0% found this document useful (0 votes)

8 views20 pages

Sectional Struggle: 1848-1854 Politics

The period from 1848 to 1854 in America was marked by political turmoil following the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which raised contentious issues surrounding the extension of slavery into newly acquired territories. The Democratic and Whig parties struggled to address the slavery debate, leading to the emergence of the Free Soil party, which opposed slavery in the territories and appealed to a diverse group of constituents. The California Gold Rush further complicated the political landscape as it attracted a massive influx of people, prompting California to draft a constitution excluding slavery and apply for statehood, igniting fears among Southern politicians about the balance of power in Congress.

Uploaded by

A.Poltrock

We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.

Available Formats

Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd

0% found this document useful (0 votes)

8 views20 pages

Sectional Struggle: 1848-1854 Politics

Uploaded by

A.Poltrock

We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.

Available Formats

Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd

Chapter 18

Renewing the Sectional

Struggle
r 1848–1854
Secession! Peaceable secession! Sir, your eyes and
mine are never destined to see that miracle.
Daniel Webster, Seventh of March speech, 1850

T he year 1848, highlighted by a rash of revolu-

tions in Europe, was filled with unrest in Amer-
ica. The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo had officially
ended the war with Mexico, but it had initiated a new
Anxious Democrats were forced to seek a new stan-
dard-bearer in 1848. President Polk, broken in health
by overwork and chronic diarrhea, had pledged himself
to a single term. The Democratic National Convention
and perilous round of political warfare in the United at Baltimore turned to an aging leader, General Lewis
States. The vanquished Mexicans had been forced to Cass, a veteran of the War of 1812. Although a sena-
relinquish an enormous tract of real estate, including tor and diplomat of wide experience and considerable
Texas, California, and all the area between. The acqui- ability, he was sour-visaged and somewhat pompous.
sition of this huge domain raised anew the burning His enemies dubbed him General “Gass” and quickly
issue of extending slavery into the territories. Northern noted that Cass rhymed with jackass. The Democratic
antislaveryites had rallied behind the Wilmot Proviso, platform, in line with the lid-sitting strategy, was silent
which flatly prohibited slavery in any territory acquired on the burning issue of slavery in the territories.
in the Mexican War. Southern senators had blocked But Cass himself had not been silent. His views on
the passage of the proviso, but the issue would not die. the extension of slavery were well known because he
Ominously, debate over slavery in the area of the Mexi- was the reputed father of popular sovereignty. This
can Cession threatened to disrupt the ranks of both was the doctrine that stated that the sovereign people
Whigs and Democrats and split national politics along of a territory, under the general principles of the Con-
North-South sectional lines. stitution, should themselves determine the status of
slavery.
Popular sovereignty had a persuasive appeal. The
The Popular Sovereignty Panacea public liked it because it accorded with the democratic
tradition of self-determination. Politicians liked it
Each of the two great political parties was a vital bond because it seemed a comfortable compromise between
of national unity, for each enjoyed powerful support in the free-soilers’ bid for a ban on slavery in the territories
both North and South. If they should be replaced by and southern demands that Congress protect slavery in
two purely sectional groupings, the Union would be in the territories. Popular sovereignty tossed the slavery
peril. To politicians, the wisest strategy seemed to be to problem into the laps of the people in the various terri-
sit on the lid of the slavery issue and ignore the boiling tories. Advocates of the principle thus hoped to dissolve
beneath. Even so, the cover bobbed up and down omi- the most stubborn national issue of the day into a series
nously in response to the agitation of zealous northern of local issues. Yet popular sovereignty had one fatal
abolitionists and impassioned southern “fire-eaters.” defect: it might serve to spread the blight of slavery.

378
Copyright 2012 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s).
Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it.
The Election of 1848 • 379

Pforolitical Triumphs
General Taylor
The Whigs, meeting in Philadelphia, cashed in on the
“Taylor fever.” They nominated frank and honest Zach-
ary Taylor, the “Hero of Buena Vista,” who had never
held civil office or even voted for president. Henry
Clay, the living embodiment of Whiggism, should
logically have been nominated. But Clay had made too
many speeches—and too many enemies.
As usual, the Whigs pussyfooted in their platform.
Eager to win at any cost, they dodged all troublesome
issues and merely extolled the homespun virtues of
their candidate. The self-reliant old frontier fighter had
not committed himself on the issue of slavery exten-
sion. But as a wealthy resident of Louisiana, living on a
sugar plantation, he owned scores of slaves.
Ardent antislavery men in the North, distrusting
both Cass and Taylor, organized the Free Soil party.

© Collection of the New York Historical Society

Aroused by the conspiracy of silence in the Democratic
and Whig platforms, the Free-Soilers made no bones
about their own stand. They came out foursquare for
the Wilmot Proviso and against slavery in the terri-
tories. Going beyond other antislavery groups, they
broadened their appeal by advocating federal aid for
internal improvements and by urging free government
homesteads for settlers.
The new party assembled a strange assortment of
new fellows in the same political bed. It attracted indus-
trialists miffed at Polk’s reduction of protective tariffs. General Zachary Taylor (1784–1850) This Democratic
It appealed to Democrats resentful of Polk’s settling for campaign cartoon of 1848 charges that Taylor’s reputation
part of Oregon while insisting on all of Texas—a dis- rested on Mexican skulls.
parity that suggested a menacing southern dominance
in the Democratic party. It harbored many northerners
whose hatred was directed not so much at slavery as at property. As the first widely inclusive party organized
blacks and who gagged at the prospect of sharing the around the issue of slavery and confined to a single sec-
newly acquired western territories with African Ameri- tion, the Free Soil party foreshadowed the emergence of
cans. It also contained a large element of “Conscience the Republican party six years later.
Whigs,” heavily influenced by the abolitionist crusade, With the slavery issue officially shoved under the
who condemned slavery on moral grounds. The Free- rug by the two major parties, the politicians on both
Soilers trotted out wizened former president Van Buren sides opened fire on personalities. The amateurish Tay-
and marched into the fray, shouting, “Free soil, free lor had to be carefully watched, lest his indiscreet pen
speech, free labor, and free men.” These freedoms pro- puncture the reputation won by his sword. His admirers
vided the bedrock on which the Free-Soilers built their puffed him up as a gallant knight and a Napoleon, and
party. They condemned slavery not so much for enslav- sloganized his remark, allegedly uttered during the Bat-
ing blacks but for destroying the chances of free white tle of Buena Vista, “General Taylor never surrenders.”
workers to rise up from wage-earning dependence to Taylor’s wartime popularity pulled him through. He
the esteemed status of self-employment. They argued harvested 1,360,967 popular and 163 electoral votes, as
that only with free soil in the West could a traditional compared with Cass’s 1,222,342 popular and 127 elec-
American commitment to upward mobility continue toral votes. Free-Soiler Van Buren, although winning
to flourish. If forced to compete with slave labor, more no state, polled 291,263 ballots and apparently diverted
costly wage labor would inevitably wither away, and enough Democratic strength from Cass in the crucial
with it the chance for the American worker to own state of New York to throw the election to Taylor.

0 25 50 Km.
A married woman wrote from the California
Pyramid
Lake
goldfields to her sister in New England in 1853,

“
0 25 50 Mi.

i tell you the woman are in great demand in

k 40°N
For
h this country no matter whether they are mar-

S I
t
Negro

Nor
UTAH
Bar
TERRITORY
ried or not you need not think strange if you
God’s
see me coming home with some good looking

E R
Country
Feather R.

French
Corral You
man some of these times with a pocket full of

R A
Sacra

R.
Clear
Yuba
Bet Lake
Tahoe
rocks. . . . it is all the go here for Ladys to leave
en Rough Dutch
m

Lake to and Ready Flat there Husbands two out of three do it there is a
R
R.

R. Damascus
Bear first rate Chance for a single woman she can
.
ca n

Coloma
CALIFORNIA
have her choice of thousands i wish mother
er i

(Sutter's Mill)

N
m

A Placerville
Texas
was here she could marry a rich man and not
E
C O

Hill (Hangtown)

”
Sacramento Sutter's
Ft.
Michigan
R. Bar V have to lift her hand to do her work.
n es
A S

A
m R.
su ne Jésus
ke lu m
D
Co

Maria
Mo
T

A
Angels Camp
ver a s
R.
Sonora
the miners, notably by charging outrageous rates for
Cala Rawhide 38°N
laundry and other personal services. Some soiled cloth-
islaus R. Chinese
San Francisco Sta
n
.
Camp ing was even sent as far away as the Hawaiian Islands
Tuolumne R
N for washing. Many of the “forty-niners” who flopped
Sa

.
dR
n

in California kept chasing their dream of gold in even

R A

rce Mormon
Jo

Me Bar
aq

R
.

os
a more distant places, notably Australia in 1851.
ui

arip
N G

M 120°W
R.

