Chapter 12: Politics and the Fate of the Union, 1824-1859

When was Uncle Tom's Cabin? What was it about?

- Serialized in a Washington, D.C., newspaper, the National Era, in 1851, - published as a book in 1852 -it is a sentimental but highly charged political novel that captures the agonies of slave families broken apart and sold, and endangered by the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850

How did abolitionist newspapers respond to the Fugitive slave act?

Abolitionist newspapers quickly attacked the Fugitive Slave Act as a violation of fundamental American rights.

What was the Dred Scott Case?

A Missouri slave named Dred Scott and his wife, Harriet Robinson Scott, had sued for their freedom. Scott based his claim on the fact that his former owner, an army surgeon, had taken him for several years into Illinois, a free state, and to Fort Snelling in the Minnesota Territory, from which slav- ery had been barred by the Missouri Compromise. Scott first won and then lost his case as it moved on appeal through the state courts into the federal system and, finally, after eleven years, to the Supreme Court.

What type of feeling grew as a result?

A feeling grew in both North and South that America's future was at stake—the character of its economy, its definition of constitutional liberty, and its racial self-definition

What emerged from northern voters' wrath?

A new political party. During debate on the Kansas-Nebraska Act, six congressmen had published an "Appeal of the Independent Democrats." Joshua Giddings, Salmon Chase, and Charles Sumner—the principal authors of this protest—attacked Douglas's legislation as a "gross violation of a sacred pledge" (the Missouri Compromise) and a "criminal betrayal of precious rights" that would make free territory a "dreary region of despotism." Their appeal tapped a reservoir of deep concerns in the North, cogently expressed by Abraham Lincoln of Illinois

As the 1850s advanced what did slavery pull Americans into?

As the 1850s advanced, slavery pulled Americans, North and South, into a maelstrom of dispute that its best statesmen could not subdue. The old nationwide political parties fractured, and a realignment that reinforced a virulent sectionalism took their place

What were the two competing definitions of "liberty" during the 1850s?

At stake in the crises of the 1850s were thus two com- peting definitions of "liberty": 1. southern planters' claims to protection of their liberty in the possession and transport of their slaves anywhere in the land 2. northern workers' and farmers' claims to protection of their liberty to seek a new start on free land, unimpeded by a system that defined labor as slave and black.

Republicans used the fears of slave power to strengthen their anti-slavery coalition. What are some examples that prove this?

Abraham Lincoln stressed that the territorial question affected every citizen. The territories must be reserved, he insisted, "as an outlet for free white people everywhere" so that immigrants could come to America and "find new homes and better their condition in life."More important, Lincoln warned of slavery's increasing control over the nation. The founders had created a government dedicated to freedom, Lincoln insisted. Admittedly they had recognized slavery's existence, but the public mind, he argued in the "House Divided" speech of 1858, by which he launched his campaign against Stephen Douglas for the U.S. Senate from Illinois, had always rested in the belief that slavery would die either naturally or by legislation. The next step in the unfolding Slave Power conspiracy, Lincoln alleged, would be a Supreme Court decision. This charge was not hyperbole, for lawsuits soon challenged state laws that freed slaves brought within their borders. Countless northerners heeded Lincoln's warnings, as events convinced them that slaveholders were intent on making slavery a national institution. Southerners, fatefully, never forgot Lincoln's use of the direct words "ultimate extinction."

What did women do after congress voted to automatically table antislavery petitions with the "gag rule" of 1836?

After Congress voted to automatically table antislavery petitions with the "gag rule" of 1836, women defended their right to petition, employed more demanding language, and began offering specific legislative advice. Some thought the next step was obvious: full citizenship rights for women.

True or false: the divisive slavery question now infested national politics?

After Polk renounced a second term as president, the Democrats nominated Senator Lewis Cass of Michigan for president and General William Butler of Kentucky for vice president. Cass, a party loyalist who had served in Jackson's cabinet, had devised in 1847 the idea of "popular sovereignty"—letting residents in the western territories decide the slavery question for themselves. His party's platform declared that Congress lacked the power to interfere with slavery's expansion. The Whigs nominated General Zachary Taylor, a southern slaveholder and war hero; Congressman Millard Fillmore of New York was his running mate. The Whig convention similarly refused to assert that Congress had power over slavery in the territories.

What did Jackson begin to do in his second term?

After a sweeping victory, Jackson began in 1833 to dis- mantle the Second Bank and to deposit federal funds in state-chartered banks (termed "pet banks" by critics). When its federal charter expired in 1836, it became just another Pennsylvania-chartered private bank, closing five years later. As Congress allowed the Second Bank to die, it passed the Deposit Act of 1836, authorizing the secretary of the trea- sury to designate one bank in each state and territory to pro- vide services formerly performed by the Bank of the United States. The act also provided that the bulk of the federal surplus—income derived from the sale of public lands to speculators, who bought large quantities of land to resell at a profit—be distributed to the states as interest-free loans (or "deposits") beginning in 1837. (The loans were under- stood to be forgiven and, in fact, they were never repaid.) Eager to use the money for state-funded internal improvements, Democrats joined Whigs in supporting the measure overwhelmingly. Fearing that the act would fuel speculation, promote inflation, and thus undermine farmers' interests, Jackson opposed it. Because support was strong enough to override a veto, Jackson signed the bill but first insisted on a provision prohibiting state banks from issuing or accept- ing small-denomination paper money. Jackson hoped that by encouraging the use of coins, the provision would prevent unscrupulous businessmen from defrauding workers by paying them in devalued paper bills.

What did the Supreme Court rule?

After hesitation, the Supreme Court agreed to hear Dred Scott v. Sanford and decided to rule on the Missouri Compromise after all. Two northern justices indicated they would dissent from the assigned opinion and argue for Scott's freedom and the constitutionality of the Missouri Compromise. Their decision emboldened southerners on the Court, who were growing eager to declare the 1820 geographical restriction on slavery unconstitutional. Southern sympathizers in Washington were pressing for a proslavery verdict, and several justices felt they should simply try to resolve sectional strife once and for all.

After independence how were the roles distributed among women and men?

After independence, husbands owned their wives' personal property and whatever their wives or their children produced or earned. Fathers were their children's legal guardians and could deny their daughters' choice of husband, though by 1800 few did.

What were the numbers like in the Election of 1828?

Although Adams kept all but one of the states (New York) he had won in 1824, his opposition now unified behind a single candidate, and Jackson swamped him, polling 56 percent of the popular vote and winning in the electoral college by 178 to 83 votes. Jacksonians believed the people's will had finally prevailed. Through a lavishly financed coalition of state parties, political leaders, and newspaper editors, a popular movement had elected the president. The Democrats became the nation's first well- organized national party.

Why did tensions resume in 1832 when Congress passed a new tariff, reducing some duties but retaining high taxes on imported iron, cottons, and woolens?

