APUSH Units 6 and 7

Colonization

American citizens spread out a lot as new territories were annexed and brought into the Union. Manifest Destiny and hope for a better life spread people into California, Texas, Oregon, Kansas, and Nebraska.

Oregon Treaty of 1846

Britain had strong claims to Oregon, based on prior discovery and exploration, treaty rights, and actual occupation. Americans also could claim exploration and occupation. In 1818, Britain and the U.S. had settled on joint occupation of the area. However, in the 1840s, many restless U.S. pioneers moved into Oregon. It became an issue in the election of 1844, with the Whigs wanting "All of Oregon or None." Polk was elected and tried to solve the dispute. He offered a compromise line of 49˚, but the British refused. Later, in early 1846, the British themselves proposed this same line. The U.S. agreed. The Democrats were annoyed about not getting the entire territory, but at least war was avoided.

Popular sovereignty

General Lewis Cass was the father of this idea that the sovereign people of a territory, under the general principles of the Constitution, should themselves determine the status of slavery. It had persuasive appeal because it accorded with the democratic tradition of self-determination and was a comfortable compromise. However, it might serve to spread the blight of slavery. In the Kansas-Nebraska Act, both Kansas and Nebraska were given this right to choose whether or not to have slavery. Champions of this idea were aghast at the Supreme Court's Dred Scott decision, because it said that no matter what the people decided Congress had no power to ban slavery in a territory.

Gold Rush

Gold was discovered on the American River near Sutter's Mill, CA, early in 1848. A horde of adventurers clamored to the valleys of California, where only a few struck it rich. A distressingly high proportion of the adventurers were lawless men and virtue-less women, resulting in an outburst of crime. A majority of Californians grappled earnestly with the problem of erecting an adequate state government, drafting a constitution in 1849 that excluded slavery, thus bypassing the usual territorial stage. The finding of gold reinvigorated the spirit of Manifest Destiny.

Uncle Tom's Cabin

Harriett Beecher Stowe published this heartrending novel in 1852, and it helped start the Civil War. She was determined to awaken the North to the wickedness of slavery by laying bare its terrible inhumanity, especially the cruel splitting of families. It relied on powerful imagery and touching pathos. Her antislavery sentiments lay in the evangelical religious crusades of the Second Great Awakening. The success of the novel in the U.S. and abroad was sensational. Ms. Stowe had never witnessed slavery at first hand in the Deep South, but she had seen it briefly during a visit to Kentucky, and she had lived for many years in Ohio, a center of Underground Railroad activity. The book left a profound impression on the North, because many readers decided that they would have nothing to do with the enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Law. Also, many young boys who read it later became Union soldiers. Abroad, it was especially successful in Britain and France. The governments in London and Paris were considering intervening on behalf of the South in the Civil War, but refrained from doing so because their citizens would not support it after having read this book.

Republican Party

In the election of 1856, this party nominated John C. Frémont and had a platform that was vigorously against the extension of slavery into the territories. They shouted "We Follow the Pathfinder" and "We are Buck Hunting." They did not win because of serious doubts to Frémont's honesty, capacity, and sound judgment, as well as threats that the South would be forced to secede if their candidate was elected. However, they had made an astonishing showing against the Democrats. Lincoln was this party's candidate in the election of 1860. Their platform had appeal for just about every important non-southern group, with nonextension of slavery for the free-soilers, a protective tariff for the northern manufacturers, no abridgement of rights for the immigrations, a Pacific railroad for the Northwest, internal improvements at federal expense for the West, and free homesteads from the public domain for the farmers. Some of their slogans were "Vote Yourselves a Farm" and "Land for the Landless."

Election of 1856

In this election, the Democrats nominated James Buchanan, the Republicans nominated John C. Frémont, and the Know-Nothings nominated Millard Fillmore. Buchanan was assailed because he was a bachelor, and Frémont was reviled because of his illegitimate birth and allegations that he was Catholic. Buchanan won. The Republicans did not win because of serious doubts to Frémont's honesty, capacity, and sound judgment, as well as threats that the South would be forced to secede if a sectional "Black Republican" was elected. However, the Republicans had made an astonishing showing against the democrats.

