APUSH Chapter 18
Describe the political triumphs for general taylor
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What was Douglas's Kansas and Nebraska scheme?
An ardent booster for the West, he longed to break the North- South deadlock over westward expansion and stretch a line of settlements across the continent. He had also heavily invested in Chicago real estate and in railway stock and was eager to have the Windy City become the eastern terminus of the proposed Pacific railroad. He proposed that the proposed territory of Nebraska would be sliced into two territories, Kansas and Nebraska. Their status regarding slavery would be settled by popular sovereignty. Kansas would presumably choose to become a slave state. But Nebraska would presumably become a free state. This scheme contradicted the Missouri compromise of 1820, which had forbidden slavery in the proposed Nebraska territory. The only way to open the region to popular sovereignty was to repeal the ancient compact outright. Many southerners backed this because it was a chance to gain one more slave state. President Pierce threw himself behind the bill. Whatever Congress passes it can repeal, but by this time the North had come to regard the sectional pact as almost as sacred as the Constitution itself. Free soil members of congress struck back with vengeance. The president rammed the bill through congress with strong support from many southerners. Hundreds of thousands citizens in the north did feel deeply on this moral issue. They regarded the repeal of the Missouri compromise as an intolerable breach of faith, and they would henceforth resists all future southern demands for a slave territory.
How was the compromise scale balanced?
Clearly the north got the better deal in the compromise of 1850. California as a free state tipped the Senate balance permanently against the south. the territories of new mexico and Utah were open to slavery on the basis of popular sovereignty. But the "highest law"- iron law of nature- had loaded the dice in favor of free soil. Southerners needed more slave territory to restore "sacred balance." The Caribbean was one answer to the question of where else could they get new states. The immense area in dispute had been torn from the side of slaveholding texas and was almost certain to be free. The drastic new fugitive slave law of 1850 stirred up a storm of opposition in the north. The fleeing slaves could not testify on their own behalf, and they were denied a jury trial. The federal commissioner who handled the case of a fugitive would receive 5 dollars if the runaway were freed and 10 dollars if not. Freedom loving northerners who aided the slave to escape were liable to heavy fines and jail sentences. Massachusetts, in a move toward nullification suggestive of SC in 1832, made it a penal offense for any state official to enforce the new federal statute. Other states passed "personal liberty laws" which denied local jails to federal offcials and otherwise hampered enforcement.
Pacific railroad promoters and the Gadsden Purchase
Feasible land transportation was imperative- or the newly won possessions on the Pacific coast might break away. Camels were imported from the Near East, but mule driving Americans did not adjust to them. A transcontinental railroad was the only clear solution. Railroad promoters, both the north and south, projected many drawing board routes to the Pacific coast, but the estimated cost in all cases was so great that there could only be one line. Whichever place it was located, the north or south, that favored section would reap rich rewards in wealth, population and influence. Another chunk of Mexico now seemed desirable because the campaigns of the recent war had shown that the best railway route ran south of Mexican border. Secretary of War, Jefferson Davis, arranged to have James Gadsden, south Carolina railroad man, appointed minister to Mexico. Santa Anna was in power for the 6th time. Gadsden negotiated a treaty in 1853, which ceded to the US the Gadsden purchase for 10 million. This aroused much criticism from the northerners. The Senate approved the pact. The Gadsden purchase enabled the south to claim the coveted railroad with even greater insistence. a southern track would be easier to build because the mountains were less high and because the route, unlike the proposed northern lines, would not pass through unorganized territory. Any northern or central railroad line would have to be thrust through the unorganized territory of Nebraska, where the buffalo and Indians roamed. Northern railroad boosters quickly replied that if organized territory were the test, then Nebraska should be organized. Thousands of pioneers were already on the Nebraska border. But all schemes proposed to in Congress for organizing the territory were greeted with hostility by many southerners.
How does congress legislate a civil war?
Antislavery norterners were angered by the Kansas- Nebraska act. All future compromise with the south would be immeasurably more difficult, and without compromise there was bound to be conflict. This act wrecked two compromises: that of 1820, and that of 1850, which northern opinion repealed indirectly. The growing legion of antislaveryites gained momentous recruits, who resented the move by the "slavocracy" of Kansas. The democrats were shattered by the Kansas Nebraska act. They did elect a president in 1856, but he was the last one they were to boost into the White house for 28 years. The Kansas Nebraska act produced the Republican party. It sprang up spontaneously in the Middle West, notably in Wisconsin and Michigan, as a mighty moral protest against the gains of slavery. The party spread eastward with swiftness. It elected a Republican speaker in the house of reps within two years. Never really a third party movement, it became a second major political party. The new republican party could not be allowed south of the mason Dixon line.