Although a majority of southern representatives supported the new tariff, South Carolinians did not, insisting that the constitutional right to control their own destiny had been sacrificed to northern industrialists' demands. They feared the act could set a precedent for congressional legislation on slavery. In November 1832, a South Carolina state convention nullified both the 1828 and the 1832 tariffs, declaring it unlawful for federal officials to collect duties in the state. Differing visions of states' rights and the practice of federalism would remain an eternal conflict in American political life. Both Jackson and Calhoun were slaveholders with differing conceptions of how best to protect it within or outside the Union.

How did American politics split along sectional lines?

American politics had split along sectional lines as never before. Religious denominations, too, severed into northern and southern wings. As the 1850s dawned, the legacies of the War with Mexico threatened the nature of the Union itself.

What were the numbers like in the Election of 1824?

Among the four candidates remaining in the race until the election, Jackson led in both electoral and popular votes, but no candidate received an electoral college majority. Adams finished second; Crawford and Clay trailed far behind. Under the Constitution, the House of Representatives, voting by state delegation, one vote to a state, would select the next president from among the three leaders in electoral votes. Clay, with the fewest votes, was dropped, and the three others courted his support, hoping he would influence his electors to vote for them. Crawford, disabled from a stroke suffered before the election, never received serious consideration. Clay dramatically backed Adams, who won with thirteen of the twenty-four state delegations and thus became president. Adams named Clay to the cabinet position of secretary of state, the traditional stepping-stone to the presidency

Why were Jacksonians angry about Clay being made secretary of state? What was the result?

Angry Jacksonians denounced the election's outcome as a "corrupt bargain," claiming Adams had stolen the election by offering Clay a cabinet position in exchange for his votes. Jackson's bitterness fueled his later emphasis on the people's will. The Republican Party split. The Adams wing emerged as the National Republicans, and the Jacksonians became the Democrats; as an insurgent political force, they immediately began planning for 1828

What was Antimasonry rooted in?

Antimasonry, rooted in the deep American fear of concentrated power and conspiracy, soon developed into a vibrant political movement in the Northeast and parts of the Midwest. In the 1828 presidential election, the Antimasons opposed Jackson, himself a Mason. With their confidence bolstered by strong showings in gubernatorial elections in 1830, the Antimasons held the first national political convention in Baltimore in 1831, nominating William Wirt of Maryland for president and Amos Ellmaker of Pennsylvania for vice president.

How did the the women change their legal gains a bit in the 1830s?

Arkansas in 1835 passed the first married women's property law, and by 1860 sixteen states allowed women— single, married, or divorced—to own and convey property. When a wife inherited property, it was hers, not her husband's, though money earned or acquired in other ways still belonged to her husband. Women could also write wills. Wealthy Americans, South and North, favored such laws, hoping to protect family fortunes during periods of economic boom and bust; a woman's property was safe from her husband's creditors. In the 1830s, states also liberalized divorce laws, adding cruelty and desertion as grounds for divorce, but divorce remained rare.

How did Calhoun tip toe around the idea of nullification?

As Jackson's running mate in 1828, Calhoun had avoided endorsing nullification and thus embarrassing the Democratic ticket; he also hoped to win Jackson's support as the Democratic presidential heir apparent. Thus, in early 1830, Calhoun presided silently over the Senate and its packed galleries when Senator Daniel Webster of Massachusetts and Senator Robert Y. Hayne of South Carolina debated states' rights. The debate started over a resolution to restrict western land sales, soon turned to the tariff, and from there focused on the nature of the Union, with nullification a subtext. Hayne charged the North with threatening to bring disunity. For two days, Webster eloquently defended New England and the republic. Although debating Hayne, he aimed his remarks at Calhoun. At the debate's climax, Webster invoked two powerful images. One was the outcome of nullification: "states dissevered, discordant, belligerent; on a land rent with civil feuds, or drenched . . . in fraternal blood!" The other was a patriotic vision of a great nation flourishing under the motto "Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable."

What did Adams stand for?

As president, Adams proposed a strong nationalist policy incorporating Henry Clay's American System, a program of protective tariffs, a national bank, and internal improvements. Adams believed the federal government's active role should extend to education, science, and the arts, and he proposed a national university in Washington, D.C. Brilliant as a diplomat and secretary of state, Adams fared less well as chief executive. He underestimated the lingering effects of the Panic of 1819 and the resulting staunch opposition to national banks and tariffs

What was going on with Oregon during this time?

As president, however, Polk turned first to diplomacy. Not wanting to fight Mexico and Great Britain simultaneously, he tried to avoid bloodshed in the Northwest, where America and Britain had since 1819 jointly occupied disputed territory. In 1846, the Oregon Treaty gave the United States all of present-day Oregon, Washington, and Idaho, and parts of Wyoming and Montana. Thus, a new era of land acquisition and conquest had begun under the eleventh president of the United States, the sixth to be a slaveholder and one who, through an agent, secretly bought and sold slaves from the White House.

What was going on with the Second Bank?

At stake was survival of the Second Bank of the United States, whose twenty-year charter would expire in 1836. The bank served as a depository for federal funds and provided credit for businesses. Its notes circulated as currency throughout the country; they could be readily exchanged for gold, and the federal government accepted them as payment in all transactions. Through its twenty-five branch offices, the Second Bank acted as a clearinghouse for state banks, refusing to accept bank notes of any local bank lacking sufficient gold reserves. Most state banks resented the central bank's police role. Moreover, state banks could not compete equally with the Second Bank, which had greater reserves.

What was the current situation of immigrants?

Between 1848 and 1860, nearly 3.5 million immigrants entered the United States—proportionally the heaviest inflow of foreigners ever in American history.

How did violence and resistance take form?

Between 1850 and 1854, protests and violent resistance to slave catchers occurred in dozens of northern towns. Sometimes a captured fugitive was broken out of jail or from the clutches of slave agents by abolitionists, as in the 1851 Boston case of Shadrach Minkins, who was spirited by a series of wagons and trains across Massachusetts, up through Vermont, to Montreal, Canada. Also in 1851, a fugitive named Jerry McHenry was freed by an abolitionist mob in Syracuse, New York, and hurried to Canadian free- dom. That same year as well, the small black community in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, took up arms to defend four escaped slaves from a federal posse charged with re-enslaving them. At this "Christiana riot," the fugitives shot and killed Edward Gorsuch, the Maryland slave owner who sought the return of his "property." Amid increasing border warfare over fugitive slaves, a headline reporting the Christiana affair screamed, "Civil War, The First Blow Struck!"

Who was John Brown?

Born in Connecticut in 1800, John Brown had been raised by staunchly religious antislavery parents. Between 1820 and 1855, he engaged in some twenty business ventures, including farming, nearly all of them failures. But Brown had a distinctive vision of abolitionism. He relied on an Old Testament conception of justice—"an eye for an eye"—and he had a puritanical obsession with the wickedness of others, especially southern slave owners. Brown believed that slavery was an "unjustifiable" state of war conducted by one group of people against another. He also believed violence in a righteous cause was a holy act, even a rite of purification for those who engaged in it. To Brown, the destruction of slavery in America required revolutionary ideology and revolutionary acts

How did ordinary people show their enthusiasm? How else did they get involved in the political scene?