Crittenden Compromise

James Henry Crittenden of Kentucky attempted to get these amendments passed to appease the South. Slavery in the territories was to be prohibited north of 36˚30', but south of that line it was to be given federal protection in all territories. Future states, north or south of the line, could come into the Union with or without slavery, as they should choose. In short, the slavery supporters were to be guaranteed full rights in the southern territories, as long as they were territories, regardless of the popular majority's wishes. Federal protection in a territory south of the line might conceivably, though improbably, turn the entire area permanently to slavery. Lincoln rejected this scheme, and all hope of compromise evaporated. He opposed the extension of slavery, feeling that it was a matter of principle.

Lincoln-Douglas debates

Lincoln and Douglas were both running for the Illinois Senate seat in 1858, and Lincoln challenged Douglas to a series of joint debates. Seven meetings were arranged from August to October. At first, the two contestants seemed ill-matched because Douglas was well-groomed, polished, and had a loud voice, while Lincoln was lanky, wore baggy clothes, and had a high-pitched voice. However, Lincoln was a very logical speaker. Their most famous debate was in Freeport, IL, when Lincoln asked Douglas this question: Suppose the people of a territory should vote slavery down. The Supreme Court in the Dred Scott decision had decreed that they could not. Who would prevail, the Court or the people? Douglas, in his "Freeport Doctrine," declared that no matter how the Supreme Court ruled, slavery would stay down if the people voted it down. He stayed loyal to popular sovereignty. Douglas ended up winning the election.

Election of 1860

On this election hung the issue of peace or civil war. The Democrats met in Charleston, with Douglas the leading candidate. However, delegates from the South walked out and the entire body dissolved. The Democrats tried again in Baltimore, chiefly with delegates from the North, and had a platform for popular sovereignty and against obstruction of the Fugitive Slave Law by the states. Southern Democrats had a rival convention, also in Baltimore, and selected John C. Breckenridge, whose platform favored the extension of slavery into the territories and the annexation of Cuba. The Constitutional Union party nominated John Bell of Tennessee. The Republicans nominated Abraham Lincoln because he had fewer enemies than William Seward. Their platform had appeal for just about every important non-southern group, with non-extension of slavery, a protective tariff, no abridgement of rights, a Pacific railroad, and free homesteads from the public domain. Lincoln won, as a sectional president and minority president, although Douglas did make an impressive showing. This election was virtually two separate elections: one in the North, and one in the South.

Sumner and Brooks

Senator Charles ____ of Massachusetts, an abolitionist, made a speech called "The Crime Against Kansas," which condemned the proslavery men and insulted South Carolina and its Senator Andrew Butler. Congressmen Preston S. _____ of South Carolina took vengeance into his own hands by pounding the senator with his cane until it broke. The victim fell bleeding and unconscious to the floor, and he suffered serious head and nervous system injuries that forced him to go to Europe for costly and painful treatment. The violent Congressman resigned, but was reelected and fans deluged him with canes. The senator was also reelected, leaving his seat eloquently empty as he received treatment. This clash revealed how dangerously inflamed passions were becoming.

Slave rebellions

Several of these occurred in the South, though never successfully. In 1800, an armed insurrection led by a slave named Gabriel in Richmond, VA, was foiled by informers, and its leaders were hanged. In 1822, Denmark Vesey led one in Charleston, but it failed too. In 1831, Nat Turner, a visionary black preacher, led an uprising that slaughtered about 60 Virginians. Reprisals were swift and bloody. Such events sent waves of hysteria throughout the South, and planters often slept with pistols by their pillows because they were constantly in a state of suspicion.

Personal liberty laws

Some states passed these laws, which denied local jails to federal officials and otherwise hampered enforcement of the new Fugitive Slave Law of 1850. It showed that the new law did a lot to awaken in the North a spirit of antagonism against the South.

Secession

The South Carolinians saw Lincoln's victory as an excuse to do this, even though their candidate Breckenridge was not a dis-unionist. Their legislature voted unanimously to call a special convention. Meeting in Charleston in December 1860, they voted to remove themselves from the Union. During the next six weeks, Alabama, Mississippi, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas followed suit. These seven states met in Montgomery in February 1861, where they created the Confederate States of America with Jefferson Davis as their president. Buchanan did not believe that the southern states could legally do this, yet he could find no authority in the Constitution for stopping them with guns. The people in these states who removed themselves from the Union did it for a number of reasons, such as the tipping of the political balance against them, the triumph of the new Republican party, constant criticism and nagging from abolitionists and northerners, and a desire to cast aside their generations of "vassalage" to the North. Worldwide impulses of nationalism, the principles of self-determination, and historical parallels with the colonies splitting from Britain all concurred with their decision.

