History Review 6 - Western Expansion/Politics of Slavery

Manifest Destiny

• The 19th century belief that American settlers were destined to expand westward across the United States 

  • A God given right 

• White people were the special people

• Closely associated with the Democratic party

Wilmot Proviso

• No slavery in any territory acquired from Mexico

  • David Wilmot, Pennsylvania Democrat 

    • Save the land for “the sons of toil, of my race and color”

  • Rejected in Senate

• David Wilmot was of the Free Soil Party

• Wanted white people to not have competition for work 

Popular Sovereignty

• A solution to the slavery crisis created by Michigan senator Lewis Cass

• Let the people decide over the issue of slavery, leave the politicians out of it Cass was however ambiguous on when people should decide

  • The ambiguity aroused more fears than it freed 

Missouri Compromise

• Response to land acquired to land acquired from Louisiana Purchase

  • Henry Clay devised plan

    • Missouri entered as Slave

    • Maine entered as Free

    • 36/30 Line established (Free states above and slave below

Texas

• Mexican American War

  • Resulted in lots of land for the U.S and arguments ensued over what should be done with the land won 

California

• Compromise of 1850

  • California desired statehood

    • Balance of political power would be disrupted

    • Zach Taylor supported popular sovereignty 

      • Did not support Compromise of 1850

  • In the end, California became free states, New Mexico and Utah were to be decided by popular sovereignty, the fugitive slave act was put into place, and no slave trade in Washington D.C

Kansas and Nebraska Act

• Bleeding Kansas

  • Periods if violence between pro and antislavery forces in the Kansas Territory after the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854

  • Led by John Brown

Sumner vs. Brooks

• Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumer rallied on Southerners and SOuthern politicians

  • Targeted cousin of Preston Brooks, who attacked Sumner in the Senate chamber

• Charles Sumner was beaten bloody and unconscious

• Southerners showed support for Brooks by giving him a new cane 

Free Soilers

• The wanted free soil so that white people could work 

Know Nothings

Antiimmigrant party friend from the wreckage of the Whig Party and some disaffected northern Democrats in 1854

Republicans

• Party that emerged in the 1850s in the aftermath of the bitter controversy over the Kansas Nebraska Act, consisting of former Whigs, some northern Democrats and many Know-Nothings 

• Advocated strong state and federal government to promote economic and social reforms

  • Anti slavery

Dred Scott

• A slave owned by a surgeon, in 1840s he visited some free territories in Wisconsin and Illinois

  • He sued his master’s widow for freedom on the ground that the laws of Illinois and Wisconsin banned slavery

  • The court argued that black people were not citizens and had no rights 

  • The case stripped all black men of slavery and shocked Republicans