Both voters and non- voters displayed enthusiasm for Jackson with badges, medals, and other campaign paraphernalia, mass-produced for the first time. In an intensely personal contest, Jackson's supporters accused Adams of stealing the 1824 election and, when he was envoy to Russia, of having secured prostitutes for the czar. Adams supporters countered with reports that Jackson's wife, Rachel, had married Jackson before divorcing her first husband, making her an adulterer and a bigamist. In 1806 Jackson, attempting to defend Rachel's integrity, had killed a man during a duel, and the cry of "murderer!" was revived in the election. Such elements of this campaign were harbingers of many modern elections to come.

Why could the issue not be avoided?

But the issue could not be avoided. Many southern Democrats distrusted Cass and eventually voted for Taylor because he was a slaveholder. Among northerners, concern over slavery led to the formation of a new party. New York Democrats committed to the Wilmot Proviso rebelled against Cass and nominated former president Martin Van Buren. Antislavery Whigs and former supporters of the Liberty Party then joined them to organize the Free-Soil Party, with Van Buren as its candidate (see Table 12.1). This party, which sought to restrict slavery expansion to any western territories and whose slogan was "Free Soil, Free Speech, Free Labor, and Free Men," won almost 300,000 northern votes. For a new third party to win 10 percent of the national vote was unprecedented. Taylor polled 1.4 million votes to Cass's 1.2 million and won the White House, but the results were more ominous than decisive.

What was the result of the Whigs appealing to evangelicals?

By appealing to evangelicals, Whigs alienated members of other faiths. The evangelicals' ideal Christian state had no room for nonevangelical Protestants, Catholics, Mormons, or religious freethinkers.Those groups opposed Sabbath laws and temperance legislation in particular, and state interference in moral and religious questions in general. In fact, they preferred to keep religion and politics separate. As a result, more than 95 percent of Irish Catholics, 90 percent of Reformed Dutch, and 80 percent of German Catholics voted Democratic. The parties' platforms thus attracted what might seem to be odd coalitions of voters. Democrats' promises to open additional lands for settlement—and to remove the Native peoples on those lands—attracted yeoman farmers, wage earners, frontier slave owners, and immigrants. The Whigs' preference for a slower, controlled settlement of western lands attracted groups as diverse as African American New Englanders and well-settled slave owners, especially in the Upper South; the former hoped Whig policies would undercut slavery itself, and the latter wanted to protect their investments in land and slaves from cheap western competition. With such broad coalitions of voters, room existed within each party for a wide spectrum of beliefs, particularly in relation to slavery. Yet slavery also had a long history of being politically divisive, leading some politicians to take extreme measures to remove it from national political debate. In response to the American Antislavery Society's petitioning campaign, the House of Representatives in 1836 adopted what abolitionists labeled the "gag rule," which automatically tabled abolitionist petitions, effectively preventing debate on them. Former president John Quincy Adams, now a representative from Massachusetts, dramatically defended the right to petition and took to the floor many times to decry the gag rule, which was ultimately repealed in 1844.

What did Clay and Douglass hope to avoid?

Clay and Douglas hoped to avoid a specific formula, and in the idea of popular sovereignty they discovered what one historian called a "charm of ambiguity." Ultimately Congress would have to approve statehood for a territory, but "in the meantime," said Lewis Cass, it should allow the people living there "to regulate their own concerns in their own way."

What did controversies of the bank result in?

Controversy over the Second Bank inflamed long-standing political animosities, igniting street violence. Elections often involved fraud, and with no secret ballot, political parties employed operatives to intimidate voters. New York City was home to the most powerful political machine, the Democrats' Tammany Hall, and in New York's mayoral election of 1834, the first in which the mayor was elected by popular vote, this combination of machine politics and the bank controversy's exacerbation of tensions nationwide led to mayhem.

How was northern states responding to the Fugitive Acts law?

between 1855 and 1859, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Michigan, Maine, Ohio, and Wisconsin passed personal-liberty laws. This provided counsel for alleged fugitives and required trial by jury. This made southern leaders furious.

How did these immigrants have importance in politics?

Democrats courted the votes of these new citizens, but many native-born Anglo-Saxon Protestants believed that Irish and German Catholics would owe primary allegiance to the pope in Rome and not to the American nation.

How did Whigs refer to President Tyler?

Disgusted Whigs referred to Tyler as "His Accidency."

Why did Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton join together to organize the 1st American women's rights convention?

Dismayed that female abolitionists were denied seats in the main hall at the first World Anti-Slavery Convention in London in 1840, Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton joined together eight years later to help organize the first American women's rights convention

What did Douglas choose to stand by?

Douglas chose to stand by his principle of popular sovereignty, even if the result angered southerners.

What were the numbers like in the election of 1856?

Eleven of sixteen free states voted against Buchanan, and Democrats did not regain ascendancy in those states for decades. The Republican candidate, John C. Frémont, famous as a western explorer, won those eleven free states and 1.3 million votes; Republicans had become the dominant party in the North after only two years of existence. The Know-Nothing candidate, Millard Fillmore, won almost 1 million votes, but this election was that party's last hurrah. The coming battle would pit a sectional Republican Party against an increasingly divided Democratic Party. With huge voter turnouts, as high as 75 to 80 percent in many states, Americans were about to learn that elections really matter.

How did Harriet Tubman serve in the Underground Railroad?

Famously, Harriet Tubman, herself an escapee in 1848, returned to her native Maryland and to Virginia at least a dozen times, and through clandestine measures helped possibly as many as three hundred slaves, some of them her own family members, to freedom. Maryland plant- ers were so outraged that they offered a $40,000 reward (nearly $1,200,000 today) for her capture.

What was the Election of 1824 like?

Five candidates, all of whom identified as Democratic-Republicans, entered the presidential campaign of 1824. The poorly attended Republican caucus chose William H. Crawford of Georgia, secretary of the treasury, as its presidential candidate. But other Democratic-Republicans boycotted the caucus as undemocratic, ending Congress's role in nominating presidential candidates

Following the Antimason's lead, the Democrats and National Republicans did what?

Following the Antimasons' lead, the Democrats and National Republicans held their own conventions. The Democrats reaffirmed the choice of Jackson, who had already been nominated by state legislatures, for president and nominated Martin Van Buren of New York for vice president. (In the election, however, South Carolina's electors would break from the rest of the party and support John Floyd and Henry Lee of Virginia; as Virginia's governor, Floyd had supported nullification, making him popular in the South Carolina legislature, which chose its state electors.) The National Republican convention selected Clay and John Sergeant of Pennsylvania. The Bank of the United States became the election's main issue. Jacksonians denounced it as a vehicle for special privilege and economic power, while the Republicans sup- ported it as a pillar of their plan for economic nationalism. The bank's charter was valid until 1836, but as part of his campaign strategy, Clay persuaded Biddle to ask Congress to approve an early rechartering. If Jackson signed the rechartering bill, then Clay could attack the president's inconsistency on the issue. If he vetoed it, then—Clay reasoned—the voters would give Clay the nod. The plan backfired. The president vetoed the bill and issued a pointed veto message appealing to voters who feared that the era's rapid economic development spread its advantages undemocratically. Jackson acknowledged that prosperity could never be evenly dispersed, but he took a strong stand against special interests that tried to use the government to his own advantage.