The California gold rush attracted tens of thou-

Extent of gold mining region, 1849
E S

PAC I F I C sands of people to the future Golden State almost

Gold mine overnight, completely overwhelming the one-horse ter-
OCEAN 122°W
ritorial government. A distressingly high proportion of
the newcomers were lawless men, accompanied or fol-
Map 18.1 California Gold Rush Country Miners from
all over the world swarmed over the rivers that drained the lowed by virtueless women. A contemporary song ran,
western slope of California’s Sierra Nevada. Their nationali- Oh what was your name in the States?
ties and religions, their languages and their ways
Houghton-Mifflin of life, are
No bleeds Was it Thompson or Johnson or Bates?
recorded
Kennedy,in the
The colorfulPagent
American place14e,
names they left behind.
©2010 Did you murder your wife,
kennedy_18_01_Ms00343
© Cengage Learning
California Gold Rush Country And fly for your life?
Trim 20p6 x 27p0 Say, what was your name in the States?
Final proof: 8/12/08
An outburst of crime inevitably resulted from the
“Californy Gold” presence of so many miscreants and outcasts. Robbery,
claim jumping, and murder were commonplace, and
Tobacco-chewing President Taylor—with his stumpy such violence was only partly discouraged by rough
legs, rough features, heavy jaw, black hair, ruddy com- vigilante justice. In San Francisco, from 1848 to 1856,
plexion, and squinty gray eyes—was a military square there were scores of lawless killings but only three
peg in a political round hole. He would have been semilegal hangings.
spared much turmoil if he could have continued to A majority of Californians, as decent and law-
sit on the slavery lid. But the discovery of gold on the abiding citizens needing protection, grappled earnestly
American River near Sutter’s Mill, California, early in with the problem of erecting an adequate state govern-
1848, blew the cover off (see Map 18.1). ment. Privately encouraged by President Taylor, they
A horde of adventurers poured into the valleys of
California. Singing “O Susannah!” and shouting “Gold!
Gold! Gold!” they began tearing frantically at the yel-
The idea that many ne’er-do-wells went west is found
low-graveled streams and hills. A fortunate few of the
in the Journals (January 1849) of Ralph Waldo
bearded miners “struck it rich” at the “diggings.” But
Emerson (1803–1882):
the luckless many, who netted blisters instead of nug-
gets, probably would have been money well ahead if
they had stayed at home unaffected by “gold fever,” “ If a man is going to California, he announces
it with some hesitation; because it is a confes-
which was often followed by more deadly fevers. The
most reliable profits were made by those who mined
sion that he has failed at home.
”
Copyright 2012 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s).
Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it.
Courtesy of the California History Room, California

Placer Miners in California

Cheap but effective, placer
State Library, Sacramento, California

mining consisted of literally

“washing” the gold out of
surface deposits. No deep
excavation was required. This
crew of male and female miners
in California in 1852 was using a
“long tom” sluice that washed
relatively large quantities of ore.

drafted a constitution in 1849 that excluded slavery Virginia-born, slaveowning planter from Louisiana. It
and then boldly applied to Congress for admission. boasted a majority in the cabinet and on the Supreme
California would thus bypass the usual territorial stage, Court. If outnumbered in the House, the South had
thwarting southern congressmen seeking to block free equality in the Senate, where it could at least neutralize
soil. Southern politicians, alarmed by the Californians’ northern maneuvers. Its cotton fields were expanding,
“impertinent” stroke for freedom, arose in violent and cotton prices were profitably high. Few sane peo-
opposition. Would California prove to be the golden ple, North or South, believed that slavery was seriously
straw that broke the back of the Union? threatened where it already existed below the Mason-
Dixon line. The fifteen slave states could easily veto
any proposed constitutional amendment.
SUnderground
ectional Balance and the
Railroad
Yet the South was deeply worried, as it had been
for several decades, by the ever-tipping political bal-
ance. There were then fifteen slave states and fifteen
The South of 1850 was relatively well-off. It then free states. The admission of California would destroy
enjoyed, as it had from the beginning, more than the delicate equilibrium in the Senate, perhaps for-
its share of the nation’s leadership. It had seated in ever. Potential slave territory under the American flag
the White House the war hero Zachary Taylor, a was running short, if it had not in fact disappeared.

A Stop on the Underground

Railroad Escaping slaves
could be hidden in this small
upstairs room of Levi and
Catharine Coffin’s House in
Newport, [Link] beds were
Levi Coffin House State Histoic Site

moved in front of the door to

hide its existence. The Levis
were Quakers from North
Carolina who, during twenty
years in Newport, helped more
than 2,000 fleeing slaves safely
reach Canada—and freedom.

381
Copyright 2012 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s).
Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it.
Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College
Harriet Tubman (on left) with Some of the Slaves She Helped to Free John Brown
called her “General Tubman” for her effective work in helping slaves escape to Canada
on the Underground Railroad. During the Civil War, she served as a Union spy behind
Confederate lines. Herself illiterate, she worked after the war to bring education to the
freed slaves in North Carolina.

Agitation had already developed in the territories of half the territory of present-day New Mexico (see Map
New Mexico and Utah for admission as nonslave states. 18.2). The federal government was proposing to detach
The fate of California might well establish a precedent this prize, while hot-blooded Texans were threatening
for the rest of the Mexican Cession territory—an area to descend upon Santa Fe and seize what they regarded
purchased largely with southern blood. as rightfully theirs. The explosive quarrel foreshadowed
Texas nursed an additional grievance of its own. It shooting.
claimed a huge area east of the Rio Grande and north Many southerners were also angered by the nag-
to the forty-second parallel, embracing in part about ging agitation in the North for the abolition of slavery
in the District of Columbia. They looked with alarm
on the prospect of a ten-mile-square oasis of free soil
thrust between slaveholding Maryland and slavehold-
110°W 100°W
42°N WYOMING ing Virginia.
Even more disagreeable to the South was the loss of
40°N
runaway slaves, many of whom were assisted north by
the Underground Railroad. This virtual freedom
COLORADO KANSAS train consisted of an informal chain of “stations” (anti-
slavery homes), through which scores of “passengers”
90°W
(runaway slaves) were spirited by “conductors” (usually
Santa Fe
white and black abolitionists) from the slave states to
OKLAHOMA the free-soil sanctuary of Canada.
NEW
N The most amazing of these “conductors” was an
MEXICO illiterate runaway slave from Maryland, fearless Harriet
Tubman. During nineteen forays into the South, she
TEXAS
1850 rescued more than three hundred slaves, including her
30°N aged parents, and deservedly earned the title “Moses.”
0 200 Km. Lively imaginations later exaggerated the reach of the
0 200 Mi. Underground Railroad and its “stationmasters,” but its
Gulf of importance was undisputed.
Disputed area
Me x i co By 1850 southerners were demanding a new and
Present-day state boundaries
more stringent fugitive-slave law. The old one, passed
by Congress in 1793, had proved inadequate to cope
Map 18.2 Texas and the Disputed Area Before the Com- with runaways, especially since unfriendly state author-
promise of 1850 © Cengage Learning ities failed to provide needed cooperation. Unlike cattle
thieves, the abolitionists who ran the Underground
HMCo Map
kennedy, The American Pageant, 14/e ©2010
382Texas and the Disputed Area Before
The Compromise of 1850
kennedty_18_02
Copyright 2012 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s).
Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it.
trim 20p6 x 21p0
The “Immortal Trio” of the Senate • 383

Railroad did not gain personally from their lawless- colleague read his fateful words. “I have, Senators,
ness. But to the slaveowners, the loss was infuriating, believed from the first that the agitation on the sub-
whatever the motives. The moral judgments of the abo- ject of slavery would, if not prevented by some timely
litionists seemed, in some ways, more galling than out- and effective measure, end in disunion.” Although
right theft. They reflected not only a holier-than-thou approving the purpose of Clay’s proposed concessions,
attitude but a refusal to obey the laws solemnly passed Calhoun rejected them as not providing adequate safe-
by Congress. guards for southern rights. His impassioned plea was
Estimates indicate that the South in 1850 was losing to leave slavery alone, return runaway slaves, give the
perhaps 1,000 runaways a year out of its total of some South its rights as a minority, and restore the politi-
4 million slaves. In fact, more blacks probably gained cal balance. He had in view, as was later revealed, an
their freedom by self-purchase or voluntary emanci- utterly unworkable scheme of electing two presidents,
pation than ever escaped. But the principle weighed one from the North and one from the South, each
heavily with the slavemasters. They rested their argu- wielding a veto.
ment on the Constitution, which protected slavery, Calhoun died in 1850, before the debate was over,
and on the laws of Congress, which provided for slave- murmuring the sad words, “The South! The South! God
catching. “Although the loss of property is felt,” said a knows what will become of her!” Appreciative fellow
southern senator, “the loss of honor is felt still more.” citizens in Charleston erected to his memory an impos-
ing monument, which bore the inscription “Truth,
Justice, and the Constitution.” Calhoun had labored
Twilight of the Senatorial Giants to preserve the Union and had taken his stand on the
Constitution, but his proposals in their behalf almost
Southern fears were such that Congress was confronted undid both.
with catastrophe in 1850. Free-soil California was Daniel Webster next took the Senate spotlight to
banging on the door for admission. “Fire-eaters” in the uphold Clay’s compromise measures in his last great
South were voicing ominous threats of secession. In speech, a three-hour effort. Now sixty-eight years old
October 1849 southerners had announced their inten- and suffering from a liver complaint aggravated by
tion to convene the following year in Nashville, Ten- high living, he had lost some of the fire in his magnifi-
nessee, to consider withdrawing from the Union. The cent voice. Speaking deliberately and before overflow-
failure of Congress to act could easily mean the failure ing galleries, he urged all reasonable concessions to the
of the United States as a country. The crisis brought into South, including a new fugitive-slave law with teeth.
the congressional forum the most distinguished assem- As for slavery in the territories, asked Webster, why
blage of statesmen since the Constitutional Conven- legislate on the subject? To do so was an act of sacri-
tion of 1787—the Old Guard of the dying generation lege, for Almighty God had already passed the Wilmot
and the young gladiators of the new. That “immortal Proviso. The good Lord had decreed—through climate,
trio”—Clay, Calhoun, and Webster—appeared together topography, and geography—that a plantation econ-
for the last time on the public stage. omy, and hence a slave economy, could not profitably
Henry Clay, now seventy-three years of age, played exist in the Mexican Cession territory.* Webster sanely
a crucial role. The “Great Compromiser” had come to concluded that compromise, concession, and sweet rea-
the Senate from Kentucky to reprise the role he had sonableness would provide the only solutions. “Let us
played twice before, in the Missouri and nullification not be pygmies,” he pleaded, “in a case that calls for
crises. The once-glamorous statesman—though disil- men.”
lusioned, enfeebled, and racked by a cruel cough—was If measured by its immediate effects, Webster’s
still eloquent, conciliatory, and captivating. He pro- famed Seventh of March speech of 1850 was his fin-
posed and skillfully defended a series of compromises. est. It helped turn the tide in the North toward com-
He was ably seconded by thirty-seven-year-old Senator promise. The clamor for printed copies became so great
Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois, the “Little Giant” (five that Webster mailed out more than 100,000, remarking
feet four inches), whose role was less spectacular but that 200,000 would not satisfy the demand. His tre-
even more important. Clay urged with all his persua- mendous effort visibly strengthened Union sentiment.
siveness that the North and South both make conces- It was especially pleasing to the banking and commer-
sions and that the North partially yield by enacting a cial centers of the North, which stood to lose millions
more feasible fugitive-slave law. of dollars by secession. One prominent Washington
Senator John C. Calhoun, the “Great Nullifier,” banker canceled two notes of Webster’s totaling $5,000
then sixty-eight and dying of tuberculosis, championed
the South in his last formal speech. Too weak to deliver
it himself, he sat bundled up in the Senate chamber, *Webster was wrong here; within one hundred years, California had
his eyes glowing within a stern face, while a younger become one of the great cotton-producing states of the Union.

