5.4 The Compromise of 1850

LEARNING OBJECTIVE: Explain the similarities and differences of how regional attitudes affected federal policy in the period after the Mexican-American war.

INTRODUCTION

  • Manifest Destiny and expansion intensified debate about the spread of slavery

    • Abolitionist and white people were eager to settle western lands without the competition of slave labor opposed to expansion

      - those who benefited from slavery wanted to continue it

    • Americans still hoped for compromise that ould keep Union together

SOUTHERN EXPANSION

  • Many Southerners resented the Missouri Compromise (restricted slavery in the Louisiana Purchase lands), & territoral gains from Mexican War (not large enough)

    • They were eager to find new land for cultivation using slaves

MANFIEST DESTINY TO THE SOUTH

  • Slaveowners hoped to acquire new territories they saw ideal for plantation economies dependent on enslaved labor

    • Especially sought after Latin America

      - beleieved in Cuba’s suitability for enslaved labor-driver agriculture

OSTEND MANIFESTO

  • Polk offered to purchase Cuba from Spain for 100 million

    • Spain refused to sell their last major remnant of their once glorious empire

      - several southern adventurers led small expeditions to Cuba to take island by force

      - forays were easily defeated and participaints were executed by Spanish firing squads

    • President Franklin Pierece adopted po-southern policies & sent american dimplomats to Belgium to secretly negotiate buying Cuba from Spain

      • Agreement between diplomats known as the Ostend Manifesto

        - leaked to the press—→ antislavery members of congress reacted angrily and forced Pierce to drop the scheme

WALKER EXPEDITION

  • Expansionist continued to seek new empires with or without the federal gov’s support (goals were frequently tied to expanding slavery and southern influence)

    • Southern adventurer William Walker

      - tried to unsuccessfully take Baja California peninsual from Mexico

      - led a force of southerners and seized power in Nicaragua

      - Walker’s regime gained temporary recognition from US

      - his grand scheme to develop a proslavery central american empire collapsed (central american countries invaded his country and defeated him)

      - Walker was executed by Houduran authorities

CLAYTON-BULWER TREATY (1850)

  • America & Great Britain wanted to build a canal through Central America

    • Canal would significantly shorten ships traveling from Northern Atlantic to Northern Pacific (without the need to sail around South America)

      - US and Britian both wanted to construct and control the canal for strategic and economic purposes

      - Both agreed to Clayton-Bulwer Treaty (provided that neither nation would attempt to take exlusive control of the future canal route)

      - Treaty ended at the end of the century (Hay-Pauncefote Treaty gave US access to build canal w/o British participation)

GADSDEN PURCHASE

  • Presidence Pierce successfully purchased small strip of land from Mexico for 10 million, depite not acquiring Cuba (Gadsden Purchase)

    • The land was largely semidesert

      - provided best route for southern transcontinental railroad

      - formed the southern sectrions of present-day New Mexico & Arizona

CONFLICT OVER STATUS OF TERRITORIES

  • Territories gained from Mexican-American War increased tensions between North and South over the topic of slaveru

    • Wilmot’s Provisio

      - excluded slavery from new territories, would have upset the Compromise of 1820, & balance of free and slave states

      - defeat in congress only increased sectional feelings (highlighted deep divide over the expansion of slavery)

THREE CONFLICTING POSITIONS ON SLAVERY EXPANSION

  • Most people held one of three positions

    • No single policy appealed to all, but manu hoped for compromise

FREE-SOIL MOVEMENT

  • Issue of slavery in the Mexican Cession divided political groups and shaped new movements

    • Northwen Democrats and Whigs

      - supported Wilmot, advocated for exclusion of African Americans from Mexican Cession

      - Many Northerners opposed slavery’s westward expansion but not its existence (sought to keep west as land of opportunity for whites, free from African Americans)

    • Free-soil party (1848)

      - ogranized by northerns who opposed slavery in new territories

      - “free soil, free labor, and free men.”

      - cheif objective was to prevent extension of slavery, but also advocate for free homestead (public land grants to small farmers) & internal improvements

SOUTHERN POSITIONS

  • Southern plantation owners and political leaders reacted strongly to the attempts to restrict the expansion of slavery (thought it was a violation of their constitutional property right, saw free-soilers and abolitionist as threats to the survival of slavery)

    • Some southerns had moderate views

      - agreed to extend Missouri compromise line westward to Pacific Ocean and permit territories North to be free

POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY

  • Democratic senator Lewis Cass introduced compromise to address slavery in western territory

    • Suggested that the matter be determined by a vote of the people who settled in the territory (instead of congress deciding)

      - known as squatter sovereignty/popular sovereignty

THE ELECTION OF 1848

  • Issue of expanding slavery became a central role of the 1848 presidental elections with three different parties differing positions

    • Democrats

      - nominated Senator Lewis Cass and adopted popular sovereignty

    • Whigs

      - nominated war hero Zachary Taylor and took no position on slavery

      - Taylor defeated Cass, with free-soil party drawing enough votes in key states against Cass

    • Free-soil party

      - nominated former president Van Buren and opposed the expansion of slavery

      - members consisted of antislavery whigs and democrarts (later referred to as barnburners bc they threated to destroy the democratic party)

COMPROMISES TO PRESERVE UNION

  • Gold rush and new settlers into California—→ need for law and order in west

    • Californians drafted state constitution

      - banned slavery

    • President Zachary Taylor (southern slaveholder) supported the immediate admission of California and New Mexico as free states

      - sparked talk of seccession from radicals in south (fire-eaters) at convention in Nashville

    • Henry Clay proposed another compromise (Compromise of 1850)

      - admit California as a free state (1)

      - divide Mexican cession into Utah and New Mexico and have popular sovereignty over slavery (2)

      - settle Texas-New Mexico border by granting disputed land to the new territories and in return for gov assuming Texas’s 10 million debt (3)

      - ban slave trade in Washinton DC, but allowing it to continue (4)

      - Enacts stricter fugitive slave laws (5)

    • Key figures, including, Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, and John C> Calhoun delivered their final speeches

      - Webster supported compromise to preserve union (alienated his abolitionist supporters)

      - Calhoun opposed compromise and demanded equal southern rights in new territories

    • Northern oppostion to compromise came from younger antislavery lawmakers

      - William H. Seward argued high law than Consitution existed

      - opponents prevailed until death of Taylor (who opposed Clay’s plan)

      - srtong supporter of compromise, Millard Fillmore succeeded and signed bills into laws

      - Senator Stephen A. Douglas engineered coalitions to pass compromise separately

PASSAGE

  • Passage of Compromise of 1850 brought time for Union

    • Califronia was admitted as a free state—→ northern political power

      - political debate deepend northerns to save union from seccession

    • Parts of compromise became controversial

      - new fugitive slave law and provision for popular sovereignty