APUSH Chapter 18: Renewing the Sectional Struggle: Antebellum

Key Concepts

  • How US interest in expanding trade led to economic, diplomatic, and cultural initiatives westward to Asia.
  • How the institution of slavery and the ensuing ideological debates and territorial expansion in the 1840s and 1850s intensified sectionalism
  • How national leaders attempted to resolve the issue of slavery in the territories with the Compromise of 1850 and the Kansas-Nebraska Act but failed to reduce sectional tensions.
  • How the second party system ended and the sectional parties (i.e the Republican party in the North and Midwest) emerged.

New Territories

  • Fire Eater: Southerners who threatened secession if the territories didn’t become slave states → shows how urgent the issue of slavery was
  • Popular sovereignty: proposed by Lewis Cass [D]. it said that the people living in the territories should be the ones to decide whether or not the territory would be a slave state
    • kept with the tradition of self-rule/ self determination.
  • Free Soil Party: independent anti slavery party that Opposed the extension of slavery in new territories. To broaden their appeal, they called for fed. aid in internal improvements and free homesteads for settlers.
  • Free Soilers wanted abolition, not on moral grounds, but because white workers would have to compete with slaves for work, which would eventually end wage-earning labor and prevent social mobility
  • Election of 1848: Free Soilers nominate Martin Van Buren, Democrats choose Lewis Cass, but ultimately the Whig's Zachary Taylor wins because he refused to take a stance on slavery and was hailed a national hero from the Mexican American war.
  • California Gold Rush (1849): gold is found in CA, and thousands fled to the state in search of more (though only a few get lucky).
  • Because of the dramatic population increase, CA asks to join the Union as a free state → Southerners fear that if Congress accepts their offer, it will set a precedent for the rest of the Mexican cession land and destroy the sectional balance, favoring non-slave states.
  • Southern tensions increased with Underground Railroad: with Harriet Tubman a key contributor, the railroad' consisted of stations where abolitionists house__d runaway slaves to eventually help them reach freedom in Canada.__

A Decision is Reached - Mexican Cession Land

  • Congress is called into session to decide what to do with CA.

  • Henry Clay, maintaining his approach of compromising, said they could be a free state but fugitive slave laws would be enforced more strictly to ensure owners didn't lose more slaves.

  • In his Seventh of March Speech (1850), Daniel Webster argued slavery would probably not even be necessary in the arid cession land (proved to be false) and said that the North should make some concessions in order to prevent disunion

    • abolitionists wanted to prevent disunion at all costs while also improving the plight of slaves. However, although some Northerners became gradually accepting of a compromise many Southern fire-eaters refused concessions.

  • Compromise of 1850: CA would be admitted as a free state, while Utah and New Mexico (Mexican cession lands) would be territories where slavery would be decided based on popular sovereignty. Additionally, the slave trade (not slavery itself) would end in Washington DC and a stricter fugitive slave act would be passed

    • favored the North, but neither side was content

  • Fugitive Slave Law (1850): this was the concession truly granted to the South

  • it set high penalties for anyone who helped runaway slaves and motivated law enforcement officers to retrieve slaves for greater financial reward.

  • Slaves were also forbidden from testifying at court and were denied a jury.

  • Convinced moderates/ neutrals in the North to become staunch abolitionists

  • leads to personal liberty laws in the North, which said local jails cannot be used to house runaway slaves and generally weakened law enforcement's abilities to effectively do anything

  • Conflict only erupts in 1860, which gave the North more time to accumulate supplies and manufacturing prowess

Rising Tensions

Electrion of 1852

  • Whigs missed an opportunity to nominate Daniel Webster or President Fillmore (who replaced Taylor after he died), both of whom wer__e notable in their efforts to compromise and be bipartisan__
    • instead chose war hero Winfield Scott, since war heros tended to win.
  • Democrats chose a dark horse candidate, Franklin Pierce, because he was a prosouthern northerner and wanted to continue expansion.
  • Free Soil Party runs John Hale
    • not really significant
  • Whigs are divided over the slavery issue, which leads to Franklin Pierce winning the election, marking the end Whig Party in future elections. Note that the Whigs crucial in their attempts to compromise and uphold the Union
  • 1848: As the British increasingly expanded through Central American, the US signs a treaty with New Grenada (present day Colombia) allowed them to cross the isthmus as necessary and led the creation of railroad (though it is not nearly as significant domestically as the 1869 railroad was).
  • Clayton-Bulwer Treaty (1850): signed by Britain and US, it avoided a full-blown confrontation by stating that both Countries would protect the neutrality of Central America and that neither power would exclusively try to control a waterway there (later revoked in 1901 with a treaty that gave US control over the Panama Canal)
  • Ostend Manifesto: After President Pierce tries to buy Cuba and is refused by Spain, the South wants him to start a war to get Cuba
    • secretly sends a diplomat offering S120 million for Cuba. and if Spain refuses, that US can take it. These plans are leaked
    • free soilers are outraged at the attempt to form a slavocracy and the plan is dropped.

[[Shows how the issue of slavery is limiting US territorial gains[[

Rising Tensions (and Other Events) ~ Asia

  • With the acquisition of CA and Oregon, US was able to tap into Pacific markets, specifically Asia

This happened under President Tyler

  • Opium War: British traders establish their right to sell opium in China, gain access to five ports, and gained control over Hong Kong
    • America also wants some concessions.
  • Tyler sends a diplomat to China, eventually signing the Treaty of Wanghia (1844): first official treaty between the US and China, it granted the US equal trading rights in China and greatly expanded trading there. Also allowed for Americans accused of crimes in China to be tried before US officials there instead of a completely Chinese court

This happened under President Fillmore

  • Treaty of Kanagawa (1854): with plenty of gifts (and the threat of force) in hand, the US convinced the usually isolationist Japan to sign this treaty allowing for US coaling rights in Japan and better treatment of shipwrecked sailors.

  • Gadsden Purchase (1853): US buys a small area of land from Mexico for $10 million, which will be necessary in building an efficient path for a future transcontinental (coast to coast) railroad. Will also physically connect Mexican cession land to the US to ensure they don't break away. South isn't too excited about it.

  • Stephen Douglas proposes an idea where the territory of Nebraska is split into Kansas and Nebraska, popular sovereignty would decide slavery

    • promote Western settlement
    • Southerners see this as a way to gain a slave state.

  • Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854): said popular sovereignty would decide the issue of slave in the Kansas and Nebraska territories

    • a violation of the Missouri Compromise, which said slavery cannot exist above the 36 30 line. Increases tensions on both sides and eventually leads to the creation of the Republican party
    • Union is officially in danger.