Chapter 18

Presidential candidates in the 1848 election included

Martin Van Buren, Lewis Cass, and Zachary Taylor

Of those people going to California during the gold rush

a distressingly high proportion were lawless men

Daniel Webster's famed Seventh of March speech in 1850 resulted in

a shift toward compromise in the North

In his Seventh of March speech, Daniel Webster

called for a new, more stringent fugitive-slave law

Southern delegates met at a convention in Nashville in the summer of 1850 to

condemn the compromises being worked out by congress.

The most alarming aspect of the Compromise of 1850 to the northerners was the

decision concerning the new Fugitive Slave Law

In order to maintain the 2 great political party as vital bonds of national unity...

early 19th century politicians avoided public discussions of slavery

President Zachary Taylor unknowingly helped cause the compromise of 1850 when

he died suddenly and Millard Fillmore became president

Harriet Tubman gained fame by

helping slaves to escape to Canada

The Free Soilers condemned slavery because

it destroyed the chances of free white workers to rise to self-employment

The public liked popular sovereignty because

it fit in with the democratic tradition of selfdetermination

The key issue for the major parties in the 1848 presidential election was

personalities

The Wilmot Proviso, if adopted would have

prohibited slavery in any territory acquired in the Mexican War

The Young Guard from the North were most interested in

purging and purifying the Union

By 1859 the South was

relatively well off, politically and economically

The US victory in the Mexican War resulted in

renewed controversy over the issue of extending slavery into the territories, a possible split in the Whig and Democrat parties over slavery, the cession by Mexico of an enormous amount of land to the US, and a rush of settlers to the new American territory in California

During the 1850s, slaves gained their freedom most frequently by

self-purchase

In the Compromise of 1850, Congress determined that

slavery in the New Mexico and Utah territories was to be decided by popular sovereignty

The Free Soilers argued that

slavery would cause more costly wage labor to wither away

In 1848, the Free Soil party platform advocated the following:

support of the Wilmot Proviso, fee gov't homesteads for settlers, opposition to slavery in the territories, end of slavery in DC

In the debates of 1850, Senator William H. Seward, as a representative of the northern Young Guard, argued

that Christian legislators must obey God's moral law

In the 1848 presidential election

the Democratic and Whig parties remained silent on the issue of slavery

The event that brought turmoil to the administration of Zachary Taylor was

the discovery of gold in California

John C. Calhoun's plan to protect the South and slavery involved

the election of 2 presidents, one from the North and one from the South

According to the principle of "popular sovereignty"

the question of slavery in the territories would be determined by the vote of the people in any given territory

During the debate of 1850, William H. Seward argued that

there was a "higher law" than the Constitution that compelled him to demand the exclusion of slavery from the territories

The debate over slavery in the Mexican Cession...

threatened to split national politics along North-South lines

For his position in his Seventh of March speech, Daniel Webster was

viciously condemned by abolitionists