What was President Tyler's presidency like? How was he more Democrat than Whig?

In office, Tyler became more a Democrat than a Whig. He repeatedly vetoed Clay's protective tariffs, internal improvements, and bills to revive the Bank of the United States. Two days after Tyler's second veto of a bank bill, the entire cabinet resigned, with the exception of Secretary of State Webster, who would soon step down, but not until completing treaty negotiations with Britain over the eastern end of the Canadian- U.S. boundary. Tyler became a president without a party, and the Whigs lost the presidency without losing an election.

For many, what fueled the expansionist spirit?

For many, racism fueled the expansionist spirit. In 1846, an Illinois news- paper justified the war on the basis that Mexicans were "reptiles in the path of progressive democracy." For those who read newspapers, the War with Mexico became the first national event experienced with immediacy. War correspondents reported the battles south of the border. From Veracruz on the Gulf Coast of Mexico, ships carried news dispatches to New Orleans, whose nine daily newspapers ran a faster steamer out to meet them. With stories set in type before they even reached shore, riders carried the news to the North. By war's end, news traveled by telegraph in only three days from New Orleans to Washington, D.C., as war fueled the communication revolution.

How did Stephen A. Douglas find a dilemma following the Court's decision?

For northern Democrats like Stephen Douglas, the Court's decision posed an awful dilemma. Northern voters were alarmed by the prospect that the territories would be opened to slavery. To retain their support, Douglas had to find some way to reassure these voters. Yet given his presidential ambitions, Douglas could not afford to alienate southern Democrats.

What was new about the current political world?

For the first time, too, a sectional party had gained significant power in the political system. Now the Whigs were gone, and only the Democrats struggled to maintain national membership. The Republicans absorbed the Free-Soil Party and grew rapidly in the North. Indeed, the emergence of the Republican coalition of antislavery interests is the most rapid transformation in party allegiance and voter behavior in American history.

Who were the Whigs?

Formerly called the National Republicans; a major political party in the 1830s

What is an example of Jackson's big use of the veto?

From George Washington to John Quincy Adams, the first six presidents had vetoed nine bills; Jackson alone vetoed twelve. Previous presidents believed vetoes were justified only on constitutional grounds, but Jackson considered policy disagreements legitimate grounds as well. He made the veto an effective weapon for controlling Congress, which had to weigh the possibility of a presidential veto as it deliberated

What was the first flaw of the compromise?

Furthermore, the compromise had two basic flaws. The first concerned the ambiguity of popular sovereignty. Southerners insisted there would be no prohibition of slavery during the territorial stage, and northerners declared that settlers could bar slavery whenever they wished. The compromise even allowed for the appeal of a territorial legislature's action to the Supreme Court. One witty politician remarked that the legislators had enacted a lawsuit instead of a law.

Who wrote Uncle Tom's Cabin?

Harriet Beecher Stowe

William Henry Harrison

Harrison, or "Old Tippecanoe," and his running mate, John Tyler of Virginia, ran a "log cabin and hard cider" campaign—a people's crusade—against the aristocratic president in "the Palace." Although descended from a Virginia plantation family, Harrison presented himself as an ordinary farmer. While party hacks blamed Democrats for hard times, Harrison remained silent, earning the nickname "General Mum." Whigs wooed voters with huge rallies, parades, songs, posters, campaign mementos, and a party newspaper, The Log Cabin. They appealed to voters as well as nonvoters, including women, who attended their rallies and speeches, and women actively promoted the Whig cause; one Virginia woman, for example, published two pamphlets backing Harrison's candidacy. In a huge turnout, 80 percent of eligible voters cast ballots. Narrowly winning the popular vote, Harrison swept the electoral college, 234 to 60. The Whigs had beaten the Jacksonians at their own game.

How did President Douglas respond to the southerners' demand? What was the result?

He said they were right and included it in the bill after having a debate with Senator Archibald Dixon of Kentucky. He perhaps underestimated the storm though because he believed that conditions of climate and soil would keep slavery out of Kansas and Nebraska. Nevertheless, his bill threw open to slavery land from which it had been prohibited for thirty-four years

How did Pierce move decisively to enforce the Fugitive Slave Act?

He telegraphed local officials to "incur any expense to insure the execution of the law" and sent marines, cavalry, and artillery to Boston. U.S. troops marched Burns to Boston harbor through streets that his supporters had draped in black and hung with American flags at half-mast. At a cost of $100,000, a single black man was returned to slavery through the power of federal law.

Who was Stephen A Douglas? What was he known for? What did he introduce? What were his views?

He was one of the architects for the Compromise of 1850. A talented and ambitious man from Illinois. He was known for compromise, not sectional quarreling. He introduced the Nebraska and Kansas Territories. He did not views slavery as a fundamental problem.

What did Henry Clay sense?

Henry Clay, the venerable Whig leader, sensed that the Union was in peril. Twice before—in 1820 and 1833— Clay, the "Great Pacificator," had taken the lead in shaping sectional compromise; now he struggled again to preserve the nation. To hushed Senate galleries, Clay presented a series of compromise measures in the winter of 1850. At one point, he held up what he claimed was a piece of George Washington's coffin as a means of inspiring unity. Over the weeks that followed, he and Senator Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois steered their compromise package through debate and amendment.

What did President Harrison convene congress for in 1841?

Immediately after taking office in 1841, President Harrison convened Congress in special session to pass the Whig program: repeal of the independent treasury system and adoption of a new national bank and a higher protective tariff. But the sixty-eight-year-old Harrison caught pneumonia and died within a month of his inauguration. His vice president, John Tyler, who had left the Democratic Party to protest Jackson's nullification proclamation, now became the first vice president to succeed to the presidency. The Constitution did not stipulate what should happen, but Tyler quickly took full possession of executive powers, setting a crucial precedent that would not be codified in the Constitution until 1967 with the Twenty-fifth Amendment's ratification

What was implicit in the idea of manifest destiny?

Implicit in the idea of manifest destiny was the belief that Native Americans and Hispanics, much like people of African descent, were inferior peoples best controlled or conquered. White racial theorists believed that, unlike white people, Native peoples and blacks were not capable of self-improvement. Nor, according to these racial theorists, were Hispanics, because intermarriage with Native Americans had left them incapable of improvement. Many white Americans believed that in their conquest of the West they were implementing God's will.