What was the allure of Asia?
At the conclusion of the Opium War in 1842, Britain gained free access to 5 treaty ports, as well as outright control of the island of Hong Kong. Prodded by Boston merchants fearful of seeing Britain jump in on their trade with China, President Tyler dispatched Caleb Cushing to secure comparable concessions for the US. Cushing's 4 warships arrived at Macao, in southern China, in early 1844 bearing gifts. Impressed by Cushing, the Chinese diplomats signed the Treaty of Wanghia, the first formal diplomatic agreement between the US and China, on July 3, 1844. He secured some vital rights and privileges from the Chinese. "Extraterritoriality" provided for trying Americans accused of crimes in China before American officials, not in Chinese courts. American trade with China flourished, thanks to Cushing's treaty. It opened the opportunity for American missionaries, thousands of whom soon flooded prayerfully through the treaty ports to convert the Chinese. America had no aligned itself with the Western powers that chronically menaced China's cultural integrity. Japan was in a state of isolationism. The long ruling warrior dynasty ,Tokugawa Shogunate, was so protective of Japan's insularity that it prohibited shipwrecked foreign sailors from leaving and refused to readmit Japanese sailors who had been washed up on foreign shores. By 1853 Japan was ready to emerge. In 1852 President Millard Fillmore dispatched to Japan a fleet of warships commanded by Matthew Perry. Perry prepared for the mission. His 4 "black ships" steamed into Edo on July 8, 1853, this shocked the Japanese. Perry produced silk bound letters requesting free trade and friendly relations. He gave them to the Japanese delegation and withdrew, promising to return the following year to receive the answer. He returned a year later with an even larger force of men. He gave the Japanese more gifts, the most important one being the miniature steam locomotive and 350 feet of track. He persuaded the Japanese to sign the Treaty of Kanagawa in 1854. It provided for proper treatment of shipwrecked sailors, American coaling rights in Japan, and the establishment of consular relations.
How was the Congressional logjam broken?
At the height of controversy in 1850, President Taylor helped the cause of concession by dying suddenly. Vice President Millard Fillmore took over. Fillmore gladly signed the series of compromise measures that passed congress after the long months of debate. -NORTH: California admitted as free state, territory disputed by Texas and New Mexico to be surrendered to NM, abolition of the slave trade, but not slavery, in the District of Colombia. -SOUTH: the remainder of the Mexican Cession area to be formed into the territories of New Mexico and Utah, without restriction on slavery, hence to open the door to popular sovereignty, Texas to receive 10 million from the federal gov. as compensation, a more harsh fugitive slave law going beyond that of 1793. It was not hard to get the measures accepted by the country. The "union savers" like Senators Clay, Webster, and Douglas, orated on behalf of the compromise. But the "fire eaters" of the south were still violently opposed to concessions. A movement in the south to boycott northern goods gained some headway, but in the end the southern unionists, assisted by the warm glow of prosperity, prevailed. In June 1850 the assemblage of southern extremists met in Nashville. The delegates not only took a strong position in favor of slavery but condemned the compromise measures then being hammered out in congress. Meeting again in Nov after the bills had passed, the convention proved to be a dud. By that time southern opinion had reluctantly accepted the verdict of congress.
Twilight of the Senatorial Giants
Free soil California was banging on the door for admission. "Fire eaters" in the south were voicing ominous threats of succession. In October 1849 southerners had announced their intention to convene the following year in Tennessee, to consider withdrawing from the union. The crisis brought into the congressional forum the most distinguished assemblage of statesmen since the convention of 1787. Clay, Webster and Calhoun were apart of this. Henry Clay, "the Great Compromiser" proposed and skillfully defended a series of compromises. Clay was backed up by Senator Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois. Clay urged that the North and South both make concessions and that the North partially yield by enacting a more feasible fugitive slave law. Senator Calhoun, "Great Nullifier," approved of the purpose of Clay's proposed concessions, but rejected them as not providing adequate safeguards for southern rights. His plea was to leave slavery alone, return runways slaves, and give the South its rights as a minority and restore the balance. Calhoun died before the debate was over. Daniel Webster next took the Senate spotlight to uphold Clay's compromise measures during his three hour speech. He urged all reasonable concessions to the south, including a new fugitive slave law with teeth. Webster believed that as for slavery in the territories was an act of sacrilege, for Almighty God had already passed the Wilmot Proviso. The good Lord had decreed that a plantation economy, and hence a slave economy, could not profitably exist in the Mexican cession territory. Webster's famed seventh march speech of 1850 was his finest. It helped to turn the tide in the north toward compromise. His effort strengthened Union sentiment. It was pleasing to the banking and commercial centers of the north, which stood to lose millions of dollars by succession. But the free soilers and abolitionists, who had assumed Webster as one of them, saw him as a traitor.
