11/18

Westward Expansion

• Preemption Act (1841) → formalized by the federal government

  • Permitted “squatters” to purchase federal land if…

    1. Heads of households

    2. Single men over 21 or widows

    3. Citizens of the US

    4. Residents of the land for at least 14 months

• Election of 1844 = Polk → manifest destiny

  • Democrat, compared to Jackson (“Young Hickory”)

  • Had 4 goals:

    1. Lower tariffs

    2. Restore the treasury → stabilize, federal government prints money

    3. Oregon border

    4. Get Texas and California

• Texas was controlled by Spain

  → after American Revolution people fight for independence (Mexico)

  • (Texas was part of Mexico)

  • The Mexican government tried to get Americans to move to Texas

    • They wanted Catholics and no slavery (didn’t happen)

• The Americans in Texas revolt and become an independent country

  • Pre-Polk presidents didn’t want to deal with Texas because it would cause issues over being a free or slave state and its past with Mexico

• Texas wants to join the US

  • Mexico claimed the border was the Nueces River, while the US claimed it was the Rio Grande (Mexican-American War)

    • The land in between the two borders was valuable

Mexican-American War (1844-1848)

• American blood on American soil → war declaration

  • Mexican disagreed with this because they believed that the border being the Nueces River meant American blood was not shed on American soil

• Charles Sumner = war with Mexico would be an extension of slavery

  • People opposed the war because they didn’t want Texas to join and become a slave state

• Henry David Thoreau = civil disobedience → didn’t want to pay a tax to expand slavery

• US gets Texas

  • Border is the officially the Rio Grande

11/19

Failure of a Compromise

• Whigs = anti-Jackson, anti-monarch

  • They create a trend of breaking off to create new parties

Immigration

• Drastically increased in the 1830s and 1840s

• People come from Germany and Ireland → move to the Northeast

  • They don’t move to the south because the cannot compete for jobs (slave labor prevents this → immigrants want money but slaves do free labor)

• Great Migration in early 1840s

• Americans disliked immigrants because…

  • People from Ireland are Catholic

  • Germans and Irish like to drink (they moved during temperance)

  • Voting became more accessible in the 1820s and 1830s during the Era of the Common Man → immigrants voted illegally → skewed politics

    • They also take American jobs

• Bible Wars = burn catholic churches (because the Irish were catholic)

Nativism

• Embraced nationalism

• Religious discrimination (Protestant v. Catholic)

  • Rise in secularism → no religion in schools

• Bible Wars (Philadelphia, 1844)

• Want to protect American jobs, culture, and politics

3rd Party Politics

• Know Nothing Party = against immigration

  • Believed immigrants were stealing the vote

  • Single issue party (anti-immigration)

  • Whigs join because it is against the democrats

    • They believe immigrants vote blue

  • They live in cities

• Free Soilers (1848-1854)

  • Free soil, free labor, free man

  • Wage Labor

  • Stop the spread of slavery (NOT ABOLITIONISTS)

  • People out west

• Lewis Cass = popular sovereignty → people’s choice

  • Opposed by free soilers because slavery would spread

California

• Gold was discovered in 1848

• South Americans, Americans, and asians go to look for gold

• Obtained statehood quickly

• Free soilers state → Senate was already balanced

  • Missouri Compromise doesn’t apply (not Louisiana territory)

Compromise of 1850 (Stephen Douglas)

• Webster = Union

• Clay = Compromise

• Calhoun = Constitution

  1. California becomes a free-soil state

  2. Utah and New Mexico territores get popular sovereignty

  3. Texas gets smaller

  4. Made slave trade illegal in D.C.

  5. Strengthened the Fugitive Slave Act

     • Slaves who ran away were sent back to the south (they are viewed as property)

     • Underground railroad grew

11/21

Fugitive Slave Act

• Alleged slaves couldn’t testify their own defense

• Judges were paid double for every guilty conviction

  • Incentive

• $1000 fine and 6 months in jail for helping slaves escape

Uncle Tom’s Cabin

• Second best-selling book in the US (second only to the bible)

• Fictional story (Uncle Tom is a slave) → not about slavery

  • Historical fiction

• Family experience → easily relatable

  • Tom had relatable values (forgiveness, kindness, compassion, etc.)

