A HOUSE DIVIDED:

A DOSE OF ARSENIC

CHAPTER 13

AP US HISTORY

PERIOD 5 1844-1877 THEMATIC FOCUS

• Geographic and environmental factors, including competition over and debates about natural resources, shape the development of America and foster regional diversity. The development of America impacts the environment and reshapes geography, which leads to debates about environmental and geographic issues.

Geography and the

Environment (GEO)

• Diplomatic, economic, cultural, and military interactions between empires, nations, and peoples shape the development of America and America’s increasingly important role in the world.

America in the World (WOR)

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

• Explain the causes and effects of westward expansion from 1844 to 1877.

Unit 5: Learning

Objective B

• Explain the causes and effects of the Mexican-American War.

Unit 5: Learning

Objective C

A DOSE OF ARSENIC

• How did the addition of Mexican territory impact the American political system?• This addition increased the discussion over the

expansion of slavery• This addition drove the nation to Civil War

• Who warned us about the additional lands causing issues?• Ralph Waldo Emerson predicted that if the United

States took part of Mexico, “it will be as the man who swallows arsenic. . . . Mexico will poison us.”

• Where can we see this issue emerge first?• The division in America’s largest evangelical churches!• Both the Methodists and Baptists divided into

southern and northern branches in the mid-1840s.• The two-party system!

THE WILMOT PROVISO

• How did the discussion over the slavery issue change after 1848?• Before 1846, the status of slavery had been “settled” by state law or

by the Missouri Compromise. • The conquest of Mexico reignited the question of slavery’s

expansion. • In 1846, David Wilmot introduced a bill prohibiting slavery from the

new territory.

• How did this bill impact political parties? Party lines collapsed. • Every northerner—Whig and Democrat—supported the Wilmot

Proviso. • Almost all southerners opposed it. • The Wilmot Proviso passed the House, which had a northern

majority. • The Proviso stalled in the Senate, which was evenly split between

free and slave states.

• Where is the split even more evident?• The establishment of new political parties by the 1848 election!• The Free Soil Party made antislavery a political force to be reckoned

with.

THE FREE SOIL APPEAL

• Who were the Free Soil Candidates?• Martin Van Buren and Charles Francis Adams• Adams is the grandson of John Adams!

• What is the Free Soil position?• Lower tariffs, reduced postal rates & improved harbors• Barring the spread of slavery to the West• Free homestead to Western settlers• Recognition of Haiti• Temperance

• To which group would this short-lived party appeal?• The North! Exceeding the abolitionists!

• Does Congress have the power to abolish slavery? NO!• Congress can prevent the spread of slavery to the

additional territories.• Congress had done this since the Northwest Ordinance

• Why did the South want the West?• Soil exhaustion! New areas for agriculture

CONTINENTAL

EXPANSION

THRU 1853

• With the Gadsden

Purchase, the

present boundaries

of the United States

in North America,

with the exception of

Alaska, had been

created.

CRISIS AND

COMPARISON

• Why is 1848 significant?• This year is remembered as the “springtime of

nations” • Democratic uprisings against Europe’s monarchies.• These uprisings demanded national independence.

• What role did America play in these uprisings?• American principles of liberty and self-government

were spreading• Great Britain, France, Hungary, Italy, and Germany

experienced some significant changes during this period.

• Did the uprisings completely transform Europe? NO!• In most places, these uprisings were defeated.

• What about America? Is 1848 a year that was good here? NO!• Many Americans wondered whether their republic

would survive. Party leaders tried to resolve the sectional differences over slavery threatening to tear the nation apart.

COMPROMISE OF 1850

• Did party leaders attempt to resolve the sectional differences over slavery threatening to

tear the nation apart? YES!

• In 1850, California applied for statehood as a free state.

• Many southerners opposed it, fearing that its admission would upset the sectional balance

in Congress.

• Henry Clay offered a plan with four provisions that came to be known as the Compromise

of 1850:

• California would enter as a free state

• the slave trade, but not slavery, would be abolished in Washington, D.C.

• a new law would allow southerners to reclaim fugitive slaves

• slavery’s status in the rest of the territories taken from Mexico would be decided by local

white inhabitants

• the United States would pay off Texas’s massive debt accumulated while independent

SOUND SMART:

COMPROMISE OF 1950

THE GREAT DEBATE

• How can we further see the sectional divide in America?• The Senate Compromise debate

• What happened here? • The members expressed sectional ideas:

• Daniel Webster announced his willingness to abandon the Wilmot Proviso and accept the new fugitive slave law to keep peace.

• John C. Calhoun’s concerns were read: he denied compromise and insisted that the government protect slavery by expanding it into all new territory.

• Why did the North agree to this contentious legislation? • If the North did not yield, the Union could not survive.