against concession. He seemed not to realize that com-

Ralph Waldo Emerson, the philosopher and moderate promise had brought the Union together and that
abolitionist, was outraged by Webster’s support of when the sections could no longer compromise, they
concessions to the South in the Fugitive Slave Act. In would have to part company.
February 1851 he wrote in his journal, Seward argued earnestly that Christian legislators

“ I opened a paper to-day in which he [Webster]

pounds on the old strings [of liberty] in a letter to
must obey God’s moral law as well as man’s mundane
law. He therefore appealed, with reference to excluding
slavery in the territories, to an even “higher law” than
the Washington Birthday feasters at New York.
the Constitution. This alarming phrase, wrenched
‘Liberty! liberty!’ Pho! Let Mr. Webster, for decen-
from its context, may have cost him the presidential
cy’s sake, shut his lips once and forever on this nomination and the presidency in 1860.
word. The word liberty in the mouth of Mr. Web- As the great debate in Congress ran its heated
ster sounds like the word love in the mouth of a course, deadlock seemed certain. Blunt old President
courtesan.
” Taylor, who had allegedly fallen under the influence of
men like “Higher Law” Seward, seemed bent on veto-
ing any compromise passed by Congress. His military
and sent him a personal check for $1,000 and a mes- ire was aroused by the threats of Texas to seize Santa
sage of congratulations. Fe. He appeared to be doggedly determined to “Jack-
But the Free-Soilers and abolitionists, who had sonize” the dissenters, if need be, by leading an army
assumed Webster was one of them, upbraided him as a against the Texans in person and hanging all “damned
traitor, worthy of bracketing with Benedict Arnold. The traitors.” If troops had begun to march, the South prob-
poet John Greenleaf Whittier lamented, ably would have rallied to the defense of Texas, and the
Civil War might have erupted in 1850.
So fallen! so lost! the light withdrawn
Which once he wore!
The glory from his gray hairs gone
For evermore! Breaking the Congressional Logjam
These reproaches were most unfair. Webster had At the height of the controversy in 1850, President Tay-
long regarded slavery as evil but disunion as worse. lor unknowingly helped the cause of concession by
dying suddenly, probably of an acute intestinal disor-
der. Portly, round-faced Vice President Millard Fillmore,
Doneadlock and Danger
Capitol Hill
a colorless and conciliatory New York lawyer-politician,
took over the reins. As presiding officer of the Senate,
he had been impressed with the arguments for concili-
The stormy congressional debate of 1850 was not fin- ation, and he gladly signed the series of compromise
ished, for the Young Guard from the North were yet measures that passed Congress after seven long months
to have their say. This was the group of newer leaders of stormy debate. The balancing of interests in the
who, unlike the aging Old Guard, had not grown up Compromise of 1850 was delicate in the extreme
with the Union. They were more interested in purging (see Table 18.1).
and purifying it than in patching and preserving it. The struggle to get these measures accepted by the
William H. Seward, the wiry and husky-throated country was hardly less heated than in Congress. In the
freshman senator from New York, was the able spokes- northern states, “Union savers” like Senators Clay, Web-
man for many of the younger northern radicals. A ster, and Douglas orated on behalf of the compromise.
strong antislaveryite, he came out unequivocally The ailing Clay himself delivered more than seventy

Table 18.1 Compromise of 1850

Concessions to the North Concessions to the South
California admitted as a free state The remainder of the Mexican Cession area to be formed into the
territories of New Mexico and Utah, without restriction on slavery,
hence open to popular sovereignty
Territory disputed by Texas and New Mexico to be surrendered to Texas to receive $10 million from the federal government as
New Mexico compensation
Abolition of the slave trade (but not slavery) in the District of A more stringent fugitive-slave law going beyond that of 1793
Columbia

speeches, as a powerful sentiment for acceptance grad-

ually crystallized in the North. It was strengthened by Balancing the Compromise Scales
a growing spirit of goodwill, which sprang partly from Who got the better deal in the Compromise of 1850?
a feeling of relief and partly from an upsurge of pros- The answer is clearly the North (see Map 18.3). Cali-
perity enriched by California gold. fornia, as a free state, tipped the Senate balance perma-
But the “fire-eaters” of the South were still vio- nently against the South. The territories of New Mexico
lently opposed to concessions. One extreme South Car- and Utah were open to slavery on the basis of popular
olina newspaper avowed that it loathed the Union and sovereignty. But the iron law of nature—the “highest
hated the North as much as it did Hell itself. A move- law” of all—had loaded the dice in favor of free soil.
ment in the South to boycott northern goods gained Southerners urgently needed more slave territory to
some headway, but in the end the southern Unionists, restore the “sacred balance.” If they could not carve
assisted by the warm glow of prosperity, prevailed. new states out of the recent conquests from Mexico,
In June 1850 the assemblage of southern extrem- where else might they get them? The Caribbean was
ists met in Nashville, ironically near the burial place of one answer.
Andrew Jackson. The delegates not only took a strong Even the apparent gains of the South rang hollow.
position in favor of slavery but condemned the com- Disgruntled Texas was to be paid $10 million toward
promise measures then being hammered out in Con- discharging its indebtedness, but in the long run this
gress. Meeting again in November after the bills had was a modest sum. The immense area in dispute had
passed, the convention proved to be a dud. By that time been torn from the side of slaveholding Texas and was
southern opinion had reluctantly accepted the verdict almost certain to be free. The South had halted the
of Congress. drive toward abolition in the District of Columbia, at
Like the calm after a storm, a second Era of Good least temporarily, by permitting the outlawing of the
Feelings dawned. Disquieting talk of secession sub- slave trade in the federal district. But even this move
sided. Peace-loving people, both North and South, were was an entering wedge toward complete emancipation
determined that the compromises should be a “final- in the nation’s capital.
ity” and that the explosive issue of slavery should be Most alarming of all, the drastic new Fugitive
buried. But this placid period proved all too brief. Slave Law of 1850—“the Bloodhound Bill”—stirred

Henry Clay Proposing

the Compromise of
1850 This engraving
captures one of the
most dramatic
moments in the history
of the United States
Senate. Vice President
Millard Fillmore
presides, while on the
floor sit several of the
“Senatorial Giants” of
the era, including
Granger Collection

Daniel Webster,
Stephen A. Douglas,
and John C. Calhoun.

up a storm of opposition in the North. The fleeing The Underground Railroad stepped up its timeta-
slaves could not testify in their own behalf, and they ble, and infuriated northern mobs rescued slaves from
were denied a jury trial. These harsh practices, some their pursuers. Massachusetts, in a move toward nul-
citizens feared, threatened to create dangerous prec- lification suggestive of South Carolina in 1832, made
edents for white Americans. The federal commissioner it a penal offense for any state official to enforce the
who handled the case of a fugitive would receive five new federal statute. Other states passed “personal lib-
dollars if the runaway were freed and ten dollars if erty laws,” which denied local jails to federal officials
not—an arrangement that strongly resembled a bribe. and otherwise hampered enforcement. The abolition-
Freedom-loving northerners who aided the slave to ists rent the heavens with their protests against the
escape were liable to heavy fines and jail sentences. man-stealing statute. A meeting presided over by Wil-
They might even be ordered to join the slave-catchers, liam Lloyd Garrison in 1851 declared, “We execrate it,
and this possibility rubbed salt into old sores. we spit upon it, we trample it under our feet.”
So abhorrent was this “Man-Stealing Law” that it Beyond question, the Fugitive Slave Law was an
touched off an explosive chain reaction in the North. appalling blunder on the part of the South. No single irri-
Many shocked moderates, hitherto passive, were driven tant of the 1850s was more persistently galling to both
into the swelling ranks of the antislaveryites. When a sides, and none did more to awaken in the North a spirit
runaway slave from Virginia was captured in Boston in of antagonism against the South. The southerners in
1854, he had to be removed from the city under heavy turn were embittered because the northerners would not
federal guard through streets lined with sullen Yankees in good faith execute the law—the one real and immedi-
and shadowed by black-draped buildings festooned with ate southern “gain” from the Great Compromise. Slave-
flags flying upside down. One prominent Bostonian who catchers, with some success, redoubled their efforts.
witnessed this grim spectacle wrote that “we went to Should the shooting showdown have come in 1850?
bed one night old-fashioned, conservative, Compromise From the standpoint of the secessionists, yes; from the
Union Whigs and waked up stark mad Abolitionists.” standpoint of the Unionists, no. Time was fighting for

Map 18.3 Slavery After the Compromise of 1850 Regarding the Fugitive Slave Law
provisions of the Compromise of 1850, Ralph Waldo Emerson declared in May 1851 at Con-
cord, Massachusetts, “The act of Congress . . . is a law which every one of you will break
on the earliest occasion—a law which no man can obey, or abet the obeying, without loss
of self-respect and forfeiture of the name of gentleman.” Privately he wrote in his journal,
“This filthy enactment was made in the nineteenth century, by people who could read and
write. I will not obey it, by God.” © Cengage Learning

120°W 110°W 100°W 90°W 80°W 70°W

BRITISH NORTH AMERICA

(CANADA)
MAINE
OREGON MINNESOTA 6
TERRITORY TERRITORY VT.
3 N.H.
MICHIGAN NEW 3
UNORGANIZED WISCONSIN 4 MASS.
E A N

YORK 11
40°N TERRITORY 3 33
R.I.
CONN. 2
IOWA PENNSYLVANIA 1
O C
P A C I F

2 25 NEW JERSEY
UTAH INDIANA OHIO 5
11 21
ILLINOIS DEL.
TERRITORY 1
I C

9 VIRGINIA
CALIFORNIA 13 MD.
MISSOURI KENTUCKY 6
N T

2
I C

7 10 NORTH
NEW MEXICO TENNESSEE CAROLINA N
L A

INDIAN 10 8
TERRITORY
O C

SOUTH
TERRITORY ARKANSAS CAROLINA
AT

2
GEORGIA 6
E A

MISS. 6
30°N 5 ALABAMA
N

7
TEXAS
Gadsden 2 LOUISIANA FLORIDA
Purchase 4 1
Free state or territory
(141 representatives, 32 senators) 1853
Slave state or territory
(90 representatives, 30 senators) Gulf of Mexico
Territory open to slavery MEXICO 0 200 400 Km.
2 Number of representatives
0 200 400 Mi.

