Antebellum ExpansionAntebellum Expansion

Unit VAUnit VA

AP United States HistoryAP United States History

Fundamental Questions

►Analyze American expansionism as a cause of sectional tension and conflict.

►Analyze how the national political system may have contributed to the cause of the Civil War.

Democracy in America (1840)► Impressed with American

notion of equality More social mobility than

Europe Success achievable for those

willing and able► “I sought for the greatness and genius

of America in her commodious harbors and her ample rivers, and it was not there . . . in her fertile fields and boundless forests and it was not there . . . in her rich mines and her vast world commerce, and it was not there . . . in her democratic Congress and her matchless Constitution, and it was not there. Not until I went into the churches of America and heard her pulpits aflame with righteousness did I understand the secret of her genius and power. America is great because she is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, she will cease to be great.”

Manifest DestinyManifest Destiny

►““Away, away with these cobweb tissues of Away, away with these cobweb tissues of the rights of discovery, exploration, the rights of discovery, exploration, settlement,… [The American claim] is by settlement,… [The American claim] is by the right of our the right of our manifest destinymanifest destiny to to overspread and to possess the whole of overspread and to possess the whole of the continent which Providence has given the continent which Providence has given us for the development of the great us for the development of the great experiment of liberty…” experiment of liberty…”

► - John L. Sullivan, - John L. Sullivan, Democratic ReviewDemocratic Review, , 18451845

American Progress

Overland Trails

Result of Manifest Destiny

Texas Revolution► American settlement

Fueled by Manifest Destiny Encouraged by Mexican

government

► Texas Revolution (1836) Santa Anna’s policies The Alamo (Feb-Mar 1836) Battle of San Jacinto (Apr 21, 1836)

Second Party System (1828-Second Party System (1828-1854)1854)

► Democrats: Democrats: States’ rights States’ rights Limited Limited

governmentgovernment Laissez-faireLaissez-faire ExpansionismExpansionism Pro-slaveryPro-slavery Equal opportunityEqual opportunity South and WestSouth and West Yeoman farmers, Yeoman farmers,

working class, working class, southern southern planters, planters, immigrantsimmigrants

► Whigs: Whigs: American SystemAmerican System Strong federal Strong federal

governmentgovernment Mixed on slaveryMixed on slavery Social Social

conservativesconservatives New EnglandNew England Upper and middle Upper and middle

class professionals, class professionals, evangelical evangelical ProtestantsProtestants

► Anti-Masonic Party: Anti-Masonic Party: issue party concerned issue party concerned

about Freemasonsabout Freemasons promoted economic promoted economic

nationalism and social nationalism and social conservatismconservatism

► Liberty Party: Liberty Party: abolitionist partyabolitionist party

► Free Soil Party: Free Soil Party: Prevent expansion of Prevent expansion of

slaveryslavery

Andrew Jackson

Henry Clay

Taney Court

►Chief Justice Roger Taney Appointed by Andrew

Jackson Slave owner

► Ideology States’ rights Limited government

►Major Cases Charles River Bridge v.

Warren Bridge (1837) Scott v. Sandford (1857) Ex parte Merryman (1861)

Election of 1840► William Henry Harrison (W)

“Tippecanoe and Tyler Too” “Log Cabin and Hard Cider”

► Martin Van Buren (D) Suffers from Panic of 1837

Sectionalist PresidentsWilliam Henry Harrison (W) (1841)

► Campaign A war hero and hero of the

common man► Reality

Wealthy plantation and slave owner

► Administration Intended to re-establish and

promote American System policies

Lasts one month after contracting pneumonia

John Tyler assumes presidency

Sectionalist PresidentsJohn Tyler (W) (1841-1845)

► “His Accidency” Assumes full presidential powers

► A Democrat in Whig Clothing Slave owner from Virginia Rejects American System

policies Passionately pursues Texas

annexation► Webster-Ashburton Treaty

(1842) Settles boundary disputes with

Great Britain

Election of 1844► James K. Polk (D)