"Californy Gold?"
Taylor would have spared much turmoil if he could have continued to sit on the slavery lid, but nahh the discovery of gold on the American river near Sutter's mill, California, early in 1848 blew the cover off. A horde of adventurers swarmed into California. A fortunate few of the miners found gold, but a lot of others received blisters instead of nuggets, they would have been money well ahead if they had stayed home unaffected by gold fever. The most reliable profits were made by those who mined the miners, notably by charging outrageous rates for laundry and other personal services. some soiled clothing was sent as far as Hawaiian islands for Washington. The California gold rush attracted tens of thousands of people to the future golden state almost overnight. A lot of people were lawless men and virtue less women. An outburst of crime resulted from the presence of miscreants and outcasts. A majority of Californians needed protection and they grappled earnestly with the problem of erecting an adequate state government. Privately encouraged by Taylor, they drafted a constitution in 1849 that excluded slavery and then applied to congress for admission. Southern politicians, alarmed by the Californians' "impertinent" stroke for freedom, arose in violent opposition.
Why was there danger and deadlock on capitol hill?
The congressional debate of 1850 was not yet over, for the Young Guard from the north were yet to have their say. This was the group of newer leaders who, unlike the aging Old Guard, had not grown up with the union. They were more interested in purging and purifying it, rather than in patching and preserving it. William H. Seward, freshman Senator from NY, was the spokesman for many of the younger northern radicals. A strong antislaveryite. Seward argued earnestly that Christian legislators must obey God's moral law as well as man's mundane law. He therefore appealed, with reference to excluding slavery in the territories, to an even "higher law" than the constitution. This alarming phrase may have cost him the presidential nomination and the presidency in 1860. President Taylor, who seemed to have fallen under the influence of men like "Higher Law" Seward, seemed bent on vetoing any compromise passed by Congress. His military ire was aroused by the threats of Texas to seize Santa Fe. He appeared to be doggedly determined to "Jacksonize" the dissenters, if need be, by leading an army against the Texans in person and hanging all the "damned traitors."
What led to the Whigs doom and how were they defeated?
The democratic nominating convention met in Baltimore in 1852. It finally stampeded to the second "dark horse" candidate in American history, Franklin Pierce. "Fainting General." He had a fondness for alcohol, and he was enemy less because he was a prosouthern northerner and he was acceptable to the slavery wing of the democratic party. His platform revived the Democrats' commitment to territorial expansion and endorsed the compromise of 1850, fugitive slave law and all. The Whigs, also convening in Baltimore, nominated Winfield Scott. His personality repelled the masses but eclipsed his genuinely statesmanlike achievements. The Whig platform praised the Compromise of 1850 as a lasting arrangement, though less enthusiastically than the democrats. The Whig party was hopelessly split. Antislavery Whigs of the North swallowed Scott as their nominee but deplored his platform, which endorsed the hated Fugitive Slave Law. Southern Whigs, who doubted Scott's loyalty to the Compromise of 1850 and the Fugitive Slave Law, accepted the platform but spat on the candidate. Pierce won. The election of 1852 marked the end of the Whig party. Their great contribution was to help uphold the ideal of the union through their electoral strength in the south and through the eloquence of leaders like Clay and Webster.