Protesting the Fugitive

Slave Law, 1850 The
cartoonist makes bitter
sport of the hated law
and heaps scorn on
Daniel Webster, on his
hands and knees at the
right, who voted for the
Library of Congress

law as part of the

Compromise of 1850.
The outspoken
abolitionist William
Lloyd Garrison is
depicted much more
favorably on the left.

the North. With every passing decade, this huge section him to fall off a horse, he was known as the “Fainting
was forging further ahead in population and wealth— General,” though scandalmongers pointed to a fond-
in crops, factories, foundries, ships, and railroads. ness for alcohol. But he was enemyless because he had
Delay also added immensely to the moral strength been inconspicuous, and as a prosouthern northerner,
of the North—to its will to fight for the Union. In he was acceptable to the slavery wing of the Democratic
1850 countless thousands of northern moderates were party. His platform revived the Democrats’ commit-
unwilling to pin the South to the rest of the nation ment to territorial expansion as pursued by President
with bayonets. But the inflammatory events of the Polk and emphatically endorsed the Compromise of
1850s did much to bolster the Yankee will to resist 1850, Fugitive Slave Law and all.
secession, whatever the cost. This one feverish decade The Whigs, also convening in Baltimore, missed a
gave the North time to accumulate the material and splendid opportunity to capitalize on their record in
moral strength that provided the margin of victory. statecraft. Able to boast of a praiseworthy achievement
Thus the Compromise of 1850, from one point of view, in the Compromise of 1850, they might logically have
won the Civil War for the Union (see Map 18.4). nominated President Fillmore or Senator Webster, both
of whom were associated with it. But having won in the
past only with military heroes, they turned to another,
Defeat and Doom for the Whigs “Old Fuss and Feathers” Winfield Scott, perhaps the
ablest American general of his generation. Although
Meeting in Baltimore, the Democratic nominating con- he was a huge and impressive figure, his manner bor-
vention of 1852 startled the nation. Hopelessly dead- dered on haughtiness. His personality not only repelled
locked, it finally stampeded to the second “dark-horse” the masses but eclipsed his genuinely statesmanlike
candidate in American history, an unrenowned lawyer- achievements. The Whig platform praised the Com-
politician, Franklin Pierce, from the hills of New Hamp- promise of 1850 as a lasting arrangement, though less
shire. The Whigs tried to jeer him back into obscurity enthusiastically than the Democrats.
with the cry “Who is Frank Pierce?” Democrats replied, With slavery and sectionalism to some extent soft-
“The Young Hickory of the Granite Hills.” pedaled, the campaign again degenerated into a dull
Pierce was a weak and indecisive figure. Youngish, and childish attack on personalities. Democrats ridi-
handsome, militarily erect, smiling, and convivial, he culed Scott’s pomposity; Whigs charged that Pierce was
had served without real distinction in the Mexican the hero of “many a well-fought bottle.” Democrats cried
War. As a result of a painful groin injury that caused exultantly, “We Polked ‘em in ‘44; we’ll Pierce ‘em in ‘52.”

Luckily for the Democrats, the Whig party was Whig party and, within a few years, its complete death.
hopelessly split. Antislavery Whigs of the North swal- The Whigs’ demise augured the eclipse of national par-
lowed Scott as their nominee but deplored his platform, ties and the worrisome rise of purely sectional political
which endorsed the hated Fugitive Slave Law. The cur- alignments. The Whigs were governed at times by the
rent phrase ran, “We accept the candidate but spit on crassest opportunism, and they won only two presiden-
the platform.” Southern Whigs, who doubted Scott’s tial elections (1840, 1848) in their colorful career, both
loyalty to the Compromise of 1850 and especially the with war heroes. They finally choked to death trying
Fugitive Slave Law, accepted the platform but spat on the to swallow the distasteful Fugitive Slave Law. But their
candidate. More than five thousand Georgia Whigs— great contribution—and a noteworthy one indeed—
“finality men”—voted in vain for Webster, although he was to help uphold the ideal of the Union through
had died nearly two weeks before the election. their electoral strength in the South and through the
General Scott, victorious on the battlefield, met eloquence of leaders like Henry Clay and Daniel Web-
defeat at the ballot box. His friends remarked whimsi- ster. Both of these statesmen, by unhappy coincidence,
cally that he was not used to “running.” Actually, he died during the 1852 campaign. But the good they had
was stabbed in the back by his fellow Whigs, notably done lived after them and contributed powerfully to
in the South. In addition, Free Soil party candidate the eventual preservation of a united United States.
John P. Hale, senator from New Hampshire, siphoned
off northern Whig votes that might have gone to Scott.
Hale walked away with a respectable 5 percent of the
popular vote. The pliant Pierce won in a landslide, 254
ESouth
xpansionist Stirrings
of the Border
electoral votes to 42, although the popular count was
closer, 1,601,117 to 1,385,453. The intoxicating victory in the Mexican War, coupled
The election of 1852 was fraught with frightening with the discovery of gold in California just nine days
significance, though it may have seemed tame at the before the war’s end, reinvigorated the spirit of Mani-
time. It marked the effective end of the disorganized fest Destiny. The rush to the Sierra Nevada goldfields

Map 18.4 The Legal Status of Slavery, from the Revolution to the Civil War © Cengage Learning

120°W 110°W 100°W 90°W 80°W 70°W

WASHINGTON
BRITISH NORTH AMERICA
TERRITORY (CANADA)
UNORGANIZED VT. MAINE
TERR. MINNESOTA (1777) (1780)
OREGON Free by TERRITORY
NEBRASKA Missouri N.H.
(1859) Free by (1783)
Free by TERRITORY Compromise Missouri
Oregon Act 1848 Free by 1820 Compromise MASS.
Free by Missouri Compromise (1780)
1820
Oregon Act 1820 WISCONSIN NEW YORK
1848 (1848) (1799–1827) R.I.
40°N Open to slavery MICHIGAN (1784–
by Kansas-Nebraska IOWA (1846) (1837)
CONN. 1842)
Act 1854 Free by PENNSYLVANIA
Missouri N.J. (1784–
(1780–1850)
UTAH TERRITORY Compromise OHIO (1804– 1848)
ILLINOIS INDIANA 1846)
Open to slavery by 1820 (1803)
(1818) (1816)
AN

Compromise of 1850 DEL.

KANSAS TERRITORY Free by Northwest Ordinance
Free by Missouri Compromise 1820 1787 MD.
PAC I

Free by Act
CE

VIRGINIA
CALIFORNIA annexing Texas 1845 Open to slavery by Kansas-Nebraska Act 1854
(1850) Free by Territorial Constitution 1859 MISSOURI KENTUCKY
O

NORTH
F IC

NEW MEXICO TERRITORY CAROLINA

Public INDIAN TENNESSEE
TI

Open to slavery by land TERRITORY ARKANSAS SOUTH

Compromise of 1850 (UNORGANIZED) N
N

CAROLINA
OC

Open to slavery by MISS. GEORGIA

Act of Annexation
T

ALABAMA
EA

to N.M. Terr.
30°N 1853 TEXAS LA.
N

FLORIDA

Free state by admission to Union

Free state by gradual abolition
Free territory by Act of Congress Gulf of Mexico
Slave state by admission to Union MEXICO
0 200 400 Km.
Territory open to slavery by Act of Congress
(1803) Date of abolition by State Constitution 0 200 400 Mi.

Tropic of Cancer
Cuba
Gulf of (Spain)
Mexico

20°N

Caribbean Sea Jamaica

(Gr. Br.)
MEXICO Isthmus of
BRITISH N
HONDURAS
Tehuantepec British agents and traders
influence natives Map 18.5 Central America,
GUATEMALA
HONDURAS ca. 1850, Showing British Pos-
Mosquito Coast
sessions and Proposed Canal
PAC I F IC OC EAN SALVADOR NICARAGUA
Routes Until President Theodore
Proposed canal route, then a Greytown Future Roosevelt swung into action with
Panama Canal
land-and-water route his big stick in 1903, a Nicara-
guan canal, closer to the United
10°N COSTA RICA
0 200 400 Km.
COLOMBIA
States, was generally judged more
0 200 400 Mi. (NEW GRANADA) desirable than a canal across Pan-
100°W 90°W 80°W ama. © Cengage Learning