What did Republicans draw into? What was the American Party (Know-Nothings)

Republicans also drew into their coalition a fast-growing nativist movement that called itself the American Party, or Know-Nothings (because its first members kept their purposes secret, answering, "I know nothing" to all questions). This group exploited fear of foreigners and Catholics

How did anti-immigrant fears influence politics?

In 1854, anti-immigrant fears gave the Know-Nothings spectacular success in some northern states. They triumphed especially in Massachusetts, electing 11 congressmen, a governor, all state officers, all state senators, and all but 2 of 378 state representatives. The temperance movement also gained new strength early in the 1850s with its promises to stamp out the evils associated with liquor and immigrants (a particularly anti-Irish campaign). In this context, the Know-Nothings strove to reinforce Protestant morality and to restrict voting and office holding to the native born. As the Whig Party faded from the scene, the Know-Nothings temporarily filled the void, inaugurating a long tradition of cycles of nativism in party politics. But like the Whigs, the Know-Nothings could not keep their northern and southern wings together on the issue of slavery's expansion, and they dissolved after 1856. The growing Republican coalition wooed the nativists with temperance ordinances and laws postponing suffrage for naturalized citizens

What was the importance of Wilmot Proviso?

In August 1846, David Wilmot, a Pennsylvania Democrat, proposed an amendment, or proviso, to a military appropriations bill: that "neither slavery nor involuntary servitude shall ever exist" in any territory gained from Mexico. Although the proviso never passed both houses of Congress, its repeated introduction by northerners transformed the debate over the expansion of slavery. Southerners suddenly circled their wagons to protect the future of a slave society. Alexander H. Stephens, until recently "no defender of slavery," now declared that slavery was based on the Bible and above moral criticism, and John C. Calhoun took an aggressive stand. The territories, Calhoun insisted, belonged to all the states, and the federal government could not limit the spread of slavery there. Southern slaveholders had a constitutional right rooted in the Fifth Amendment, Calhoun claimed, to take their slaves (as property) anywhere in the territories. This position, often called "state sovereignty," which quickly became a test of orthodoxy among southern politicians, was a radical reversal of history. In 1787, the Confederation Congress had discouraged if not fully excluded slavery from the Northwest Territory; Article IV of the U.S. Constitution had authorized Congress to make "all needful rules and regulations" for the territories; and the Missouri Compromise had barred slavery from most of the Louisiana Purchase. Now, however, southern leaders demanded future guarantees for slavery.

What did "free staters" influence in the Lecompton Constitution?

In December 1857, Kansans voted on a proslavery constitution that had been drafted at Lecompton. Believing the election to be rigged, most "free staters"—those who opposed legalizing slavery— boycotted the election, giving the proslavery constitution an overwhelming victory. The free staters, who controlled the territorial legislature, quickly called for a new referendum in January; this time, the proslavery forces boycotted, resulting in an overwhelming defeat of the constitution. Although evidence suggests that most Kansans opposed slavery, President Buchanan tried to force the Lecompton Constitution through Congress in an effort to hastily organize the territory.

What did John C. Fremont do in June 1846?

In June 1846, impatient expansionists, including John C. Frémont, staged an armed rebellion against Mexican authorities and declared California an independent republic. Because the U.S. military soon conquered California in its War with Mexico, the "Bear Flag Rebellion"—so named for the symbol on the revolutionaries' flag—was short-lived but further inflamed racial tensions in California.

When was the majority opinion of the Supreme Court delivered? What was declared?

In March 1857, Chief Justice Roger B. Taney of Maryland delivered the majority opinion of a divided Court. Taney declared that Scott was not a citizen of either the United States or Missouri, that residence in free territory did not make Scott free, and that Congress had no power to bar slavery from any territory. The decision not only overturned a sectional compromise that had been honored for thirty-seven years, it also invalidated the basic ideas of the Wilmot Proviso and popular sovereignty.

What happened in May regarding a proslavery posse? Who was John BrownWha

In May, a proslavery posse sent to arrest the Free-Soil leaders sacked the Kansas town of Lawrence, killing several people and destroying a hotel with cannon shot. In revenge, John Brown, a radical abolitionist with a band of followers, murdered five proslavery settlers living along Pottawatomie Creek. The victims were taken in the dark of night from the clutches of their families, their heads and limbs hacked to pieces by heavy broadswords, their bodies heaved into dead brush. Brown himself did not wield the swords, but he did fire a single shot into the head of one senseless foe to ensure his death. Soon, armed bands of guerrillas roamed the territory, battling over land claims as well as slavery.

How were Quakers involved in the abolitionist movement? How were maritime routes involved? Where did fugitive slaves escape to?

In Ohio, numerous white abolitionists, often Quakers, joined with blacks as agents of slave liberation at various points along the river border between slavery and freedom. The Underground Railroad also had numerous maritime routes, as coastal slaves escaped aboard ships out of Virginia or the Carolinas, or from New Orleans, and ended up in northern port cities, the Caribbean, or England. Many fugitive slaves from the Lower South and Texas escaped to Mexico, which had abolished slavery in 1829. Some slaves escaped by joining the Seminole communities in Florida, where they joined forces against the U.S. Army in the Seminole Wars of 1835-1842 and 1855-1858

Uncle Tom's Cabin mixed what ideologies? Was the debate that she created a new one?

In Uncle Tom's Cabin, Stowe had thrown down a feminist, abolitionist, Christian thunderbolt into the national debate over slavery's future. Although potentially explosive, that debate had been largely submerged in the political system dominated, beginning in the 1830s, by the Jacksonian Democrats and the Whigs.

In the 1850s, slaveholders became disturbed by what?

In reality, by the 1850s slaveholders were especially disturbed over what was widely called the Underground Railroad. This loose, illegal network of civil disobedience, spiriting runaways to freedom, had never been very organized, with the possible exception of routes from the eastern shore of Maryland through Delaware to New York City. Thousands of slaves did escape by these routes, but largely through their own wits and courage, and through the assistance of blacks in some northern cities. Lewis Hayden in Boston, David Ruggles in New York, William Still in Philadelphia, John Parker in Ripley, Ohio, and Jacob Gibbs in Washington, D.C., were some of the many black abolitionists who assisted fugitive slaves. Moreover, William Howard Gay, editor of a major antislavery newspaper, provided an effective sanctuary and escape means to many fugitives through New York.

What was the result of Sam Houston's approach about annexation?

In the 1830s, Democratic presidents Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren—one a strong proponent of slavery, the other a mild opponent—sidestepped the issue. But by the mid- 1840s—with cotton cultivation expanding rapidly—some Democratic politicians equated the annexation of Texas with the nation's manifest destiny.

What did Wilmot Proviso become for the North?

In the North, the Wilmot Proviso became a rallying cry for abolitionists. Eventually the legislatures of fourteen northern states endorsed it—and not because all of its supporters were abolitionists. David Wilmot, significantly, was neither an abolitionist nor an antislavery Whig. He denied having any "squeamish sensitiveness upon the subject of slavery" or "morbid sympathy for the slave." Instead, he sought to defend "the rights of white freemen" and to obtain California "for free white labor."

