Ch. 18: Renewing the Sectional Struggle

Whigs and Democrats still had supporters from both the North and South, and neither party openly discussed the issue of slavery.

President Polk steps down after serving 1 term.

Democrats ran Lewis Cass: a supporter of leaving the slavery issue up to voters.However, popular sovereignty

might spread slavery…

1. The Popular Sovereignty Panacea

Whigs nominated General Zachary Taylor AKA “Old Rough and Ready.”

Taylor owned slaves.This made both

candidates too pro-slave for antislavery voters.

2. Political Triumphs for General Taylor

Free Soil party was formed by antislavery men in the North.

Spoke openly against slavery in new territories and wanted to make internal improvements and offer free land.

Worried slave labor would keep whites from rising up the social ladder.

Nominated Van Buren.Who it attracted:

Industrialists against Polk’s tariff reductionNorthern DemocratsRacist western settlers“Conscience Whigs”

2. New Political Triumphs for General Taylor

Zachary Taylor wins 1848 Election!

2. New Political Triumphs for General Taylor

Tens of thousands pour into California after discovery of gold in 1848.

Crime was common. Many murders, robberies, and vigilante killings occurred.

California applies to the Union as a free state- puts the South in an uproar.

3. “Californy Gold”

With admission of California, the balance between free and slave states would give the North more power in the Senate.Worried other Mexican Cession states like New

Mexico and Utah would follow.Underground Railroad carried thousands of

runaways through safe houses to Canada.Harriet Tubman

Caused the South to demand a strict Fugitive Slave Law.

4. Sectional Balance and the Underground Railroad

“Fire-eaters” in South already demanding secession in 1850.

Trio of Calhoun, Clay, and Webster try to prevent war before they all die (seriously).

Calhoun’s idea was to elect two presidents- one from the North and one from the South.

Daniel Webster’s Seventh of March Speech (1850) convinced the North to compromise by enacting a tougher fugitive slave law.

Abolitionists called him a traitor.

5. Twilight of the Senatorial Giants

“Young Guard” from the North wanted to purify the Union, not preserve it.

William H. Seward, antislavery NY senator, encouraged Congress to follow a “higher law” than that of the Constitution.

Presidents Taylor agreed. Threatened to veto a compromise.

Meanwhile, Civil War almost begins when Taylor threatens to invade Texas if it tried to take Santa Fe.

Thankfully(?!) Taylor dies and war is averted.

6. Deadlock and Danger on Capitol Hill

Millard Fillmore becomes president after Taylor’s death, signing the Compromise of 1850 into effect.

South and North are both angry, but their representatives were more concerned with preserving the Union.

7. Breaking the Congressional Logjam

Who got the better end of the deal in the Compromise of 1850?The North received California as a free state permanently

upsetting balance in Senate.The South won the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850.

Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 did not allow runaways to testify in their own trials

which could not have juries.any abolitionist supporters could be fined/jailed.

States set up “personal liberty laws” making the law tough to enforce locally.

True problem w/this law: It made the North more anti-slavery and anti-South.

8. Balancing the Compromise Scales

Democrats nominated Franklin Pierce of New Hampshire. Weak, indecisive. Supported Compromise of

1850.Whigs nominated Winfield Scott AKA “Old

Fuss and Feathers”Personality repelled votes, also praised

Compromise.Winner of Election of 1852: Pierce!Whig party was split into southern and

northern factions. This election marks the end of the Whig

party.

9. Defeat and Doom for the Whigs

RIP Whigs

US was still in the mood for a little Manifest Destiny…“Slavocrats” wanted more potential slave territory.William Walker seized Nicaragua with southern soldiers in

1856. Central Americans planned to overthrow him, Pierce withdrew

supportMeanwhile on the Pacific…

Contacts established with China Commodore Matthew C. Perry commanded a fleet of warships to

open up isolationist Japan to US trade in 1854

10. President Pierce the Expansionist

South also saw sugar producing Cuba as a prime target for Manifest Destiny.

Spanish easily put down two southern “filibustering” missions. Seized Black Warrior steamship.

Ostend Manifesto urged US to declare war if Spain would not accept $120 million for Cuba.Manifesto leaked and outraged Free Soilers

11. Coveted Cuba: Pearl of the Antilles

Many feared California would break away without adequate transportation. The solution was a transcontinental railroad.

Best route would run South, so James Gadsden was appointed minister to Mexico to negotiate the Gadsden Purchase in 1853 for $ 10 million.

12. Pacific Railroad Promoters and the Gadsden Purchase

Senator Stephen A. Douglas (Illinois) AKA “The Little Giant” wanted railroad to pass through Chicago.

Helped pass Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854) which allowed Nebraska and Kansas to decide on slavery issue at the polls, even though both would undo the Missouri Compromise line of 36˚, 30’.

Critics in the North called him Judas, traitor.

13. Douglas’s Kansas-Nebraska Scheme

Kansas-Nebraska Act and Fugitive Slave Law grew the ranks of antislavery movement.

Republican Party earned new support in the Mid-West, Michigan, Wisconsin.Included ex-Whigs like Abraham Lincoln and

other enemies of the Kansas- Nebraska ActOvernight, it became a sectional (Northern)

party.This is not good for the Union….

14. Congress Legislates a Civil War