aroused particular concerns about the fate of Central the north by the Mason and Dixon line and on the
America. Since the days of Balboa, this narrow neck of South by the Isthmus of Tehuantepec [southern Mex-
Houghton-Mifflin
land had stimulated dreams of a continuous
Kennedy, The American Pagent 14e, ©2010
Atlantic-to-
No bleeds ico], including Cuba and all other lands on our South-
Pacific transportation route that would effectively sever
kennedy_18_05_Ms00349 ern shore.” Nicaragua beckoned beguilingly. A brazen
Central
the twoAmerica
American continents
, ca. 1850, (see Map 18.5). Whoever
Showing British American adventurer, William Walker, tried repeatedly
Possessions and Proposed Canal Routes
controlled that route would hold imperial sway over all to grab control of this Central American country. (He
Trim 30p0 x 19p0
maritime nations, especially the United States.
Final proof: 8/8/08 had earlier tried and failed to seize Baja California from
Increasing British encroachment into the area— Mexico and turn it into a slave state.) Backed by an
including the British seizure of the port of San Juan del armed force recruited largely in the South, he installed
Norte (renamed Greytown) on Nicaragua’s “Mosquito himself as president in July 1856 and promptly legal-
Coast”—drove the governments of both the United ized slavery. One southern newspaper proclaimed to
States and New Granada (later Colombia) to conclude the planter aristocracy that Walker—the “gray-eyed
an important treaty in 1848. It guaranteed the Ameri- man of destiny”—“now offers Nicaragua to you and
can right of transit across the isthmus in return for your slaves, at a time when you have not a friend on the
Washington’s pledge to maintain the “perfect neutral- face of the earth.” But a coalition of Central American
ity” of the route so that the “free transit of traffic might nations formed an alliance to overthrow him. President
not be interrupted.” The agreement later provided a fig Pierce withdrew diplomatic recognition, and the gray-
leaf of legal cover for Theodore Roosevelt’s assertion of eyed man’s destiny was to crumple before a Honduran
American control of the Panama Canal Zone in 1903. It firing squad in 1860.
also led to the construction of the first “transcontinen- Sugar-rich Cuba, lying just off the nation’s south-
tal” railroad. Completed in 1855 at a cost of thousands ern doorstep, was also an enticing prospect for annexa-
of lives lost to pestilence and accident, it ran forty-eight tion. This remnant of Spain’s once-mighty New World
miles from coast to coast through the green hell of the empire already held a large population of enslaved
Panamanian jungle. A full-blown confrontation with blacks, and it might be carved into several states, restor-
Britain was avoided by the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty ing the political balance in the Senate. President Polk
in 1850, which stipulated that neither America nor had considered offering Spain $100 million for Cuba,
Britain would fortify or seek exclusive control over any but the proud Spaniards replied that they would sooner
future isthmian waterway (later rescinded by the Hay- see the island sunk into the sea than in the hands of
Pauncefote Treaty of 1901; see p. 628). the hated Yankees.
Southern “slavocrats” cast especially covetous eyes Rebuffed as buyers, some southern adventurers
southward in the 1850s. They lusted for new slave ter- now undertook to shake the tree of Manifest Destiny.
ritory after the Compromise of 1850 seemingly closed During 1850–1851 two “filibustering” (from the Span-
most of the Mexican Cession to the “peculiar institu- ish filibustero, meaning “freebooter” or “pirate”) expe-
tion.” In 1856 a Texan proposed a toast that was drunk ditions, each numbering several hundred armed men,
with gusto: “To the Southern republic bounded on descended upon Cuba. Both feeble efforts were repelled,

lion once again played a role. Britain had recently

The first platform of the newly born (antislavery) humbled China in the Opium War, fought to secure
Republican party in 1856 lashed out at the Ostend the right of British traders to peddle opium in the
Manifesto, with its transparent suggestion that Cuba be Celestial Kingdom. At the war’s conclusion in 1842,
seized. The plank read, Britain gained free access to five so-called treaty ports,

“ Resolved, That the highwayman’s plea, that

‘might makes right,’ embodied in the Ostend
as well as outright control of the island of Hong Kong
(where it remained for another century and a half).
Prodded by Boston merchants fearful of seeing Britain
Circular, was in every respect unworthy of
horn in on their lucrative trade with China, President
American diplomacy, and would bring shame
Tyler thereupon dispatched Caleb Cushing, a dashing
and dishonor upon any Government or people

”
Massachusetts lawyer-scholar, to secure comparable
that gave it their sanction. concessions for the United States. Cushing’s four war-
ships arrived at Macao, in southern China, in early
1844, bearing gifts that included a weathervane and a
and the last one ended in tragedy when the leader and pair of six-shooters.
fifty followers—some of them from the “best fami- Impressed by Cushing’s charm and largesse—and
lies” of the South—were summarily shot or strangled. also eager for a counterweight to the meddlesome Brit-
So outraged were the southerners that an angry mob ish—silk-gowned Chinese diplomats signed the Treaty
sacked Spain’s consulate in New Orleans. of Wanghia, the first formal diplomatic agreement
Spanish officials in Cuba rashly forced a show- between the United States and China, on July 3, 1844.
down in 1854, when they seized the American steamer Cushing was interested in commerce, not colonies,
Black Warrior on a technicality. Now was the time for and he secured some vital rights and privileges from
President Pierce, dominated as he was by the South, to the Chinese. “Most favored nation” status afforded the
provoke a war with Spain and seize Cuba. The major United States any and all trading terms accorded to
powers of Europe—England, France, and Russia—were other powers. “Extraterritoriality” provided for trying
about to become bogged down in the Crimean War and Americans accused of crimes in China before American
hence were unable to aid Spain. officials, not in Chinese courts. (Cushing was prompted
An incredible cloak-and-dagger episode followed. to seek this particular immunity by the memory of
The secretary of state instructed the American min- a seaman on a U.S. vessel who had been strangled to
isters in Spain, England, and France to prepare confi- death by Chinese authorities for what was apparently
dential recommendations for the acquisition of Cuba. the accidental drowning of a Chinese woman.) Ameri-
Meeting initially at Ostend, Belgium, the three envoys can trade with China flourished thanks to Cushing’s
drew up a top-secret dispatch, soon known as the treaty, though it never reached the proportions his
Ostend Manifesto. This startling document urged backers had dreamed of. More immediately important
that the administration offer $120 million for Cuba. If was the opportunity it opened for American mission-
Spain refused, and if its continued ownership endan- aries, thousands of whom soon flooded prayerfully
gered American interests, the United States would “be through the treaty ports to convert the “heathen Chi-
justified in wresting” the island from the Spanish. nese.” Fatefully, America had now aligned itself with
The secret Ostend Manifesto quickly leaked out. the Western powers that chronically menaced China’s
Northern free-soilers, already angered by the Fugitive cultural integrity. All of them would one day reap a bit-
Slave Law and other gains for slavery, rose up in wrath ter harvest of resentment.
against the “manifesto of brigands.” The shackled black Success in China soon inspired a still more con-
hands of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom, whose sequential mission to pry open the bamboo gates of
plight had already stung the conscience of the North, Japan. After some disagreeable experiences with the
now held the South back. The red-faced Pierce admin- European world, Japan, at about the same time James-
istration hurriedly dropped its reckless schemes for town was settled, withdrew into an almost airtight
Cuba. The slavery issue thus checked territorial expan- cocoon of isolationism and remained there for more
sion in the 1850s. than two centuries. The long-ruling warrior dynasty
known as the Tokugawa Shogunate was so protective
of Japan’s insularity that it prohibited shipwrecked for-
The Allure of Asia eign sailors from leaving and refused to readmit Japa-
nese sailors who had been washed up on foreign shores.
The acquisition of California and Oregon had made Meanwhile, industrial and democratic revolutions were
the United States a Pacific power—or would-be power. convulsing the Western world, while Japan remained
How could Americans now tap more deeply the sup- placidly secluded. By 1853 Japan was ready to emerge
posedly rich markets of Asia? Rivalry with the British from its self-imposed quarantine.

In 1852 President Millard Fillmore dispatched to the era of the Shogunate and propel the Land of the
Japan a fleet of warships commanded by Commodore Rising Sun headlong into the modern world—and an
Matthew C. Perry. The brother of the hero of the Bat- eventual epochal military clash with the United States.
tle of Lake Erie in 1813, Perry prepared diligently for
his mission, voraciously reading about Japan, query-
ing whalers about Pacific Ocean currents, and collect-
ing specimens of American technology with which to
Pandacific Railroad Promoters
the Gadsden Purchase
impress the Japanese. His four awesome, smoke-belch-
ing “black ships” steamed into Edo (later Tokyo) Bay Acute transportation problems were another legacy of
on July 8, 1853, inciting near-panic among the shocked the Mexican War. The newly acquired prizes of Cali-
Japanese. After tense negotiations, during which Perry fornia and Oregon might just as well have been islands
threatened to blast his way ashore if necessary, Perry some eight thousand miles west of the nation’s capital.
stepped onto the beach, preceded by two conspicuously The sea routes to and from the Isthmus of Panama, to
tall African American flag bearers. From elaborately say nothing of those around South America, were too
carved gold-trimmed boxes, Perry produced silk-bound long. Covered-wagon travel past bleaching animal
letters requesting free trade and friendly relations. He bones was possible, but slow and dangerous. A popular
handed them to the wary Japanese delegation and then song recalled,
tactfully withdrew, promising to return the following
They swam the wide rivers and crossed the tall peaks,
year to receive the Japanese reply.
And camped on the prairie for weeks upon weeks.
True to his word, Perry returned in February 1854
Starvation and cholera and hard work and slaughter,
with an even larger force of seven men-of-war. Once
They reached California spite of hell and high water.
again he combined bluster and grace, plying the Japa-
nese with gifts, including a miniature steam locomo- Feasible land transportation was imperative—or
tive and 350 feet of track. With this display of pomp the newly won possessions on the Pacific Coast might
and bravado, he persuaded the Japanese to sign the break away. Camels were even proposed as the answer.
landmark Treaty of Kanagawa on March 31, 1854. Several score of these temperamental beasts—“ships
It provided for proper treatment of shipwrecked sailors, of the desert”—were imported from the Near East,
American coaling rights in Japan, and the establish- but mule-driving Americans did not adjust to them. A
ment of consular relations. Perry had inserted only a transcontinental railroad was clearly the only real solu-
commercial toe in the door, but he had cracked Japan’s tion to the problem.
two-century shell of isolation wide-open. Within little Railroad promoters, both North and South, had
more than a decade, the “Meiji Restoration” would end projected many drawing-board routes to the Pacific
Bridgeman Art Library Ltd

Commodore Matthew Perry in Japan, 1853 Among Perry’s gifts to the Japanese
was a miniature railway, complete with engine, cars, and track, which made a vivid
impression on the Japanese artist who created this work.

120°W 110°W 100°W

.
Colorado R
CALIFORNIA

Los Angeles
NEW MEXICO
TERRITORY

PAC
Gi l
a R.

IFI
Tucson TEXAS
El Paso

Se
a o
OC
30°N Houston

f C
or
EA

Ri
MEXICO

o
N
N

Gr
an
d
Gadsden Purchase, 1853 Gulf of

e
0 150 300 Km.
Future route of the Southern Mexico
Pacific Railroad (1882) 0 150 300 Mi.