Ostend Manifesto

The secretary of state instructed the American ministerse in Spain, England, and France to prepare confidential recommendations for the acquisition of Cuba. They met in Ostend, Belgium, and drew up this top-secret dispatch, which urged that the administration offer $120 million for Cuba. If Spain refused, the U.S. would be justified in taking Cuba by force. However, this didn't stay secret for long, and Northern free-soilers were upset by the scheme. The Pierce administration was embarrassed and did not follow through with the plan.

Slavery

This "peculiar institution" was reinvigorated by Eli Whitney's cotton gin. It was the way that the Cotton Kingdom of the South ran. Slaves made up society's basement in the South. Even after legal importation of slaves into the U.S. ended in 1808, thousands were smuggled. However, the huge number of slaves was mainly due to natural reproduction. The planters regarded the slaves as investments, and therefore they were sometimes spared dangerous work. Slaves were the primary form of wealth in the South. Women slaves who bore a lot of children were often rewarded. Slave auctions separated families, which was perhaps slavery's greatest psychological horror. Slavery meant hard work, ignorance, and oppression, and slaves had no civil or political rights. On the southern frontier, slave life was harder than in the more settled regions. As for culture, family life for slaves tended to be relatively stable and a distinctive African American slave culture developed. The continuity of family identity across generations was evidenced in the widespread practice of naming children for grandparents or adopting the surname of a forebears' master. Their religion was a mixture of Christian and African elements, emphasizing Christian aspects that seemed most pertinent to them and using a "responsorial" style of preaching. Ways that slaves got back at masters included working at the barest minimum pace of labor, filching food and other goods, rebelling, and sabotaging expensive equipment.

Wilmot Proviso

This amendment was proposed by David Wilmot of Pennsylvania. It said that slavery should never exist in any territory that was taken from Mexico. It twice passed the House, but not the Senate, so it never became federal law. However, it was eventually endorsed by the legislatures of all but one of the free states, and it came to symbolize the burning issue of slavery in the territories. Northern antislaveryites rallied around it.

Dred Scott decision

This decision was handed down by the Supreme Court on March 6, 1857. Dred Scott, a black slave, had lived with his master for five years in IL and WI Territory, and he sued for freedom on the basis of his long residence on free soil. The Supreme Court ruled that he was a black slave and not a citizen, and hence could not sue in federal courts, but the issue went further than that. They also ruled that because a slave was private property, he or she could be taken into any territory and legally held there in slavery, because the Fifth Amendment forbids Congress to deprive people of their property. Also, the Compromise of 1820 was ruled to be unconstitutional because Congress had no power to ban slavery from the territories, regardless even of what the territorial legislatures might want. Southerners were delighted, but champions of popular sovereignty and foes of slavery extension were upset. Republicans defied the Court's order. This issue was brought up again in Lincoln and Douglas' debate in Freeport, IL.

Frederick Douglass

This former slave was a gifted and eloquent abolitionist orator who was self-educated. Escaping from bondage in 1838 at age 21, he was "discovered" by the abolitionists in 1841 when he gave a stunning impromptu speech at an antislavery meeting in Massachusetts. Several times, he was mobbed and beaten by northern rowdies for his frequent abolitionist lectures, displaying the fact that white northerners professed to like black people as a race but often disliked individuals. In 1845, he published his autobiography. He was flexibly practical and increasingly looked to politics to end slavery.

Zachary Taylor

This general, later to become President, played a big role in the Mexican War by marching his troops from the Nueces River to the Rio Grande, provocatively near Mexican forces. On April 25, 1846, Mexican troops attacked his command, which started the Mexican War. He was known as "Old Rough and Ready" because of his iron constitution and incredibly un-soldierly appearance. He captured Buena Vista in the war and thus became known as the "Hero of Buena Vista." The Whigs nominated him for president in the election of 1848, which he won. He had stumpy legs, rough features, heavy jaw, black hair, ruddy complexion, and squinty gray eyes. When he died suddenly, Millard Fillmore became president.