What did the disintegration of the Whig Party do for some Southerners?

In the South, the disintegration of the Whig Party had left many southerners at loose ends politically; they included a good number of wealthy planters, smaller slaveholders, and urban businessmen. In the increasingly tense atmosphere of sectional crisis, these people were highly susceptible to strong states' rights positions and the defense of slavery. The security of their own communities seemed at stake, and in the 1850s, most formerly Whig slaveholders converted to the Democratic Party.

What did Polk say in his drafted message to Congress?

In the bill accompanying the war message, Polk deceptively declared that "war exists by the act of Mexico itself " and summoned the nation to arms. On May 12, the Senate voted 40 to 2 (with numerous abstentions) for war, reaffirming the House's similarly lopsided vote of 174-14. Some antislavery Whigs in Congress had tried to oppose the war, but they were barely allowed to speak. Because Polk withheld key facts, the full reality of what had happened on the distant Rio Grande was not known. But the theory and practice of manifest destiny had launched the United States into its first major war on foreign territory.

When the Democratic Republicans told Congress that it was undemocratic to nominate presidential candidates, what did they do instead?

Instead, state legislatures nominated candidates, offering the expanded electorate a slate of sectional candidates. John Quincy Adams drew support from New England, while westerners backed House Speaker Henry Clay of Kentucky. Some southerners at first supported Secretary of War John C. Calhoun, who later dropped his bid for the presidency and ran for the vice presidency instead. The Tennessee legislature nominated Andrew Jackson, a military hero with unknown political views.

Why was Sam Houston's approach to American authorities about the annexation of Texas an issue?

Soon after establishing the Lone Star Republic in 1836, Sam Houston approached American authorities to propose annexation as a state. But a new slave state would upset the balance of slave and free states in the Senate, a balance maintained since before the Missouri Compromise. Neither Whigs nor Democrats, wary of causing sectional divisions within their ranks, were inclined to confront the issue

After the Congressional showdown on the Lecompton Constitution, how would the entire nation's focus change?

Soon after the Congressional showdown on the Lecompton Constitution, the entire nation's focus would be drawn to a new dimension of the slavery question—armed rebellion, led by the abolitionist who had killed proslavery settlers along Pottawatomie Creek in "Bleeding Kansas."

What did President Tyler propose in regards to the annexation of Texas?

Interpreting Polk's victory as a mandate for annexation, President Tyler proposed that Texas be admitted by joint resolution of Congress. The usual method of annexation, by treaty negotiation, required a two-thirds majority in the Senate—which annexationists did not have because of opposition to slavery's expansion. Joint resolution required only a simple majority in each house. On March 1, 1845, the resolution passed the House by 120 to 98 and the Senate by 27 to 25. Three days before leaving office, Tyler signed the measure. Mexico, which had never recognized Texas independence, immediately broke relations with the United States. In October, the citizens of Texas ratified annexation, and Texas joined the Union, with a constitution permitting slavery. The nation was on the brink of war with Mexico. That conflict—like none other before it—would lay bare the inextricable relationships among westward expansion, slavery, and sectional discord.

How did the ruling affect the African American population? What was the aftermath?

It seemed to permanently shut the door on their hopes for justice. After 1857, African Americans lived in the land of the Dred Scott decision. In northern black communities, rage and despair prevailed. Many who were still fugitive slaves sought refuge in Canada; others considered emigration to the Caribbean or even to Africa. Mary Ann Shadd Cary, who was free and the leader of an emigration movement to Canada, advised her fellow blacks, "Your national ship is rotten and sinking, why not leave it?" Another black abolitionist said that the Dred Scott decision had made slavery "the supreme law of the land and all descendants of the African race denationalized." In this state of social dislocation and fear, blacks contemplated whether they had any future in the United States.

How did Jackson respond to the problems of nullification?

Jackson soon issued a proclamation opposing nullification. He moved troops to federal forts in South Carolina and prepared U.S. marshals to collect the duties. At Jackson's request, Congress passed the Force Bill, authorizing the president to call up troops but also offering a way to avoid force by collecting duties before foreign ships reached Charleston's harbor. Jackson also extended an olive branch by recommending tariff reductions. Calhoun resigned as vice president and soon won election to the U.S. Senate, where he worked with Henry Clay to draw up the compromise Tariff of 1833. Quickly passed by Congress and signed by the president, the new tariff lengthened the list of duty-free items and reduced duties over nine years. Satisfied, South Carolina's convention repealed its nullification law. In a final salvo, it also nullified Jackson's Force Bill. Jackson ignored the gesture.

How did people respond?

Jubilation greeted passage of the compromise; crowds in Washington and other cities celebrated the happy news. In reality, there was less cause for celebration than people hoped. At best, the Compromise of 1850 was an artful evasion. As one historian has argued, the legislation was more an "armistice," delaying greater conflict, than a compromise. Douglas had found a way to pass the five proposals without convincing northerners and southerners to agree on fundamentals; narrow majorities emerged as Congressmen and Senators voted on the measures one by one. The compromise bought time for the nation, but it did not provide a real settlement of the territorial questions.

What happened during the Van Buren time?

Just weeks after Van Buren took office, the American credit system collapsed. With banks refusing to redeem paper currency with gold in response to the Specie Circular, a down- ward economic spiral curtailed bank loans and strangled business confidence. After a brief recovery, hard times persisted from 1839 until 1843.

How was President Tyler similar to President Jackson?

Like Jackson, Tyler expanded presidential powers and emphasized westward expansion. His expansionist vision contained Whig elements, though: he eyed commercial markets in Hawai'i and China. During his presidency, the United States negotiated its first treaties with China, and Tyler expanded the Monroe Doctrine to include Hawai'i (or the Sandwich Islands, as they had been named by the English explorer James Cook). Tyler was a Virginia slaveholder; his vision for the nation's path to greatness fixed mostly on Texas and westward expansion.

What was Jackson's presidency like?

Like Jefferson, Jackson strengthened the government's executive branch even as he advocated limited government. In combining the roles of party leader and chief of state, he centralized power in the White House. He relied on political friends, his "Kitchen Cabinet," for advice, rarely consulting his official cabinet. Jackson commanded enormous loyalty and rewarded his followers handsomely. Rotating officeholders, Jackson claimed, made government more responsive to the public will, and he appointed loyal Democrats to office, a practice his critics called the spoils system, in which the victor gives power and place to his supporters, valuing loyalty above all else. Although not the first president to do so—Jefferson had replaced many of John Adams's appointees—Jackson's own outcry against corrupt bargains made him an easy target for inflammatory charges of hypocrisy.

What did Abraham Lincoln argue?

Lincoln argued that the founders, from love of liberty, had banned slavery from the Northwest Territory, kept the word slavery out of the Constitution, and treated it overall as a "cancer" on the republic. Rather than encouraging liberty, the Kansas- Nebraska Act put slavery "on the high road to extension and perpetuity," and that constituted a "moral wrong and injustice." America's future, Lincoln warned, was being mortgaged to slavery and all its influences

What did abolitionists become convinced of?