Coast. But the estimated cost in all cases

HMCo Mapwas so great central railroad line would No have to be thrust through
bleeds
that for many years there could obviously
Kennedy, ThebeAmerican
only one the©2010
Pageant 14e, unorganized territory of Nebraska, where the buf-
line. Should its terminus be in the The Gadsden
North Purchase, 1853
or in the falo and Indians roamed.
kennedy_18_06_Ms00350
South? The favored section would trim-30p0
reap rich rewards
x 16p0 in Northern railroad boosters quickly replied that if
wealth, population, and influence. The
Final South,
proof 8/8/08 losing organized territory were the test, then Nebraska should
the economic race with the North,Revised 8/13/08—cm:
was eager delete white
to extend befillorganized.
from scale andSuch
set toaOP
move was not premature, because
a railroad through adjacent southwestern territory all thousands of land-hungry pioneers were already poised
the way to California. on the Nebraska border. But all schemes proposed in
Another chunk of Mexico now seemed desirable, Congress for organizing the territory were greeted with
because the campaigns of the recent war had shown apathy or hostility by many southerners. Why should
that the best railway route ran slightly south of the the South help create new free-soil states and thus cut
Mexican border. Secretary of War Jefferson Davis, its own throat by facilitating a northern railroad?
a Mississippian, arranged to have James Gadsden, a
prominent South Carolina railroad man, appointed
minister to Mexico. Finding Santa Anna in power for
the sixth and last time, and as usual in need of money,
Douglas’s Kansas-Nebraska Scheme
Gadsden made gratifying headway. He negotiated a At this point in 1854, Senator Stephen A. Douglas of
treaty in 1853, which ceded to the United States the Illinois delivered a counterstroke to offset the Gadsden
Gadsden Purchase for $10 million (see Map 18.6). thrust for southern expansion westward. A squat, bull-
The transaction aroused much criticism among north- necked, and heavy-chested figure, the “Little Giant”
erners, who objected to paying a huge sum for a cac- radiated the energy and breezy optimism of the self-
tus-strewn desert nearly the size of Gadsden’s South made man. An ardent booster for the West, he longed
Carolina. Undeterred, the Senate approved the pact, to break the North-South deadlock over westward
in the process shortsightedly eliminating a window on expansion and stretch a line of settlements across the
the Sea of Cortez. continent. He had also invested heavily in Chicago real
No doubt the Gadsden Purchase enabled the estate and in railway stock and was eager to have the
South to claim the coveted railroad with even greater Windy City become the eastern terminus of the pro-
insistence. A southern track would be easier to build posed Pacific railroad. He would thus endear himself to
because the mountains were less high and because the the voters of Illinois, benefit his section, and enrich his
route, unlike the proposed northern lines, would not own purse.
pass through unorganized territory. Texas was already A veritable “steam engine in breeches,” Douglas
a state at this point, and New Mexico (with the Gads- threw himself behind a legislative scheme that would
den Purchase added) was a formally organized terri- enlist the support of a reluctant South. The proposed
tory, with federal troops available to provide protection Territory of Nebraska would be sliced into two territo-
against marauding tribes of Indians. Any northern or ries, Kansas and Nebraska (see Map 18.7). Their status

regarding slavery would be settled by popular sover-

eignty—a democratic concept to which Douglas and
his western constituents were deeply attached. Kansas,
which lay due west of slaveholding Missouri, would pre-
sumably choose to become a slave state. But Nebraska,
lying west of free-soil Iowa, would presumably become
a free state.
Douglas’s Kansas-Nebraska scheme flatly contra-
dicted the Missouri Compromise of 1820, which had
forbidden slavery in the proposed Nebraska Territory
north of the sacred 368 30’ line. The only way to open
the region to popular sovereignty was to repeal the
ancient compact outright. This bold step Douglas was
now prepared to take, even at the risk of shattering the
uneasy truce patched together by the Compromise of
1850.
Many southerners, who had not conceived of Kan-
sas as slave soil, rose to the bait. Here was a chance to

Library of Congress
gain one more slave state. The pliable President Pierce,
under the thumb of southern advisers, threw his full
weight behind the Kansas-Nebraska Bill.
But the Missouri Compromise, then thirty-four
years old, could not be brushed aside lightly. What- Douglas Hatches a Slavery Problem Note the already
ever Congress passes it can repeal, but by this time the hatched Missouri Compromise, Squatter Sovereignty, and
North had come to regard the sectional pact as almost Filibuster (in Cuba), and the about-to-hatch Free Kansas
as sacred as the Constitution itself. Free-soil mem- and Dred Scott decision. So bitter was the outcry against
bers of Congress struck back with a vengeance. They Douglas at the time of the Kansas-Nebraska controversy
met their match in the violently gesticulating Doug- that he claimed with exaggeration that he could have
traveled from Boston to Chicago at night by the light from
las, who was the ablest rough-and-tumble debater of
his burning effigies.
his generation. Employing twisted logic and oratorical

Map 18.7 Kansas and Nebraska, 1854 The future Union Pacific Railroad (completed in
1869) is shown. Note the Missouri Compromise line of 368 30’ (1820). © Cengage Learning

WAS 110°W
H IN 100°W
PAC I F

G
TO

MINNESOTA
N

OREGON
TERR.

NEBRASKA TERRITORY
TERRITORY
IC

TERRITORY
1854
O C EAN

MICH.
Ogden IOWA
Omaha IND.
UTAH 40°N
N TERRITORY ILL.
KANSAS
CALIFORNIA TERRITORY MO.
1854 KY.

TENN.
Free state or territory N. MEX. INDIAN ARK.
TERR. TERRITORY Missouri Compromise
Slave state or territory
Line, 36˚30’
Opened to slavery by principle of popular
sovereignty, Compromise of 1850 TEXAS MISS. ALA.
Opened to slavery by principle of popular 0 200 400 Km. LA.
sovereignty, Kansas-Nebraska Act, 1854 30°N
Future Union Pacific Railroad (1869) 0 200 400 Mi.

HMCoCopyrightMap2012 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s).
No bleeds
Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it.
Kennedy, The American Pageant 14e, ©2010
394 • Chapter 18 Renewing the Sectional Struggle, 1848–1854

fireworks, he rammed the bill through Congress, with

strong support from many southerners. So heated were Massachusetts senator Charles Sumner (1811–1874)
political passions that bloodshed was barely averted. described the Kansas-Nebraska Bill as “at once the
Some members carried a concealed revolver or a bowie worst and the best Bill on which Congress ever acted.”
knife—or both. It was the worst because it represented a victory for
Douglas’s motives in prodding anew the snarling the slave power in the short run. But it was the best,
dog of slavery have long puzzled historians. His per- he said prophetically, because it
sonal interests have already been mentioned. In addi-
tion, his foes accused him of angling for the presidency
in 1856. Yet his admirers have argued plausibly in his
“ annuls all past compromises with slavery,
and makes all future compromises impossible.
Thus it puts freedom and slavery face to face,
defense that if he had not championed the ill-omened
and bids them grapple. Who can doubt the

”
bill, someone else would have.
The truth seems to be that Douglas acted somewhat
result?
impulsively and recklessly. His heart did not bleed over
the issue of slavery, and he declared repeatedly that he
did not care whether it was voted up or down in the ter- did much to unglue the eyes of men, and now the
ritories. What he failed to perceive was that hundreds Nebraska Bill leaves us staring.” Northern abolitionists
of thousands of his fellow citizens in the North did feel and southern “fire-eaters” alike saw less and less they
deeply on this moral issue. They regarded the repeal could live with. The growing legion of antislaveryites
of the Missouri Compromise as an intolerable breach gained numerous recruits, who resented the grasping
of faith, and they would henceforth resist to the last move by the “slavocracy” for Kansas. The southerners,
trench all future southern demands for slave territory. in turn, became inflamed when the free-soilers tried to
As Abraham Lincoln said, the North wanted to give to control Kansas, contrary to the presumed “deal.”
pioneers in the West “a clean bed, with no snakes in it.” The proud Democrats—a party now over half a
Genuine leaders, like skillful chess players, must century old—were shattered by the Kansas-Nebraska
foresee the possible effects of their moves. Douglas pre- Act. They did elect a president in 1856, but he was the
dicted a “hell of a storm,” but he grossly underestimated last one they were to boost into the White House for
its proportions. His critics in the North, branding him twenty-eight long years.
a “Judas” and a “traitor,” greeted his name with fren- Undoubtedly the most durable offspring of the Kan-
zied boos, hisses, and “three groans for Doug.” But he sas-Nebraska blunder was the new Republican party. It
still enjoyed a high degree of popularity among his fol- sprang up spontaneously in the Middle West, notably
lowing in the Democratic party, especially in Illinois, a in Wisconsin and Michigan, as a mighty moral protest
stronghold of popular sovereignty. against the gains of slavery. Gathering together dis-
satisfied elements, it soon included disgruntled Whigs
(among them Abraham Lincoln), Democrats, Free-
Congress Legislates a Civil War Soilers, Know-Nothings, and other foes of the Kansas-
Nebraska Act. The hodgepodge party spread eastward
The Kansas-Nebraska Act—a curtain-raiser to a ter- with the swiftness of a prairie fire and with the zeal of
rible drama—was one of the most momentous mea- a religious crusade. Unheard-of and unheralded at the
sures ever to pass Congress. By one way of reckoning, it beginning of 1854, when the nativist Know-Nothings
greased the slippery slope to Civil War. instead seemed to be the rising party of the North, it
Antislavery northerners were angered by what they elected a Republican Speaker of the House of Repre-
condemned as an act of bad faith by the “Nebrascals” sentatives within two years. Never really a third-party
and their “Nebrascality.” All future compromise with movement, its wide wingspan gave it flight overnight
the South would be immeasurably more difficult, and as the second major political party—and a purely sec-
without compromise there was bound to be conflict. tional one at that.
Henceforth the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, previ- At long last the dreaded sectional rift had appeared.
ously enforced in the North only halfheartedly, was a The new Republican party would not be allowed south
dead letter. The Kansas-Nebraska Act wrecked two com- of the Mason-Dixon line. Countless southerners sub-
promises: that of 1820, which it repealed specifically, scribed wholeheartedly to the sentiment that it was “a
and that of 1850, which northern opinion repealed nigger stealing, stinking, putrid, abolition party.” The
indirectly. Emerson wrote, “The Fugitive [Slave] Law Union was in dire peril.

