Ch 17

Fire-eaters

Southern nationalists characterized by unapologetic defenses of the South and slavery. Their radicalism and political brinksmanship won them attention and popularity among white Southerners.

Popular Sovereignty

Notion advanced before the Civil War that the sovereign people of a given territory should decide whether to allow slavery. Seemingly a compromise, it was largely opposed by Northern abolitionists, who feared it would promote the spread of slavery to the territories.

Free Soil Party

Antislavery party in the 1848 and 1852 elections that opposed the extension of slavery into the territories, arguing that the presence of slavery would limit opportunities for free laborers.

California Gold Rush

Inflow of thousands of miners to Northern California after news reports of the discovery of gold at Sutter's Mill in January of 1848 had spread around the world by the end of that year. The onslaught of migrants prompted Californians to organize a government and apply for statehood in 1849.

Underground Railroad

Informal network of volunteers who helped runaway slaves escape from the South and reach free-soil Canada. Seeking to halt the flow of runaway slaves to the North, Southern planters and congressmen pushed for a stronger fugitive slave law.

Seventh of March speech

Daniel Webster's impassioned address urging the North to support the Compromise of 1850. Webster argued that topography and climate would keep slavery from becoming entrenched in Mexican Cession territory and urged Northerners to make all reasonable concessions to prevent disunion.

Compromise of 1850

Admitted California as a free state, opened New Mexico and Utah to popular sovereignty, ended the slave trade (but not slavery itself) in Washington, DC, and introduced a more stringent fugitive slave law. Widely opposed in both the North and South, it did little to settle the escalating dispute over slavery.

Fugitive Slave Law

Passed as part of the Compromise of 1850, it set high penalties for anyone who aided escaped slaves and compelled all law enforcement officers to participate in retrieving runaways. Strengthened the antislavery cause in the North.

Clayton-Bulwer Treaty

Signed by Great Britain and the United States, it provided that the two nations would jointly protect the neutrality of Central America and that neither power would seek to fortify or exclusively control any future isthmian waterway. Later revoked by the Hay-Pauncefote Treaty of 1901, which gave the United States control of the Panama Canal.

Ostend Manifesto

Secret Franklin Pierce administration proposal to purchase or, that failing, to wrest militarily Cuba from Spain. Once leaked, it was quickly abandoned due to vehement opposition from the North.

Treaty of Wanghia

Signed by the United States and China, it assured the United States the same trading concessions granted to other powers, greatly expanding America's trade with the Chinese.

Treaty of Kanagawa

Ended Japan's two-hundred-year period of economic isolation, establishing an American consulate in Japan and securing American coaling rights in Japanese ports.

Gadsden Purchase

Acquired additional land from Mexico for $10 million to facilitate the construction of a Southern transcontinental railroad.

Kansas-Nebraska Act

Proposed that the issue of slavery be decided by popular sovereignty in the Kansas and Nebraska Territories, thus revoking the 1890 Missouri Compromise. Introduced by Stephen Douglas in an effort to bring Nebraska into the Union and pave the way for a northern transcontinental railroad.

Lewis Cass

Democratic senator who proposed popular sovereignty to settle the slavery question in the territories; he lost the presidential election in 1848 against Zachary Taylor but continued to advocate his solution to the slavery issue throughout the 1850s.

Zachary Taylor

Hero of Buena Vista, Whig nominated presidential candidate for election of 1848. Uncommitted on issue of slavery. Encouraged California to draft own constitution during gold rush and apply for statehood.

Harriet Tubman

Underground railroad "conductor", was an abolitionist whom herself escaped from slavery in Maryland. During nineteen forays into the South, she rescued more than three hundred enslaved people, including her aged parents, and deservedly earned the title "Moses"

Millard Fillmore

Was the vice president under Zachary Taylor, assumed the mantle when Taylor died in office. He was 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 conciliation, and he gladly signed the Compromise of 1850.

Franklin Pierce

Democratic party presidential nominee, known as the "second dark-horse". He was enemy-less because he had been inconspicuous, and as a pro-Southern Northerner, he was acceptable to the slavery wing of the Democratic party. His platform revived the Democrats' commitment to territorial expansion as pursued by President Polk and emphatically endorsed the Compromise of 1850, Fugitive Slave Law and all.

Caleb Cushing

Presidential envoy of President John Tyler sent to negotiate with China about the Treaty of Wanghia. His tactic of persuasion was to shower China in gifts to appeal to them. Chinese diplomats signed the Treaty of Wanghia, the first formal diplomatic agreement between the United States and China, on July 3, 1844. He secured some vital rights and privileges from the Chinese. "Most favored nation status" got the United States any and all trading terms accorded to other powers. "Extraterritoriality" ensured that Americans accused of crimes in China would stand trial before American officials, not in Chinese courts. American trade with China flourished thanks to Cushing's treaty. More immediately important was the opportunity it opened for American Christian missionaries, thousands of whom soon flooded prayerfully through the treaty ports to convert the "heathen Chinese." America had now aligned itself with the Western powers that chronically menaced China's cultural integrity. All of them would one day reap a bitter harvest of resentment.

Matthew C. Perry

Presidential envoy of President Millard Fillmore, sent to negotiate with Japan about the Treaty of Kanagawa. Perry produced silk-bound letters requesting free trade and friendly relations. He handed them to the wary Japanese delegation and then tactfully withdrew. Perry returned in February 1854. He plied the Japanese with gifts. He persuaded the Japanese to sign the landmark Treaty of Kanagawa on March 31, 1854. It provided for proper treatment of shipwrecked sailors, American coaling rights in Japan, and the establishment of consular relations. Perry had inserted only a commercial toe in the door, but he had cracked Japan's two-century shell of isolation wide open.