Darkhorse candidate

Expansion platform

► Henry Clay (W) Avoided direct

expansionist rhetoric

Sectionalist PresidentsJames K. Polk (D) (1845-1849)

► Jacksonian Democrat, slave owner, and ardent expansionist

► Agenda Independent national

treasury Lower tariffs Oregon California

► Oregon “54’ 40 or Fight!” 49th Parallel

► Mexican-American War (1848) Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo Mexican Cession

Oregon Country

Mexican-American War (1846-1848)

► Thornton Affair (4/24/1846)► War Plan and Execution

John Fremont in California Stephen Kearny in New

Mexico Zachary Taylor in Texas Winfield Scott in Veracruz

and Mexico City

► Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848) Rio Grande as Texas border Mexican Cession

► $15 million and assumption of claims against Mexico

► Wilmot Proviso Prohibit slavery in Mexican

Cession lands Failed to pass Senate

Election of 1848► Zachary Taylor (W)

Slave owner War hero

► Lewis Cass (D)► Martin van Buren

(FSP)

California Gold Rush► Sutter’s Mill

January 24, 1848► Massive migration to California► Forty-Niners► San Francisco

5,000 in 1848 25,000 in 1850

Compromise of 1850► Parameters

Admit California as free state

Mexican Cession► Popular sovereignty

Reinforced Fugitive Slave Law

Texas boundary and debt disputes

Slave trade abolished in D.C.

► “I trust we shall persist in our resistance [to the admission of California] until the restoration of all our rights, or disunion, one or the other is the consequence. We have borne the wrongs and insults of the North long enough.” - John C. Calhoun

Fugitive Slave Law►Enforcement of capturing

and returning escaped slaves

►Slaves flee to Canada►Right to trial by jury

denied►Special Commission

$10 for those finding for slaveholder

$5 for those finding for fugitive

Underground Railroad► Mostly run by free

blacks and fugitive slaves Harriet Tubman

► Abolitionists and white supporters Few white families in

South assisted Slave catchers

knowledge

Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852)

►Harriet Beacher Stowe

►Bestselling novel►Adapted as a play► Fuels abolitionist

guilt and rhetoric in Northern free states

Slavery and LiteratureAnti-Slavery Arguments► Uncle Tom’s Cabin

Harriet Beecher Stowe Moral and emotional

argument against slavery► Impending Crisis of the

South (1857) Hinton Helper Empirical analysis of

economic impact of slavery on the South

“Freesoilers and abolitionists are the only true friends of the South; slaveholders and slave-breeders are downright enemies of their own section. Anti-slavery men are working for the Union and for the good of the whole world; proslavery men are working for the disunion of the States, and for the good of nothing except themselves."

Pro-Slavery Arguments► Sociology for the South

(1854) George Fitzhugh Capitalism and liberalism

virtually enslaved the lower classes

► Cannibals All! (1857) George Fitzhugh "the unrestricted

exploitation of so-called free society is more oppressive to the laborer than domestic slavery."

Sectionalist PresidentsZachary Taylor (W) (1849-1850)

► War hero of Mexican-American War► States’ rights, but no secession► Views on Slavery

Slave owner No expansion of slavery Refused to sign Compromise of 1850

► Died after a year in office

Sectionalist PresidentsMillard Fillmore (W) (1850-1853)

► Assumes the presidency after Taylor’s death

► Anti-slave moderate► Signs Compromise of 1850► Perry Expedition to Japan (1853-

1854)

The Death of Compromising?►The Great Triumvirate was no more by 1852►A new generation of sectional and ambitious

politicians assume leadership roles

Stephen Douglas (D)William Seward (W, R) Jefferson Davis (D)

Election of 1852► Franklin Pierce

(D) “Doughface”

► Winfield Scott (W)

Sectionalist PresidentsFranklin Pierce (D) (1853-1857)

► Jackson Democrat from New Hampshire

► Doughface Supported Compromise of 1850 Gadsden Purchase Ostend Manifesto (1854) Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854) William Walker and Nicaragua

Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854)