Chapter Review
KEY TERMS PEOPLE TO KNOW
popular sovereignty (378) Clayton-Bulwer Treaty (389) Lewis Cass Franklin Pierce
Free Soil party (379) Ostend Manifesto (390) Zachary Taylor William Walker
California gold rush (380) Opium War (390) Harriet Tubman Caleb Cushing
Underground Railroad (382) Wanghia, Treaty of (390) Millard Fillmore Matthew C. Perry
Seventh of March Kanagawa, Treaty of (391)
speech (383) Gadsden Purchase (392)
Compromise of 1850 (384) Kansas-Nebraska Act (394)
Fugitive Slave Law (385)

CHRONOLOGY
1844 Caleb Cushing signs Treaty of Wanghia with 1852 Pierce defeats Scott for presidency
China
1853 Gadsden Purchase from Mexico
1848 British seize port of San Juan del Norte in
Nicaragua 1854 Commodore Perry opens Japan
Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ends Mexican War Ostend Manifesto proposes seizure of Cuba
Taylor defeats Cass and Van Buren for presidency Kansas-Nebraska Act repeals Missouri Compro-
mise of 1820
1849 California gold rush Republican party organized

1850 Fillmore assumes presidency after Taylor’s death 1856 William Walker becomes president of Nicaragua
Compromise of 1850, including Fugitive Slave and legalizes slavery
Law
Clayton-Bulwer Treaty with Britain 1868 Meiji Restoration in Japan

1851 Australian gold rush

To Learn More
William J. Cooper, Liberty and Slavery: Southern Politics to David M. Potter, The Impending Crisis, 1848–1861 (1976)
1860 (1983) Richard H. Sewell, A House Divided: Sectionalism and Civil
David H. Donald, Jean H. Baker, and Michael F. Holt, The War, 1848–1860 (1988)
Civil War and Reconstruction (rev. ed., 2001) Robert Trennert, Alternative to Extinction: Federal Indian
Kenneth S. Greenberg, Masters and Statesmen: The Political Policy and the Beginnings of the Reservation System,
Culture of American Slavery (1985) 1846–1851 (1975)
Keith P. Griffler, Frontline of Freedom: African Americans
and the Forging of the Underground Railroad in the Ohio
Valley (2004) A complete, annotated bibliography for this chap-
Bruce Levine, Half Slave and Half Free: The Roots of the Civil ter—along with brief descriptions of the People to
War (1992) Know—may be found on the American Pageant
website. The Key Terms are defined in a Glossary
James M. McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War at the end of the text.
Era (1988)

Go to the CourseMate website at

[Link] for
additional study tools and review
materials—including audio and
video clips—for this chapter.

Copyright 2012 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s).
Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it.
AP* Review Questions for Chapter 18
1. The doctrine of popular sovereignty, as embraced in 5. Which of these agreements was NOT part of the Com-
the mid-nineteenth century, is best defined as promise of 1850, which kept the Union together?
(A) placing the power of the federal government (A) California was admitted as a free state.
above that of states. (B) New Mexico and Utah were allowed to decide the
(B) giving the people of a territory or state the right to slave question independently.
decide the slavery issue for themselves. (C) A more severe fugitive slave law was enacted.
(C) the notion that government is subject to the will (D) Texas received $10 million from the federal gov-
of the people. ernment for ceding some of its land to New
(D) allowing Congress to decide the issue of slavery Mexico.
prior to admitting a new state. (E) Slavery was abolished in the District of Columbia.
(E) putting the good of the majority ahead of individ-
6. The Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 was hated in the North
ual desires.
for all of the following reasons EXCEPT that
2. Who were the Free-Soilers? (A) it denied slaves the right to testify on their own
(A) A political faction in the South that embraced behalf.
slavery in the territories (B) northerners who helped slaves escape could
(B) A political group supporting the rights of squatters receive heavy fines and jail terms.
to keep the land they developed in the West (C) southerners could require compensation from the
(C) A northern-based political party that supported federal government for runaway slaves that were
the Wilmot Proviso and banning slavery in the not found.
territories (D) northerners could be required to help recapture
(D) An abolitionist political party that sought the runaway slaves.
immediate end of slavery and the granting of land (E) commissioners would receive lower compensation
plots to freedmen for declaring a runaway slave “free” than they
(E) A political coalition of farmers that sought to curb would for declaring him or her a “fugitive.”
the excesses of industrial development
7. What was the major significance of the presidential
3. Which of these statements is NOT true about the Cali- election of 1852?
fornia gold rush of 1849? (A) It proved a triumph for the Compromise of 1850.
(A) It made many “forty-niners” rich. (B) It marked the beginning of the end for the Whig
(B) It fueled lawlessness in the California territory. party.
(C) It led Californians to seek rapid admission as a (C) It put America’s first “dark horse” candidate in the
state. White House.
(D) It sent tens of thousands into the territory and (D) It launched a new Era of Good Feelings across the
overwhelmed state government and resources. nation.
(E) It reignited the slavery debate. (E) It pitted two war heroes against each other as can-
didates for America’s highest office.
4. The Underground Railroad is best defined as a
(A) group of businessmen seeking monopoly control 8. The United States and New Grenada (Columbia)
over the burgeoning railroad industry. signed a vital treaty in 1848 that
(B) secret network of slaveowners who banded (A) gave the United States the right to travel across the
together to recapture runaway slaves. isthmus in exchange for its military neutrality.
(C) black market for trade goods designed to circum- (B) provided the United States with exclusive use of
vent protective tariffs. the isthmus in exchange for military defense of
(D) network of safe places that hid runaway slaves on New Grenada.
their journey north to freedom. (C) broke ground on what would become the Panama
(E) system for illegally smuggling slaves from Africa Canal.
into the United States after 1808. (D) united the two countries against incursions into
Central America by England and other European
powers.
(E) welcomed U.S. expansion into Central America in
exchange for assistance with new transportation
systems.

395A
Copyright 2012 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s).
Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it.
AP* Review Questions for Chapter 18 • 395B

9. What made the Ostend Manifesto so controversial? 13. The Kansas-Nebraska Act heightened sectional ten-
(A) It represented an attempt at U.S. expansion into sions between the North and South in all of the fol-
Asian territories. lowing ways EXCEPT that it
(B) It demonstrated northern interests to block the (A) repealed the revered Missouri Compromise.
further acquisition of slave territories. (B) divided Nebraska into two territories that would
(C) It was a secret plan to buy, or take, Cuba by the decide the slavery question independently.
United States. (C) heightened antislavery fervor in the North.
(D) It had the backing of Spain, France, and England. (D) led northerners to resist further compromise with
(E) It was a declaration of war if Spain did not release the South.
the captured American ship Black Warrior. (E) led to further enforcement of the Fugitive Slave
Act in the North.
10. The importance of the Treaty of Wanghia (1844) was
that it 14. Which of the following is NOT a true statement about
(A) gave the United States access to Japanese markets. the rise of the Republican party in the mid-1850s?
(B) banned tariffs on U.S. imports to Japan and China. (A) The bulwark of its support was below the Mason-
(C) granted the United States coaling rights in Japan. Dixon line.
(D) gave China the right to try Americans accused of (B) It drew dissatisfied Whigs, Democrats, Free-Soilers,
crimes in China in Chinese courts. and Know-Nothings.
(E) was the first formal treaty and trade agreement (C) It symbolized the increasing sectionalism that was
between China and the United States. leading the nation toward civil war.
(D) The party first emerged in the Midwest in protest
11. Why was the Gadsden Purchase such a contentious to the Kansas-Nebraska Act.
issue?
(E) Within two years, the party held the position of
(A) The $5 million purchase price was outrageously Speaker of the House of Representatives.
high.
(B) It furthered southern designs on locating a trans- 15. All of the following indicate that the idea of Manifest
continental railroad there. Destiny would extend beyond the North American
(C) It would add a new slave territory and ultimately continent EXCEPT
tip the balance between free and slave states. (A) the “secret” offer to purchase Cuba.
(D) It sparked a renewed debate about the process for (B) trade agreements with China.
admitting new territories and states. (C) Commodore Perry opening Japan.
(E) It further eroded U.S.-Mexico relations. (D) conflict with Britain in Central America.
(E) the Gadsden Purchase.
12. The main push behind discussions about building a
transcontinental railroad in the mid-1800s was the 16. Why was the Compromise of 1850 a great feat in
(A) need to boost the southern economy. American political history?
(B) need to create jobs and pull the nation out of an (A) It solved the nation’s problems in a way that most
economic depression. of the country accepted.
(C) goal of connecting the Pacific Coast territories (B) Great statesmen worked within the system, creat-
with the rest of the nation. ing separate legislation that together became the
(D) desire for new markets for northern manufactured compromise.
goods. (C) It preserved the Missouri Compromise line and
(E) goal of stimulating midwestern development. kept the balance of power in the Senate.
(D) It settled the nation’s slavery issues in that era,
preventing the need for future compromise.
(E) Congress and President Taylor worked together to
help the nation overcome a potentially disastrous
crisis.