• Was there any voice that advocated a different stand? YES!• William H. Seward denounced southerners’ talk of

constitutional rights • Seward insisted that a “higher law” than the Constitution,

the law of morality, condemned slavery.

• How did our president respond to this debate?• President Taylor was alarmed by disunion. • He accused the southern leaders of holding California

hostage to their own goals.• Taylor argued that Congress should go ahead with the

state’s admission.

• How did this discussion change?• But Taylor died suddenly in July 1850.

• Who succeeded Taylor?• Millard Fillmore of New York

• How did Fillmore view this debate?• President Fillmore supported Clay’s proposals• This move helped to break the impasse with the

Compromise of 1850.

THE FUGITIVE SLAVE ISSUE

• Political leaders had once again moved the issue of slavery down the timeline of history.

• What single point in the Compromise of 1850 would be most contentious?• The Fugitive Slave Act – this INCREASED the controversy in America

• What did this Act do?• The Fugitive Slave Act allowed a federal commissioners to determine the fate of

alleged fugitives • No jury trials or testimony from accused individuals would be required. • It prohibited local authorities from interfering with fugitive slaves’ capture • It required individual citizens to assist in such capture when called on by

federal agents. • How does this reveal the sectional divide in America?

• This act impacted ALL the free states (not just border states or territories)• The South could now enter the North and override local laws to impose their

views.• Individuals who had remained silent – enter the conversation (Emerson)

• In the 1850s, federal tribunals:

• heard more than 300 cases

• ordered the return of 157 fugitive slaves to the South

• This law increases sectional hostility.

• Fugitives and abolitionists violently resisted recapture.

• Syracuse, NY: Crowd rescued an escaped slave from jail

and assisted him in escaping to Canada.

• Christiana, PA: a slave owner attempting recapture was

killed

• Ohio: a runaway slave killed her daughter rather than

see her sent back to slavery.

• Several thousand northern blacks, free and fugitive,

fled to safety in Canada.

• A Toronto newspaper noted that “families are

separating” in order to flee to freedom under the

British flag in Canada, a “protection denied to them in

the free republic.”

THE ELECTION OF 1852

6 CANDIDATES/PARTIES REVEALING THE DEEP DIVISION IN AMERICA

ELECTION OF 1852

• Democrats nominated Franklin Pierce from New Hampshire.

• Essentially a pro-Southern northerner who was acceptable to the pro-slavery portion of the party.

• Campaign came out in favor the Compromise of 1850!

• Whigs nominated General Winfield Scott (“Old Fuss & Feathers”) but the party split

• PLEASE NOTE: A split in ANY party will result in the election of the other party!

• Scott was supported by the abolitionists BUT were frustrated with his support of the Fugitive Slave Law!

• Southern Whigs supported the platform BUT they hated Scott = questioning his loyalty to the Compromise of 1850.

• Franklin Pierce was elected (254-42)

• This marked the effective end of the Whig Party, which disappeared in 1854!

• Both Webster and Clay died in 1852 = they had kept the idea of Union alive to this point.

THE KANSAS-NEBRASKA ACT

• Stephen Douglas proposed carving Nebraska Territory into 2 portions: • Nebraska and Kansas!

• What is the problem facing America with Douglas’s proposal? SLAVERY!• Douglas knew this would be a problem!• The slavery issue would be based on popular sovereignty.• Kansas would presumably become a slave state; Nebraska a free

state.• PROBLEM: The Missouri Compromise (1820) 36-30 line prohibited

slavery to the north…and BOTH Kansas and Nebraska would be NORTH of this line.

• The only way to address this was to REPEAL the Missouri Compromise (1820)!

• Southerners completely supported this repeal – pushing Pres. Pierce to support the Kansas-Nebraska Act.

• What is Douglas’s main goal?• To give Illinois the eastern terminus (station or terminal) for the

proposed Pacific railroad (Chicago).

• Douglas successfully rammed the bill through Congress (one of the greatest orators of his generation).• Northerners are angry: some saw the Missouri Compromise (1820) as

a sacred pact.• Douglas miscalculated the effects of his proposal on the North

• He was more concerned with the railroads, his state, and his presidential prospects than with the slavery issue!

• SPOILER ALERT: Douglas WILL NOT win the 1860 election!

• The Kansas-Nebraska Act Reaction:• The Northern Reaction: refused to honor the Fugitive Slave Law,

abolitionism grew, and the North is unwilling to compromise in the future.

• The Southern Reaction: anger at the Northern Free-Soiler attempts to control Kansas (despite the “deal” in the Kansas-Nebraska Act), and the Democratic Party was shattered!

• THE KANSAS-NEBRASKA ACT EFFECTIVELY WRECKED THE MISSOURI COMPROMISE (1820) AND THE COMPROMISE OF 1850!!!

SOUND SMART: THE KANSAS-

NEBRASKA ACT