► Stephen Douglas and Chicago

► Parameters Separate Nebraska

Territory into Nebraska and Kansas

Each territory voted for slavery based on popular sovereignty

► Impact Douglas won his

railroad and Southern support

Virtually repealed the Missouri Compromise

Ended the Whig Party and Second Party System

Bleeding Kansas (1854-1861)

► Kansas Territory settled by two groups Free-Soilers Border Ruffians

► A virtual civil war between anti-slave and pro-slave local governments Sacking of Lawrence Pottawatomie

Massacre

► Pierce and federal government barely addressed the issue

A Tragic Prelude, John Steuart Curry, 1937

Brooks-Sumner IncidentMay 22, 1856

► Senator Charles Sumner (R) (MA) ‘Crime Against Kansas’ Speech

► Rep. Preston Brooks (D) (SC) Becomes a Southern hero

The Republican Party►Makeup

Disillusioned Northern Democrats

Frustrated Conscience Whigs

Free Soil Party members

►Platform: Increasingly against

expansion of slavery Protective tariffs Homestead Act/sale of

federal lands Funding for

transcontinental railroad

Scott v. Sandford (1857)► “[Blacks] had for more than a century before been regarded as beings of an inferior

order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations, and so far unfit that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect.”

► " . . . We think they [people of African ancestry] are . . . not included, and were not intended to be included, under the word "citizens" in the Constitution, and can therefore claim none of the rights and privileges which that instrument provides for and secures to citizens of the United States. . . ."

► “For if they were so received, and entitled to the privileges and immunities of citizens, it would exempt them from the operation of the special laws and from the police regulations which they considered to be necessary for their own safety. It would give to persons of the negro race, who were recognized as citizens in any one State of the Union, the right to enter every other State whenever they pleased...to go where they pleased at every hour of the day or night without molestation, unless they committed some violation of law for which a white man would be punished; and it would give them the full liberty of speech in public and in private upon all subjects upon which its own citizens might speak; to hold public meetings upon political affairs, and to keep and carry arms wherever they went. And all of this would be done in the face of the subject race of the same color, both free and slaves, and inevitably producing discontent and insubordination among them, and endangering the peace and safety of the State.”

► “. . . [T]he rights of private property have been guarded with . . . care. Thus the rights of property are united with the rights of person, and placed on the same ground by the fifth amendment to the Constitution, which provides that no person shall be deprived of life, liberty, and property, without due process of law. And an act of Congress which deprives a citizen of the United States of his liberty or property, merely because he came himself or brought his property into a particular Territory of the United States, and who had committed no offence against the laws, could hardly be dignified with the name of due process of law.”

► “Upon these considerations, it is the opinion of the court that the act of Congress which prohibited a citizen from holding and owning property of this kind in the territory of the United States north of the line therein mentioned, is not warranted by the Constitution, and is therefore void; and that neither Dred Scott himself, nor any of his family, were made free by being carried into this territory; even if they had been carried there by the owner, with the intention of becoming a permanent resident.”

Election of 1856► James Buchanan (D)

“Doughface”► John Fremont (R)

Election results establish Republican Party as legitimate national party

► Millard Fillmore (KNP)

Sectionalist PresidentsJames Buchanan (D) (1857-1861)

► “Doughface” Supported Kansas-

Nebraska Act Involved himself in

Dred Scott decision Lecompton

Constitution (Kansas)

Lincoln-Douglas Debates (1858)

► Freeport Doctrine Dred Scott decision

and popular sovereignty

► “A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free.”

John Brown and Harpers Ferry (1859)

► "I, John Brown, am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but with blood. I had, as I now think, vainly flattered myself that without very much bloodshed it might be done."

Election of 1860► Abraham Lincoln (R)► Stephen Douglas (D)

Northern Democrats► John Breckinridge (D)

Southern Democrats► John Bell (CU)

Coalition of Cotton Whigs and Know-Nothing

Union vs. Confederacy

Free and Slave States (1789-Free and Slave States (1789-1861)1861)