Sectional Struggle: 1848-1854 Overview
No ratings yet
Sectional Struggle: 1848-1854 Overview
19 pages
Sectional Tensions in Pre-Civil War America
No ratings yet
Sectional Tensions in Pre-Civil War America
93 pages
Sectional Struggle: 1848-1854 Overview
No ratings yet
Sectional Struggle: 1848-1854 Overview
2 pages
Popular Sovereignty and Slavery Debate
No ratings yet
Popular Sovereignty and Slavery Debate
6 pages
Sectional Struggle: 1848-1854 Overview
No ratings yet
Sectional Struggle: 1848-1854 Overview
6 pages
A3C10CAD
No ratings yet
A3C10CAD
4 pages
Working - Copy
No ratings yet
Working - Copy
14 pages
Struggles Over Fugitive Slave Laws
No ratings yet
Struggles Over Fugitive Slave Laws
5 pages
Andrew Jackson and Manifest Destiny Insights
No ratings yet
Andrew Jackson and Manifest Destiny Insights
5 pages
Whig Party and the End of Jacksonian Era
No ratings yet
Whig Party and the End of Jacksonian Era
20 pages
Lincoln's Strategy to Capture Richmond
No ratings yet
Lincoln's Strategy to Capture Richmond
13 pages
AP US History: Mexican War Overview
No ratings yet
AP US History: Mexican War Overview
21 pages
Compromise of 1850 and Slavery Debate
No ratings yet
Compromise of 1850 and Slavery Debate
5 pages
Sectional Struggles and Political Divides
No ratings yet
Sectional Struggles and Political Divides
2 pages
Compromise of 1850 and Its Impact
No ratings yet
Compromise of 1850 and Its Impact
8 pages
Manifest Destiny and American Expansion
No ratings yet
Manifest Destiny and American Expansion
96 pages
Southern Chivalry and Slavery Debate
No ratings yet
Southern Chivalry and Slavery Debate
35 pages
This Is How
No ratings yet
This Is How
410 pages
Reconstruction Era: Key Events & Figures
No ratings yet
Reconstruction Era: Key Events & Figures
62 pages
Tejanos in Texas Independence
No ratings yet
Tejanos in Texas Independence
3 pages
Sectional Struggle and Compromise of 1850
No ratings yet
Sectional Struggle and Compromise of 1850
5 pages
Sectional Struggle and Compromise of 1850
No ratings yet
Sectional Struggle and Compromise of 1850
8 pages
Compromise of 1850 and Slavery Debate
No ratings yet
Compromise of 1850 and Slavery Debate
13 pages
Dominance of Whigs and Democrats (1832-1856)
No ratings yet
Dominance of Whigs and Democrats (1832-1856)
1 page
Politics and Impact of Reconstruction
No ratings yet
Politics and Impact of Reconstruction
4 pages
Sectional Struggles and Slavery Debates
No ratings yet
Sectional Struggles and Slavery Debates
5 pages
Manifest Destiny and Slavery's Impact
No ratings yet
Manifest Destiny and Slavery's Impact
59 pages
Manifest Destiny and Slavery's Expansion
No ratings yet
Manifest Destiny and Slavery's Expansion
7 pages
1850 Crisis: Slavery & Western Expansion
No ratings yet
1850 Crisis: Slavery & Western Expansion
19 pages
Civil War Origins: 1846-1852 Overview
No ratings yet
Civil War Origins: 1846-1852 Overview
8 pages
Sectional Struggles and Compromises 1848-1854
No ratings yet
Sectional Struggles and Compromises 1848-1854
2 pages
Slavery's Role in the Civil War
No ratings yet
Slavery's Role in the Civil War
3 pages
Sectional Struggle and Disunion Themes
No ratings yet
Sectional Struggle and Disunion Themes
11 pages
Popular Sovereignty and Slavery Debate
No ratings yet
Popular Sovereignty and Slavery Debate
5 pages
Political Parties and Slavery in 1850s
No ratings yet
Political Parties and Slavery in 1850s
2 pages
Manifest Destiny and the Civil War Era
No ratings yet
Manifest Destiny and the Civil War Era
36 pages
Differing Views on Clay's Compromise
No ratings yet
Differing Views on Clay's Compromise
6 pages
Key Historical Figures and Events in Slavery
No ratings yet
Key Historical Figures and Events in Slavery
3 pages
Mexican American War: Causes and Impact
No ratings yet
Mexican American War: Causes and Impact
54 pages
Populism and the Segregated South
100% (4)
Populism and the Segregated South
13 pages
Causes of Civil War: Rothbard's Analysis
No ratings yet
Causes of Civil War: Rothbard's Analysis
3 pages
June 2024 QP - Unit 2 Option 7
No ratings yet
June 2024 QP - Unit 2 Option 7
4 pages
Qtono Chapter 14
No ratings yet
Qtono Chapter 14
22 pages
Chapter 17-18
No ratings yet
Chapter 17-18
7 pages
E Book
No ratings yet
E Book
202 pages
Andrew Gosden Case Update
No ratings yet
Andrew Gosden Case Update
6 pages
Chapter 17 Outline
No ratings yet
Chapter 17 Outline
9 pages
UNIT 11 - Causes of Civil War
No ratings yet
UNIT 11 - Causes of Civil War
9 pages
Civil War Causes and Key Events
No ratings yet
Civil War Causes and Key Events
77 pages
Immigration and Abolitionism 1844-1877
No ratings yet
Immigration and Abolitionism 1844-1877
43 pages
Great Decisions 2021
No ratings yet
Great Decisions 2021
506 pages
Political Parties and Slavery's Impact
No ratings yet
Political Parties and Slavery's Impact
6 pages
Direct Download Give Me Liberty!: An American History Fifth Edition Vol. One-Volume Fifth Edition
100% (8)
Direct Download Give Me Liberty!: An American History Fifth Edition Vol. One-Volume Fifth Edition
199 pages
Understanding the Bloodhound Act
No ratings yet
Understanding the Bloodhound Act
10 pages
Grover Cleveland: Integrity in the Gilded Age
100% (1)
Grover Cleveland: Integrity in the Gilded Age
43 pages
Apush Unit 5 Review Guide by Tom Richey
No ratings yet
Apush Unit 5 Review Guide by Tom Richey
2 pages
Slavery Debate and Compromise in 1848-1858
No ratings yet
Slavery Debate and Compromise in 1848-1858
6 pages
Manifest Destiny and Sectional Tensions
No ratings yet
Manifest Destiny and Sectional Tensions
6 pages
1848 Political Turmoil and Slavery Issues
No ratings yet
1848 Political Turmoil and Slavery Issues
3 pages
Marxist Concepts of Politics and Class
No ratings yet
Marxist Concepts of Politics and Class
5 pages
Understanding Guillén's "Dos Abuelos"
No ratings yet
Understanding Guillén's "Dos Abuelos"
9 pages
AP World History Unit 4 Study Guide
No ratings yet
AP World History Unit 4 Study Guide
12 pages
Racism and Classism in Caribbean Society
No ratings yet
Racism and Classism in Caribbean Society
4 pages
Northern Steria: A Tale of Slavery
No ratings yet
Northern Steria: A Tale of Slavery
180 pages
Abolishing Bonded Labour in India
No ratings yet
Abolishing Bonded Labour in India
3 pages
Understanding the Middle Passage
No ratings yet
Understanding the Middle Passage
5 pages
Slave Contract
No ratings yet
Slave Contract
3 pages
Colonial Impact on the Kuba Kingdom
No ratings yet
Colonial Impact on the Kuba Kingdom
4 pages
Year 9 History Questions: Nigeria & Africa
No ratings yet
Year 9 History Questions: Nigeria & Africa
4 pages
Overview of the American Civil War
No ratings yet
Overview of the American Civil War
11 pages
Classical World History for 9th Grade
No ratings yet
Classical World History for 9th Grade
18 pages
Horrors of Slave Punishment in the Caribbean
84% (31)
Horrors of Slave Punishment in the Caribbean
15 pages
Key Texts on American History
No ratings yet
Key Texts on American History
4 pages
ENG-2206 Assignment 4
No ratings yet
ENG-2206 Assignment 4
9 pages
Rhetorical Analysis Shitty First Draft
No ratings yet
Rhetorical Analysis Shitty First Draft
3 pages
British Colonization of North America
No ratings yet
British Colonization of North America
58 pages
Reconstruction Amendments Explained
No ratings yet
Reconstruction Amendments Explained
4 pages
Snakecharm: The Kiesha'ra Volume 2
100% (1)
Snakecharm: The Kiesha'ra Volume 2
2 pages
Organisation and Abolition of The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade
No ratings yet
Organisation and Abolition of The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade
8 pages
Prospero and Ariel: A Complex Bond
No ratings yet
Prospero and Ariel: A Complex Bond
8 pages
Draco and Solon: Athenian Legal Reforms
No ratings yet
Draco and Solon: Athenian Legal Reforms
7 pages
Portuguese Colonization of Brazil (1500-1822)
No ratings yet
Portuguese Colonization of Brazil (1500-1822)
3 pages
Dokumen - Pub - Antiblackness 2020025015 2020025016 9781478010692 9781478011811 9781478013167
No ratings yet
Dokumen - Pub - Antiblackness 2020025015 2020025016 9781478010692 9781478011811 9781478013167
393 pages
APUSH Period 4 Study Guide
No ratings yet
APUSH Period 4 Study Guide
11 pages
Exploring the Middle Colonies: NY & PA
No ratings yet
Exploring the Middle Colonies: NY & PA
18 pages
Module I
No ratings yet
Module I
19 pages
Social Conditions of Slaves in 19th Egypt
No ratings yet
Social Conditions of Slaves in 19th Egypt
23 pages
EDPM Grade 10 Exam Paper 2 2023
No ratings yet
EDPM Grade 10 Exam Paper 2 2023
2 pages

Sectional Struggle: 1848-1854 Politics

Uploaded by

Sectional Struggle: 1848-1854 Politics

Uploaded by

Chapter 18

Renewing the Sectional

T he year 1848, highlighted by a rash of revolu-

© Collection of the New York Historical Society

i tell you the woman are in great demand in

in California kept chasing their dream of gold in even

The California gold rush attracted tens of thou-

PAC I F I C sands of people to the future Golden State almost

Placer Miners in California

mining consisted of literally

A Stop on the Underground

moved in front of the door to

against concession. He seemed not to realize that com-

“ I opened a paper to-day in which he [Webster]

Table 18.1 Compromise of 1850

speeches, as a powerful sentiment for acceptance grad-

Henry Clay Proposing

120°W 110°W 100°W 90°W 80°W 70°W

BRITISH NORTH AMERICA

Protesting the Fugitive

law as part of the

120°W 110°W 100°W 90°W 80°W 70°W

Compromise of 1850 DEL.

NEW MEXICO TERRITORY CAROLINA

Open to slavery by land TERRITORY ARKANSAS SOUTH

Open to slavery by MISS. GEORGIA

Free state by admission to Union

Caribbean Sea Jamaica

lion once again played a role. Britain had recently

“ Resolved, That the highwayman’s plea, that

120°W 110°W 100°W

Map 18.6 The Gadsden Purchase, 1853 © Cengage Learning

Coast. But the estimated cost in all cases

regarding slavery would be settled by popular sover-

fireworks, he rammed the bill through Congress, with

1851 Australian gold rush

Go to the CourseMate website at

You might also like