Chapter 13: Immigration, Expansion, and Sectional Conflict

Wave of Immigration

• 1840-1860 nearly 4.2 million immigrants flooded the US

  • Germans

    • various classes and religions

    • settled in German neighborhoods

    • moved westward for farmland in climate similar to Germany

    • criticized for not integrating into American society

  • Irish

    • mostly Catholic and poor

    • remained in cities near the East Coast- NYC, and Boston

    • most competed with blacks for low-paying jobs

    • caused tension between the two

    • some were skilled and competed with white protestants creating religious and ethic divides

Know-Nothing Party

• Secret(ish) political party in the 1850’s

• If asked about the party the response was: “I know nothing”

• Anti-Catholic and Anti-Immigrant

Nativism

• Belief in superiority of native born Americans

  • not native americans

• Many who supported nativism were first generation Americans or immigrants who dropped their accents and Americanized their last names

Immigrant Politics

• Most became members of the Democratic Party

• Irish and Germans resented Whig beliefs in temperance, nativism, and abolition

Texas

• Americans moved across the Mexican border (by invitation) looking for land to grow cotton

• They took their slaves with them

• Mexico had already outlawed slavery

• Mexico closed its borders to America in 1830

• The US population had doubled by 1834

• After that 1,000 Americans a month arrived in Mexico

• By 1836:

  • 3,500 native Texans (Tejanos)

  • 12,000 native americans

  • 5,000 slaves

  • 45,000 americans (Anglos)

• John Quincy Adams offered to buy Texas for 1 million

• Andrew Jackson offered to buy it for 5 million

• Mexico refused both offers

• Texas Revolution: Anglos under Austin and Houston fight and win independence and become the Lone Star Republic

• Texas invited the US to annex Texas into the Union

• Northerners feared that admitting Texas would give Southern slave owners to much power and spark a war with Mexico

• December 1845, Texas became the 28th state

San Jacinto

• Where Americans defeated and captured Santa Anna with the help of the “Yellow Rose of Texas”

• Santa Anna is forced to sign a treaty

• Mexico refuses to recognize the treaty

War with Mexico

• President James K Polk believed in Manifest Destiny

• Felt war with Mexico wouldn’t only gain Texas, but California and New Mexico

• Dispute with Mexico over the location of the Texas border

• Polk offers to buy New Mexico and California

• Mexico refuses

• General Zachary Taylor marches to the Rio Grande hoping to tempt Mexico

• John C Fremont leads ‘exploration party’ into California

• Mexico takes the bait

• Mexican troops cross Rio Grande into disputed territory and kill nine American soldiers

• Polk tells Congress that American blood was spilled on American soil, and that Mexico

• Lincoln questions Polk’s honesty

• New Mexico wanted to join the US anyway and ‘fell’ to the US troops without a shot

• Fremont takes Sonoma, California and raises the flag of the Republic of California: US Navy arrives and Mexico retreats

• US troops in Mexico successful under Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant, and Winfield Scott

• War ends with the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo

• US gets California, New Mexico, and Texas border at Rio Grande; as well as,Nevada, Utah, and most of Arizona, & parts of Colorado and Wyoming

• Mexico got 15 million

Gadsden Purchase

• Five years later the US pays another 10 million for another strip of land that establishes the border with Mexico

  • 33 cents/acre

• Plan was for the transcontinental railroad to dip below the Rocky Mountains

Wilmot Proviso

• Stated that slavery wouldn’t exist i territories gained from the Mexican War

• Southerners claimed that slaves were property and property rights were protected under the Constitution

• If a slave owner moved, their slaves should remain on their property

• Proviso fails to pass the Senate, but sparked several more debates

California

• Gold rush of 1849 helps California gain statehood in 1850

• South of Missouri Compromise line, enters as a free state

• Zachary Taylor supports Popular Sovereignty

• South begins to talk of secession