Know-Nothing Party

This is another name for the American Party, given to it because of its secretiveness. They were "nativists" who were alarmed by the recent influx of immigrants from Ireland and Germany. They were antiforeign and anti-Catholic, and used the slogan "Americans must rule America." In 1856, they nominated Millard Fillmore for president. However, Buchanan won instead.

Omnibus bill

This is another name for the Compromise of 1850, which consisted of 5 parts. These are the admission of California as a free state, the Texas and New Mexico Act (works out Texas/Mexico boundary in favor of TX and gives $10 million to TX and leaves NM open to popular sovereignty), the Utah Act (popular sovereignty for UT), the Fugitive Slave Act (fugitive slave cases go under federal jurisdiction, special commissioners issue warrants for capture and return of slaves, and blacks who claim to be free can't testify in court or get trial by jury), and the abolition of the slave trade in Washington D.C.

John Tyler

This kindly, gracious, and principled Virginia gentleman became President after Harrison died of pneumonia. He was on the Whig ticket, but was actually a Democrat at heart and disagreed with much of the Whig platform. For financial reform, he signed a law ending the independent treasury but vetoed the bill for a new Bank of the United States. His opposition to a centralized bank led to such unpopularity with the Whigs that all of his cabinet resigned except for one person. He signed a new Tariff law in 1842. He interpreted the narrow Democratic victory as a "Mandate" to acquire Texas, so he arranged for annexation by a joint resolution, which only required a simple majority in both houses of Congress rather than a two-thirds vote in the Senate that a treaty would require. Texas was then formally invited to join the Union.

John Brown

This man was obsessively dedicated to the abolitionist cause. In May 1856, during the Bleeding Kansas events, he led a band of his followers to Pottawatomie Creek, where they hacked to pieces five surprised men, who was presumed to favor slavery. Later, he schemed to invade the South, call upon the slaves to rise, furnish them with arms, and establish a kind of black free state as a sanctuary. With about twenty men, he seized a federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, VA, in October 1859, and ended up killing several people. However, the slaves did not rise up. He was convicted of murder and treason and was executed, but became a famous martyr to the abolitionists. This gave the South a bad image of Northerners, because they assumed that all Northerners were violent like him.

Eli Whitney

This man's cotton gin made possible the wide-scale cultivation of short-staple cotton. This resulted in an insatiable demand for labor, thus reinvigorating southern slavery and making a Cotton Kingdom.

Bleeding Kansas

This name given to the territory of Kansas demonstrates the bloodshed that was caused by the worst possible workings of popular sovereignty. Groups of northern abolitionists were among the settlers in this territory. Southern spokesmen were upset because they had supported the Kansas-Nebraska Act under the understanding that KS would be slave and NE would be free. Some southern hotheads sent armed slave-owners into the territory. Conditions worsened when slavery supporters triumphed through fraudulent voting for the territorial legislature and set up a government at Shawnee Mission, while free-soilers created an extralegal regime in Topeka. In 1856, proslavery raiders shot up and burned the free-soil city of Lawrence and John Brown's followers hacked proslavery people to death at Pottawatomie Creek, and thus civil war in Kansas erupted. Another aspect of this was the Lecompton Constitution that Kansas used when applying for statehood. The people were only allowed to vote for it with or without slavery, not for the constitution as a whole. Whatever the outcome, slavery would still exist in KS, so free-soilers boycotted the polls and it was accepted with slavery. Buchanan and Douglas argued until it was decided that the whole constitution would be submitted to popular vote. It was not accepted.

Cotton Kingdom

This name referred to the South, because cotton was king there. Eli Whitney's cotton gin made possible the wide-scale cultivation of short-staple cotton, which rapidly became the dominant crop and created an insatiable demand for labor. The South developed into a huge agricultural factory, and planters continued to buy more slaves and more land. Northern shippers also reaped a large part of the profits. Cotton accounted for half of the value of all American exports after 1840, which held foreign nations such as Britain in partial bondage.