Many abolitionists became convinced by their experience of resisting the Fugitive Slave Act that violence was a legitimate means of opposing slavery. In an 1854 column entitled "Is It Right and Wise to Kill a Kidnapper?," Frederick Douglass said that the only way to make the fugitive slave law "dead letter" was to make a "few dead slave catchers." Into this new and volatile mixture of violence, lawbreaking, and sectional as well as racial fear, Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin became a literary sensation.

How did state banks regard national bank?

Many state governments regarded the national bank as unresponsive to local needs, and many western settlers and urban workers remembered bitterly the bank's conservative credit policies during the Panic of 1819. As a private, profit- making institution, its policies reflected the interest of its owners, especially its powerful president, Nicholas Biddle. An eastern patrician, Biddle symbolized all that westerners feared about the bank, and all that eastern workers despised about the commercial elite.

What was most troubling to white southerners regarding John Brown?

Most troubling to white southerners, perhaps, was their awareness that, though Republican politicians condemned Brown's crimes, they did so in a way that deflected attention onto the still-greater crime of slavery. After eighty- four years of growth from its birth in a revolution against monarchy and empire, the American republic now faced its most dire test of existence—whether the expansion of freedom or slavery would define its future. As both hero and villain on the two sides of the slavery question, John Brown had driven a stake into the American Union.

What are Democrats during this time?

The Democrats represented a wide range of views but shared a fundamental commitment to the Jeffersonian concept of an agrarian society. They viewed a strong central government as antithetical to individual liberty, and they condemned government intervention in the economy as favoring the rich at the expense of the artisan and the ordinary farmer. When it came to westward expansion, though, Jacksonians called for federal intervention, with Jackson initiating removal of Native peoples despite pro- tests from northeastern reformers

Why was Mexico more difficult to subdue?

New Mexico proved more difficult to subdue, however. In January 1847, in Taos, northwest of Santa Fe, Hispanics and Native Americans led by Pablo Montoya and Tomas Romero rebelled against the Americans and killed numerous government officials. In what came to be known as the Taos Revolt, some 500 Mexican and Native American insurgents laid siege to a mill in Arroyo Hondo, outside Taos. The U.S. command acted swiftly to suppress the revolt with 300 heavily armed troops. The growing band of insurgents eventually retreated to Taos Pueblo and held out in a thick-walled church. With cannon, the U.S. Army succeeded in killing some 150 and capturing 400 of the rebels. Approximately 28 insurgent leaders were hanged in the Taos plaza, ending the bloody resistance to U.S. occupation of lands still claimed by Mexican and Native peoples.Before the end of 1846, American forces had also estab- lished dominion over California. General Winfield Scott then carried the war to the enemy's heartland. Landing at Veracruz, he led fourteen thousand men toward Mexico City. This daring invasion proved the war's decisive campaign. Scott's men, outnumbered and threatened by yellow fever, encountered a series of formidable Mexican defenses, but engineers repeatedly discovered flanking routes around their foes. After a series of hard-fought battles, U.S. troops captured the Mexican capital.

How did the Supreme Court stand in this case?

Normally, Supreme Court justices were reluctant to inject themselves into major political issues. An 1851 decision had declared that state courts determined the status of blacks who lived within their jurisdictions. The Supreme Court had only to follow this precedent to avoid ruling on substantive, and very controversial, issues: Was a black person like Dred Scott a citizen of the United States and thus eligible to sue in federal court? Had residence in a free state or territory made him free? Did Congress have the power to prohibit or promote slavery in a territory?

How did the war's impact on southern opinion prove more dramatic than the shift of northern opinion of slavery expansion?

Northern opinion on slavery's expansion began to shift, but the war's impact on southern opinion was even more dramatic. At first, some southern Whigs attacked the Democratic president for causing the war, and few southern congressmen saw slavery as the paramount issue. Many whites, North and South, feared that large land seizures would bring thousands of nonwhite Mexicans into the United States and upset the racial order. An Indiana politician did not want "any mixed races in our Union, nor men of any color except white, unless they be slaves." And the Charleston (South Carolina) Mercury asked if the nation expected "to melt into our population eight millions of men, at war with us by race, by language, by religion, manners and laws." Yet, despite their racism and such numerical exaggerations, many statesmen soon saw other prospects in the outcomes of a war of conquest in the Southwest.

Northern whites who rejected the decision's content were suspicious of what?

Northern whites who rejected the decision's content were suspicious of the circumstances that had produced it. Five of the nine justices were southerners; three of the northern justices actively dissented or refused to concur in parts of the decision. The only northerner who supported Taney's opinion, Justice Robert Grier of Pennsylvania, was known to be close to President Buchanan. A storm of angry reaction broke in the North. The decision seemed to confirm every charge against the aggressive Slave Power.

Did all whites believe in Manifest Destiny?

Not all white Americans subscribed to such views, however. During debates over Texas annexation, transcendentalist William Ellery Channing argued that the United States should expand its empire by example, not conquest

Did the annexation of Texas make war with Mexico inevitable?

Not necessarily, but through a series of calculated decisions, President Polk triggered the conflict.

How did nullification come about?

Nullification drew from the idea expressed in the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions of 1798—that the states, representing the people, have a right to judge the constitutionality of federal actions

What did nullification offer?

Nullification offered a genuine debate on the nature and principles of the republic. Each side believed it was upholding the Constitution and opposing subversion of republican values. South Carolina's leaders opposed the tyranny of the federal government and manufacturing interests, while long term, they also sought to protect slavery. Jackson fought the tyranny of South Carolina, whose refusal to bow to federal authority threatened to split the republic. Neither side won a clear victory, though both claimed to have done so. It took another crisis, over a central bank, to define the powers of the federal government more clearly.

What did John Brown do?

On October 16, 1859, Brown led a band of eighteen whites and blacks in an attack on the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia. Hoping to trigger a slave rebellion, Brown failed miserably and was quickly captured. In a cel- ebrated trial in November and a widely publicized execution in December, in Charles Town, Virginia, Brown became one of the most enduring martyrs, as well as villains, of American history. His attempted insurrection struck fear into the South. Then it became known that Brown had received finan- cial backing from several prominent abolitionists. When such northern intellectuals as Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau praised Brown as a holy warrior who "would make the gallows as glorious as the cross," white southerners' outrage intensified. The white South almost universally interpreted Brown's attack at Harpers Ferry as an act of midnight terrorism, as the fulfillment of their long-stated dread of "abolition emissaries" who would infiltrate the region to incite slave rebellion. Perhaps most telling of all was the fact that the pivotal election of 1860 was less than a year away when Brown went so eagerly to the gallows, handing a note to his jailer with the famous prediction.

When did Jackson directly face the question of state vs federal power? And how?