Describe sectional balance and the underground railroad
The south of 1850 was well off. It had seated the war hero, Zachary Taylor. It boasted a majority in the cabinet and on the supreme court. It outnumbered in the House, the South had equality in the Senate. Its cotton fields were expanding, and cotton profits were high. The 15 slave states could easily veto any proposed constitution amendment. Yet the south was worried by the political balance. There were then 15 slave and 15 free states. The admission of California would destroy the delicate equilibrium in the Senate. New Mexico and Utah were agitated for the admission of nonslave states. The fate of California might establish a precedent for the rest of the Mexican cession territory. Texas claimed a huge area east of the Rio Grande and north to the 42nd parallel, embracing about half the territory of present day new Mexico. The federal government was proposing to detach the prize, but the Texans were threatening to descend upon Santa Fe and seize what they regarded as rightfully theirs. Many southerners were also angered by the agitation in the north for the abolition of slavery in the District of Colombia. The south was upset with the north using the Underground railroad to assist runaway slaves. It would take them from the slave states to the free soil sanctuary of Canada. Harriet Tubman was an amazing conductor, she rescued more than 300 slaves. By 1850 the south wanted a more strict fugitive slave law. The old one passed in 1793 was not working so well. The principle weighted heavily with the slave masters. They rested their argument on the constitution, which they claimed protected slavery.
What were the expansionist stirrings south of the border?
The victory of the Mexican War and the discovery of gold in Cali reinvigorated the spirit of Manifest Destiny. The rush to the Sierra Nevada goldfields aroused concerns about the fate of Central America. This land had stimulated dreams of a continuous Atlantic to Pacific transportation route that would effectively sever the two American continents. Whoever controlled that route would hold imperial sway over all maritime nations, esp. the US. Increasing British encroachment into the area drove the governments of both the US and New Granada (later Colombia) to conclude an important treaty in 1848. It guaranteed the American right of transit across the isthmus in return for Washington's pledge to maintain the "perfect neutrality" of the route so that the "free transit of traffic might not be interrupted." The agreement later led to the construction of the first continental railroad completed in 1855. A full blown confrontation was avoided with Britain by the Clayton- Bulwer Treaty in 1850, which demanded that neither US or Britain would fortify or seek exclusive control over any future isthmian waterway. Southern "slavocrats" lusted for a new slave territory after the compromise of 1850 closed most of the Mexican cession to the "peculiar institution." William Walker tried repeatedly to grab control of this central American country. Backed by an armed force recruited largely in the South, he installed himself as president in July 1856 and legalized slavery. But a coalition of Central American nations formed an alliance to overthrow him. President Pierce withdrew diplomatic recognition, and Walker's destiny was to crumple before a Honduran fire squad in 1860. Cuba was also a prospect for annexation. Spain already held a large population of enslaved blacks, and it might be carved into several states, restoring the political balance in the Senate. President Polk considered offering Spain 100 million for Cuba, but they were like hell no. During 1850-51 two "filibustering" expeditions, led by southern adventurers, descended upon Cuba. Both efforts were repelled and the last one ended awfully. Southerners were so outraged that an angry mob attacked Spain's consulate in New Orleans. Spanish officials in Cuba seized the American steamer "Black Warrior" in 1854. Now was the time for President Pierce, dominated as he was by the South, to provoke a war with Spain and seize Cuba. The secretary of state instructed the American ministers in Spain, England, and France to prepare confidential recommendations for the acquisition of Cuba. Three envoys, meeting in Ostend, Belgium, drew up a top secret dispatch, Ostend Manifesto. This document urged that the administration offer 120 million for Cuba. If Spain refused, and if its continued ownership endangered American interests, the US would be "justified in wrestling" the island from the Spanish. This secret document quickly leaked out. Northern free soilers raised up in wrath. The Pierce administration dropped the schemes for Cuba. the slavery issue thus checked territorial expansion in the 1850s.
What was the popular sovereignty panacea?
To politicians, the wisest strategy seemed to be to sit on the lid of the slavery issue and ignore the boiling underneath. Anxious democrats were forced to seek a new standard- bearer in 1848, because President Polk's health problems caused him only one term. The Democratic National Convention at Baltimore turned to an aging leader, General Lewis Cass, a veteran of the war of 1812. His enemies called him "General Gass..." Cass rhymed with jackass. The democratic platform, in line with the lid sitting strategy, was silent on the burning issue of slavery in the territories. Cass's views on the extension of slavery were well known because he was reputed father of popular sovereignty. This was the doctrine that stated that the sovereign people of a territory, under the general principles of the constitution, should themselves determine the status of slavery. The public liked the doctrine because it accorded with the democratic tradition of self determination. Politicians liked it because it seemed to be a compromise between the free soilers' bid for a ban on slavery in the territories and southern demands that congress protect slavery in the territories. This sovereignty had one fatal flaw: it might serve to spread the blight of slavery.