Whig Party

This party was pro-bank, pro-protective tariff, and pro-internal improvements, so they were angry when Tyler refused to agree to a new Bank of the United States. They did not favor an independent treasury. They nominated Henry Clay for president many times, but he never won. The anti-slavery members of this party who were in Congress denounced the Mexican War. In the election of 1848, they nominated Zachary Taylor and dodged all troublesome issues on their platform. They merely extolled the homespun virtues of their candidate. In the election of 1852, they nominated Winfield Scott but were hopelessly split. The northerners were okay with Scott but deplored his platform, while the southerners accepted the platform but hated the candidate. The election of 1852 marked the effective end of this party, which had only won two presidential elections. They had upheld the ideal of the Union through their electoral strength in the South and through the eloquence of leaders like Clay and Webster.

William Lloyd Garrison

This reformer published a militantly antislavery newspaper, The Liberator. He was stern and uncompromising, and would under no circumstances tolerate slavery. However, he often appeared to be more interested in his own righteousness than in the substance of the slavery evil itself, demanding that the North secede from the South but never explaining how the creation of an independent slave republic would bring slavery to an end. He renounced politics, publicly burning a copy of the Constitution in 1854. He despised the Fugitive Slave Law.

Abraham Lincoln

This rustic Springfield lawyer was 6 feet 4 inches, with abnormally long legs, arms, and neck; coarse, black, and unruly hair; and a sad, sunken, and weather-beaten face. He was born in Kentucky to impoverished parents and was self-educated, spending some time as a splitter of logs for fence rails. He married "above himself" socially, into the influential Todd family. He was known as "Honest Abe" because he would refuse cases that he had to suspend his conscience to defend. He served one undistinguished term in Congress, from 1847 to 1849. He emerged as one of the foremost politicians and orators of the Northwest. When he and Douglas were both running for the Illinois senate seat in 1858, they held a series of joint debates. He was nominated by the Republican Party in the election of 1860, and won, which gave South Carolina an excuse to secede even before he was even formally in office. He flatly rejected the Crittenden scheme for compromise between the North and South.

Webster-Ashburton Treaty

This treaty was arranged between Lord Ashburton, a nonprofessional British diplomat, and the American Secretary Webster. The two statesmen finally agreed to compromise on the Maine boundary. The Americans were to retain some 7,000 square miles of the 12,000 square miles of wilderness in dispute. The British got less land but won the desired Halifax-Quebec route. This ended the ugly fights, or "Aroostook War," that had flared up between lumberjacks in the area from Maine and Canada.

Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo

This treaty, arranged by chief clerk of the State Department, Nicholas P. Trist, was signed on February 2, 1848, thus ending the Mexican War. The treaty's terms confirmed the American title to Texas and yielded the enormous area stretching westward to Oregon and the ocean and embracing coveted California. This total expanse was about half of Mexico. The U.S. agreed to pay $15 million for the land and to assume the claims of its citizens against Mexico in the amount of $3,250,000. The treaty was approved by the Senate, 38 to 14. However, it was condemned both by those opponents who wanted all of Mexico and by opponents who wanted none of it.

The Impending Crisis of the South

This was a book written by Hinton R. Helper, a non-aristocratic white from North Carolina who hated both slavery and blacks. In this book, he attempted to prove through an array of statistics that indirectly the non-slaveholding whites were the ones who suffered most from slavery. He eventually managed to find a publisher in the North. His influence was negligible among the poorer whites to whom he addressed his message. Yet the planter elite's fears were fueled that the non-slaveholding majority might abandon them. The book was banned in the South. In the North, it was distributed as campaign literature by the Republicans.

Manifest Destiny

This was a mighty emotional upsurge in which countless citizens in the 1840s and 1850s felt a sense of mission, believing that God had "manifestly" destined the American people for a hemispheric career. They would irresistibly spread their uplifting and ennobling democratic institutions over at least the entire continent, and possibly over South America as well. Land greed and ideals - "empire" and "liberty" - were thus conveniently conjoined. Expansionist Democrats were strongly swayed by this, with their platform for re-annexing Texas and taking all of Oregon. This spirit was reinvigorated by the Mexican War and the Gold Rush in California.