Southern Defense of Slavery

• Fewer than 20% of southerners own slaves

• North guilty too = they use cotton for textiles

• Positive Good Theory

  • Whites get cheap manual labor and blacks benefit from the civilizing effect of being under the guidance of whites and exposure to Christianity

Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854)

• Kansas-Nebraska Act goes against the Missouri Compromise

• Stephen Douglas wants to put a railroad through the North (specifically Illinois)

• Kansas and Nebraska territories were given popular sovereignty

  • These two things were signed into law togther

• It would benefit slavery in Missouri if Kansas was a slave state

  • Border ruffians/bushwhackers go vote in Kansas to make sure it became a slave state

  • Jay Hawks came from the north to make it free soil

• Kansas becomes a free soiler state

  • Two submitted state constitutions:

    1. Topeka = no slavery and no free blacks

    2. Lecompton = proslavery

12/2

Bleeding Kansas

• 2 state constitutions

• Jack of Lawerence (May 21, 1856)

• Bushwhackers came and destroyed the town

• Charles Sumner brings it up to congress

  • Senator from Massachusetts

• Charles Sumner = northern abolitionist

• Andrew Butler = southern

• Preston Brooks (Butler’s nephew) beats Sumner with his cane in congress

  • “Canning of Sumner”

Pottawatomie Massacare

• Pro-slavery settlement

• John Brown hacks people to death

12/3

The Dred Scott Case (1857)

• Scott is a slave living in Missouri

  • He belongs to someone in the army

  • They had to move to Wisconsin

  • He married a free woman and had a baby (free)

  • They move to Missouri → the army guy dies

    → Scott now belongs to his sister in New York

• Scott believes that he should have been freed when they moved to Wisconsin

  → Scott sues in Missouri and becomes free

  → The sister appeals and the courts go back and forth on the decision

  1. The constitution says that descendants from Africa are not citizens

     • Scott should have never been able to file a lawsuit

  2. NW ordinance cannot confer neither freedom nor citizenship

  3. 5th amendment gives citizens the right to property

     • Supreme Court decides that Scott and other slaves are property

• Scott reamins a slave

• !!! The Missouri Compromise is unconstitutional (because of the 5th amendment)

  • Stopping slavery is unconstitutional

    → To abolish slavery they would need to amend the constitution

Republican Party

• Douglas v. Lincoln for senate in Illinois (1858)

  • They traveled around and had debates

  • Key themes:

    • Douglas = telling people that if they vote for Lincoln he will want to make whites and blacks equal

    • Lincoln = He’s not an abolitionist but wants the country to be unified again

!!! Can popular sovereignty and Dred Scott co-exist? → Freeport Doctrine

John Brown and Harper’s Ferry (1859)

• John Brown believed slavery goes against the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution

  • He believed God wanted him to go fight for what he believed in, similar to what the founding fathers did in the 1770s

• Goes to the armory and gets weapons and wants to start a slave revolt

• He breaks into Harper’s Ferry (unsuccessfully)

  • Sentenced to treason (and murder)

    → hanged

12/5

Election of 1860

1. Northern Democrat = Stephen Douglas

   • Popular sovereignty

2. Southern Democrat = John C. Breckinridge

   • Federal slave code

3. Constitutional Union = John Bell

   • Allegiance to the union

4. Republican = Abraham Lincoln

   • Non-extension to slavery, protective tariff, government aid to build the railroad, and other internal improvements

     → The Republican Party catered to the needs of everyone

• Lincoln wins 59% electoral votes but only 38% popular vote

  • He wasn’t put onto southern ballots

  • Southern states grow angry

• South Carolina is the first state to secede (December 1860)

  • Other deep south states secede with them

    • All before Lincoln is in office

  • Other southern states secede later

    • Lincoln is in office