsden Purchase + new land → Mexico lost >1/2 territory to US
- disputes over land → 1846: David Wilmot added amendment - Wilmot Proviso: any lands gained from M-A War = off-limits to expansion of slavery → voted down but highlighted growing tension over slavery question
- Free Soil: wanted to acquire additional land for homesteaders to settle on w/out competition from system of slavery (economic issue, not moral)
- proposal = exceedingly contentious; some consider it first round in fight that ultimately led to Civil War
- non-Americans on land - most stayed put (Mexicans, Indians); Treaty of G-H granted Mexicans living there citizenship, but not Indians
- both groups faced assault on civil rights - voting education
5.4
- major positions by those in power regarding slavery
- S position: slavery = constitutional right; slavery had been decided in Missouri Compromise (1820)
- Free Soil movement: N Dems, Whigs; wanted new territories to be dominion of free laborers (no competition from enslaved labor)
- conflicting views: some wanted slavery banned, but not necessarily over moral issue - didn’t want Black people in territory at all b/c envisioned land as white opportunity; abolitionists wanted slavery banned everywhere b/c was moral evil
- Popular Sovereignty: people living in each territory should decide themselves
- reasonable, middle-ground position, but neither side wanted to compromise → only increased tension
- no compromise could be reach → new territory from M-A War increased tension b/c CA + NM entered union as free states → S threatened secession b/c upset balance in Senate
- needed modification → Henry Clay proposed Compromise of 1850: Mexican Cession divided into UT + NM territories, would practice popular sovereignty; CA admitted as free state; slave trade banned in DC; stricter Fugitive Slave Law passed + enforced
- Fugitive Slave Law upset N - didn’t want to be forced to arrest enslaved people + return them to S
5.5
- pre-Civil War: huge number of immigrants (mostly Irish + German)
- largely settled in cultural enclaves/ethnic communities
- Irish: NYC, Five Points neighborhood, slums - unemployment, bad infant mortality rates
- most Germans went W to find land to farm
- movement opposing them - strong anti-Catholic Nativist Movement
- Nativism: interests of native born (white) > interests of immigrants
- Irish = Catholic, not Protestant → targets of strong Nativist sentiment
- political party - Know-Nothing Party
- concerned w/ limiting immigrants’ cultural + political influence
- N vs. S labor systems + economy fuel: N = free wage laborers mostly in manufacturing jobs in factories; S = enslaved labor working on agricultural plantations
- N pop growing much more rapidly
- much of N opposed slavery on economic grounds, not moral - more slave states = near-impossible for free wage laborers to get jobs → Free Soil Movement (later Free Soil Party)
- Free Soil: supported Wilmot Proviso; didn’t want abolition, just opposed expansion
- S saw it as threat to constitutional rights
- Abolitionists: made up of free Black + white members, = minority in N
- loud volume, highly influential b/c of strategies:
- printed words: William Lloyd Garrison’s The Liberator = extremely influential; Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852) = work of fiction, but depicted dehumanization + brutality in graphic detail, lots of sales, made effects seem more real in N (eliminated disconnect), S tried to ban
- spoken words: Frederick Douglass = former enslaved man, used rhetoric powerfully
- Underground RR: series of trails + safehouses to find safe passage to N; some went up to Canada to avoid stricter Fugitive Slave Law
- violence: John Brown = fierce abolitionist, only way to be free of slavery = slave uprising in S → devised plan for Raid at Harper’s Ferry - able to capture armory but defeated by rival battalion led by Robert E. Lee
- plan fell to pieces, hanged for crimes, but had connections to N abolitionists → S saw raid as symbolic of what abolitionists’ true intentions were + N plot = incite race war → further fracturing
5.6
- Any attempt at compromise over slavery issue failed
- KS-NE Act: N section of LA Purchase = above line → no slavery, but Stephen Douglas proposed split in half into KS + NE territories + allow popular sovereignty
- N = upset b/c if Congress passed act would effectively overturn Missouri Compromise
- violence in KS between people on either side - able to decide for themselves → each side wanted control
- 1855: time to elect territorial legislature, more votes than eligible men - pros-lavery Missourians crossed border + voted illegally for pro-slavery legislature
- obviously fraud, but neither side backed down → two state legislatures: pro-slavery in Compton, anti-slavery in Topeka; President Pierce recognized pro-slavery gov as legit, anti as fraudulent
- Dred Scott Decision (1857): Scott = enslaved man, taken to live in Illinois + Wisconsin (free states) → sued for freedom by arguing that he’d lived in territory for two years + was therefore free, but SC voted against Scott
- reasons: Dred Scott =/= citizen → no right to sue in fed court; Constitution = Congress can’t deprive any citizen of property
- effectively opened every state to slavery