Panic of 1857

This was a period of hard times that dampened a period of feverish prosperity. It was caused by California gold that had inflated the currency, the demands of the Crimean War that had over stimulated the growing of grain, and frenzied speculation in land and railroads. Unemployment, accompanied by hunger meetings in urban areas, was widespread. The North was hardest hit. The South did just fine, which led to overconfidence in the Cotton Kingdom. Financial distress in the North gave a new vigor to the demand for free farms of 160 acres from the public domain. This scheme met two-pronged opposition, because the South did not like it because that wasn't enough land for slave plantations and the eastern industrialists did not like the idea that their underpaid workers might quit their jobs to be farmers on this free land. This event also led to a clamor for higher tariff rates. Therefore, the Republicans were given two surefire economic issues for the election of 1860, which were protection for the unprotected and farms for the farmless.

Panic of 1837

This was a symptom of the financial sickness for the times. Its basic cause was rampant speculation prompted by a mania of get-rich-quickism. There were "wildcat banks" providing shaky currency, plus the speculative craze regarding canals, roads, railroads, and slaves. Also, Jacksonian finance (Bank War and Specie Circular), a failure of wheat crops, and the failure of two prominent British banks were causes. Hardship was acute and widespread. Commodity prices drooped, sales of public lands fell off, and customs revenues dried up. Factories closed their doors, and so there was a lot of unemployment. Van Buren rejected all the ideas for solutions brought forth by the Whigs. Van Buren attempted to solve the issue using the "Divorce Bill," which divorced the government from banking altogether. It established an independent treasury in which the government could lock its surplus money in vaults in several large cities. Government funds would be safe but would also be denied to the banking system as reserves. This "Divorce Bill" was never very popular. It was repealed the next year by the Whigs. Since the U.S. was a debtor to England, when this occurred several states defaulted on their bonds or repudiated them openly. This caused honest Englishmen to assail Yankee trickery.

Mexican War

This was a war over land between the U.S. and Mexico in the years 1846 to 1848. The underlying causes were the spirit of Manifest Destiny making the U.S. want to annex California, the Mexicans ignoring John Slidell, Mexico defaulting on payments to American citizens, and disquieting rumors that England was going to take California. The immediate cause was Mexican troops crossing the Rio Grande and attacking General Taylor's U.S. troops, thus spilling American blood on questionably American soil. Turning points and important events include the Battles of Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palma (with Taylor), Santa Anna tricking Polk into letting him go back into Mexico, Kearny leading U.S. troops to capture Santa Fe, Zachary Taylor capturing Buena Vista, General Winfield Scott capturing Mexico City, the Bear Flag revolt with John C. Fremont, the Wilmot Proviso, and the failed armistice with Santa Anna for $10,000. The ending event was the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. This resulted in the U.S. getting Texas and an enormous area stretching to Oregon and the Pacific Ocean, including California, as well as the U.S. having to pay $15 million for the land and assuming claims of its citizens against Mexico for $3,250,000. Short term effects were the California Gold Rush, stimulation to the spirit of Manifest Destiny, priceless field experience for leading Civil War generals, abolitionists getting mad that it is a plot by the southern "slavocracy," and some people getting mad that not all of Mexico was taken. Long term effects were that the U.S.'s total expanse was increased by about one-third, there was more respect for U.S. military ability, and it was an ugly turning point in relations between the U.S. and Latin America.

Free-soilers

This was the antislavery political party that abolitionists supported. Their platform came out for the Wilmot Proviso and against slavery in the territories. They advocated federal aid for internal improvements and urged free government homesteads for settlers, thus broadening their appeal. One of their slogans was "free soil, free speech, free labor, and free men." They condemned slavery not so much for enslaving blacks but for destroying the chances of free white workers to rise up from wage-earning dependence to the esteemed status of self-employment, saying that slavery went against American upward mobility. They formed their own extralegal regime in Topeka during the Bleeding Kansas incident. However, violence such as John Brown's actions besmirched their cause.

Compromise of 1850

Under President Millard Fillmore, these delicate measures passed Congress. "Union-savers" Clay, Webster, and Douglas orated on behalf of it. The North got the better end of the deal. Concessions to the North were that California was admitted as a free state, territory disputed by Texas and New Mexico was surrendered to New Mexico, and the slave trade in Washington D.C. was abolished. Concessions to the South were that the remainder of the Mexican Cession area was to be formed into the territories of New Mexico and Utah, which would be open to popular sovereignty, Texas would receive $10 million from the federal government as compensation, and a more stringent fugitive-slave law was enacted, going beyond that of 1793.