APUSH AMSCO Unit 5.4 (5A)

explain the similarities and differences in how regional attitudes affected federal policy in the period after the Mexican–American War

Ostend Manifesto (1852)

northerners were angered by this as Pierce sent diplomats to buy Cuba from Spain (they did not want slavery to spread)

Walker Expedition

Walker wanted to develop a proslavery Central American empire after he tried to take Baja California, seized Nicaragua, and gained some recognition but collapsed after defeat; southerners wanted a slave empire with or without federal support

Clayton-Bulwer Treaty

the U.S. wanted to ensure peace by ensuring that neither nation would attempt to take exclusive control of any future canal through Central America

Gadsden Purchase

the now southern sections of New Mexico and Arizona lay on the best route for a railroad in the region, making the U.S. interested in the purchase

free-soil movement/Free-Soil Party

Northerners wanted to prevent the extension of slavery; “free soil, free labor, free men”; wanted free homesteads and internal improvements; southerners saw it as a violation of their constitutional right to take their property wherever they wished

popular sovereignty

Lewis Cass created this idea where slavery would be determined by a vote of the people who settled the territory

Zachary Taylor

“fire-eaters” (radicals) were upset with the Mexican war hero due to his plan to admit California as a state even though the California constitution banned slavery

Henry Clay

his compromise included annexing California as a free state, dividing the rest of the land into Utah and New Mexico & use popular sovereignty, giving up the disputed land between Texas and New Mexico to new territories & assuming Texas’s public debt, banning the slave trade in DC but allowing whites to still own slaves as before, and creating a new fugitive slave law with rigorous enforcement.

Compromise of 1850

the major voices were Henry Clay of Kentucky (created the plan), Daniel Webster of Massachusetts (for the plan), and John C. Calhoun (against the compromise); the most controversial parts were the new fugitive slave law and popular sovereignty