Unit 5: Slavery, Civil War, and the Transformation of American Society

Manifest Destiny (1845)

Belief that American settlers had a God given right to expand westward across North America, the Atlantic to Pacific Ocean, and later to the islands of the Caribbean.

Westward Expansion Push Factors

Access to minerals/natural resources, economic and homestead opportunities, and religious refuge.

Issue of Texas Before Annexation

Americans outnumbered the amount of Mexicans in Texas, refusing to obey the Mexican government. Texas applied for statehood but was refused because of slavery and British interest.

The Election of 1844

New territories of Texas, Oregon, and Maine threatened union peace because of slavery, James K Polk won who supported Manifest Destiny.

President James K Polk (1845-1849)

Promised the annexation of Texas, Oregon, and California. “Fifty four or fight”

Oregon Treaty (1846)

Agreement between the US and Great Britain that established the border between the two along the 49th parallel, resolving the Oregon boundary dispute.

Mexican American War

Mexico was angry that the US annexed Texas and wanted the territory back, US victory.

Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848)

Ended the Mexican American war and allowed the US to gain Texas, California, New Mexico, Arizona, and parts of Utah, Nevada, and Colorado.

Wilmot Proviso (1846)

Proposal in Congress to prohibit slavery in any territory acquired from Mexico during the Mexican American war, proposing that any territory gained should be free. Approved by the House but not the Senate.

Free Soil Movement

Northeners who opposed the expansion of slavery in the west due to it taking away economic opportunities for white settlers

Compromise of 1850

California could come into the Union as a free state, Fugitive Slave Act, popular sovereignty to determine slavery in new territories.

Fugitive Slave Act

Required that individuals who escaped be returned to plantation owners.

Underground Railroad

Network of abolitionists who secretly transported people to freedom in the North founded by Harriet Tubman.

California Gold Rush (1848-1849)

Rapid migration to California after James W Marshall discovered gold at Sutter’s Mill in Coloma. Attracted 300,000 people to move to California, known as forty niners.

Economic Impact of the California Gold Rush

Revitalized American economy and merchants and transportation facilities made large profits.

Political Impact of the California Gold Rush

California sought statehood in 1849 and entered the union as a free state in 1850

Social Impact of the California Gold Rush

Gold seekers attacked indigenous societies, forced them off lands, and contributed to the decline of natives due to disease, starvation, and genocide.

Ostend Manifesto (1854)

President Polk offered to buy Cuba from Spain for 100 million but the Spanish refused. He did this because Americans were disappointed with the territorial gains from the Mexican American War.

Kansas Nebraska Act of 1854

Senator Stephan A Douglas introduced a bill that divided the Nebraska Kansas territory and allowed them to vote on if they wanted slavery. Violated the Missouri Compromise of 1820 by allowing slavery to expand past the Mason Dixon Line.

Bleeding Kansa (1854-1859)

Sequence of violent events involving abolitionists and pro slavery elements because anti slavery constitutions were angry about popular sovereignty.

Dred Scott Decision (1857)

No African was a citizen and entitled to Constitutional protection even if a slave was moved to a free part of the country.

Sojourner Truth

Abolitionist, women’s rights activist, and evangelist. Famous for her speech at the Women’s Rights Convention in Ohio that tested racial and gender equality.

Harriet Tubman

Activist, spy, and hero that founded and used the Underground Railroad.

Fredrick Douglass

Prominent abolitionist who wrote “The Narrative of the Life of Fredrick Douglass, an American Slave”

Harriet Beecher Stowe

Wrote “Uncle Tom’s Cabin”

William Lloyd Garrison

American abolitionist, journalist, and social reformer who wrote the anti slavery newspaper “The Liberator” and burnt the Constitution. Created the American Anti Slavery Society.

American Anti Slavery Society

Abolitionist society that advocated for the immediate abolition of slavery.

John Brown

Northern abolitionist who attempted to free southern enslaved people through an uprising.

John Brown’s Raid at Harper’s Ferry

Seize and give weapons to enslaved people, but did not work as the small raid was captured by a federal arsenal. South saw this as proof that the North was dedicated to destroying slavery.

American Colonization Society

Advocated for the resettlement of free African Americans to the African continent, to the colony of Liberia. Way to address slavery without abolishing it. Henry Clay, Thomas Jefferson, and Harriet Beecher Stowe supported it.

Republican Party Before the Civil War

Diverse, wanted to contain slavery and consisted of subgroups because of this. Southern democrats viewed them as a demise of the Southern way of life.

Lincoln Douglas Debate

Abraham Lincoln (Republican) and Stephan Douglas (Democrat and author of Kansas Nebraska Act) debated about slavery

Election of 1860

Abraham Lincoln won, showing how divided the US had become as he only won 39% of electoral vote. The South threatened secession.

Secession

The withdrawal of eleven southern states from the union in 1860, leading to the Civil War

Crittenden Compromise (1860)

Divided the nation between slave and free territories from California to the Missouri Compromise Line to prevent the southern secession, but was defeated.

Secession Crisis

After Lincoln’s election, the South left the union and became the Confederate States of America to preserve their right to slavery