Soon after the Maysville Road veto, Jackson directly faced the question of state versus federal power. The slave South feared federal power, and no state more so than South Carolina, where the planter class was the strongest and slavery the most concentrated. Southerners also resented protectionist tariffs, one of the foundations of Clay's American System, which in 1824 and 1828 bolstered manufacturers by imposing import duties on foreign cloth and iron. In protecting northern factories, the tariff raised the costs of manufactured goods to southerners, who quickly labeled the high tariff of 1828 the Tariff of Abominations

Why did the term "King Andrew" come about?

Opponents mocked Jackson as "King Andrew I," charging him with abuse of power by ignoring the Supreme Court's ruling on Cherokee rights, by sidestepping his cabinet, and by replacing officeholders with his own political cronies. They rejected his claim of restoring republican virtue and accused him of recklessly destroying the economy. Perhaps nothing rankled Jackson's critics more than his frequent use of the veto, which he employed to promote his vision of a limited government. In 1830, he vetoed the Maysville Road bill, which would have funded construction of a sixty-mile turnpike from Maysville to Lexington, Kentucky. Constitutionally, he insisted, states and not the federal government bore responsibility for funding internal improvements confined to a single state. The veto undermined Henry Clay's American System, personally embarrassed Clay because the project was in his home district, and drew lines of stark difference between the two parties

Who were other early activists?

Other early women's rights activists included Angelina and Sarah Grimké, sisters who were born into a South Carolina slaveholding family and who became abolitionists in the North, where critics attacked them for speaking to audiences that included men.

How did Pierce confront sectional conflict?

Pierce confronted sectional conflict at every turn. His proposal for a transcontinental railroad derailed when congressmen fought over its location, North or South. His attempts to acquire foreign territory stirred more trouble. An annexation treaty with Hawai'i failed because southern senators would not vote for another free state, and efforts to acquire slaveholding Cuba through the Ostend Manifesto angered northerners. Written after a meeting among the U.S. foreign ministers to Britain, France, and Spain, the docu- ment advocated conquest of Cuba if it could not be "purchased." The ministers predicted that Cuba "would be Africanized and become a second St. Domingo, with all its attendant horrors to the white race." Antislavery advocates once again saw schemes of the Slave Power as political division and social fear deepened.

How did northerners and southerners see different futures?

Political leaders of both sections used race in their arguments about opportunity, but northerners and southerners saw different futures. The Montgomery (Alabama) Mail warned southern whites in 1860 that the Republicans intended "to free the negroes and force amalgamation between them and the children of the poor men of the South. The rich will be able to keep out of the way of the contamination." Republicans warned northern workers that, if slavery entered the territories, the great reservoir of opportunity for ordinary citizens would be poisoned.

How did Polk win the election of 1844?

Polk won the election by 170 electoral votes to 105, though with a margin of just 38,000 out of 2.7 million votes cast. Polk won New York's 36 electoral votes by just 5,000 popular votes. Abolitionist James G. Birney, the Liberty Party candidate, had drawn almost 16,000 votes from Clay by running on a Free-Soil platform. Without Birney, Clay might have won New York, giving him an edge of 141 to 134 in the electoral college. Abolitionist forces thus unwittingly helped elect a slaveholder as president, and some antislavery Whigs, such as Abraham Lincoln, never forgave the abolitionists for helping defeat Clay.

What did President Tyler want in regards to the "Fifty-Four Forty or Fight"?

President Tyler wanted both Oregon and Texas, but was obsessed with Texas. He argued that there was little to fear from slavery's expansion, for it would spread the nation's black population more thinly, causing the institution's gradual demise. But when word leaked out that Secretary of State John Calhoun had written to the British minister in Washington to justify Texas annexation as a way of protecting slavery—"a political institution essential to the peace, safety, and prosperity of those States in which it exists"—the Senate rejected annexation in 1844 by a vote of 35 to 16.

How did political participation expand?

Property restrictions for voters, which states began abandoning during the 1810s, remained in only seven of twenty-six states by 1840. Some states even allowed foreign nationals who had officially declared their intention of becoming American citizens to vote. The net effect was a sharply higher number of votes cast in presidential elections. Between 1824 and 1828, that number increased threefold, from 360,000 to over 1.1 million. In 1840, 2.4 million men cast votes.

What was the result of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo?

Representatives of both countries signed the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in February 1848. The United States gained California and New Mexico (including present- day Nevada, Utah, and Arizona, and parts of Colorado and Wyoming), and recognition of the Rio Grande as the southern boundary of Texas. In return, the American government agreed to settle the $3.2 million in claims of its citizens (mostly Texans) against Mexico and to pay Mexico a mere $15 million.

What was the political situation regarding Mexico like?

Sectional conflict resurfaced after the annexation of Texas in 1845. From 1846 to 1848, the United States went to war against Mexico, unleashing the problem of slavery's expansion as never before. As part of the Compromise of 1850, a new fugitive slave law sent thousands of free and fugitive blacks fleeing into Canada, and prompted Mrs. Stowe to write her controversial novel. By 1855, open warfare exploded in Kansas Territory between proslavery and antislavery settlers. On the U.S. Senate floor, a southern representative beat a northern senator senseless in 1856. The following year, the Supreme Court issued a dramatic decision about slavery's constitutionality, as well as the status of African American citizenship—to the delight of most white southerners and the anger of many northerners. And by 1858, violence brewed under the surface of the country; abolitionist John Brown was planning a raid into Virginia to start a slave rebellion.

What was the result of the Sumner beating?

Shocked northerners recoiled from what they saw as another case of wanton southern violence and an assault on free speech. Popular opinion in Massachusetts strongly supported Sumner; South Carolina voters re-elected Brooks and sent him dozens of commemorative canes.

What was the southern version of Republicanism?

Since Andrew Jackson's day, however, non-slaveholding yeomen had been the heart of the Democratic Party. Democratic politicians, though often slave owners themselves, lauded the common man and argued that their policies advanced his interests. According to the southern version of republicanism, white citizens in a slave society enjoyed liberty and social equality because black people were enslaved. As Jefferson Davis put it in 1851, in other societies distinctions were drawn "by property, between the rich and the poor." But in the South, slavery elevated every white person's status and allowed the non-slaveholder to "stand upon the broad level of equality with the rich man.

How did South Carolina respond to the protectionist tariffs?

South Carolina's political leaders rejected the 1828 tariff, invoking the doctrine of nullification, maintaining that a state had the right to overrule, or nullify, federal legislation. Jackson's vice president, John C. Calhoun of South Carolina, argued in his unsigned Exposition and Protest that, in any disagreement between the federal government and a state, a special state convention—like the conventions called to ratify the Constitution—should decide the conflict by either nullifying or affirming the federal law. Only the power of nullification, Calhoun asserted, could protect the minority against the majority's tyranny

How did Southern leaders portray

Southern leaders also portrayed sectional controversies as matters of injustice and insult to the South's honor and prestige. The rights of all southern whites were in jeopardy, they argued, because antislavery and Free-Soil forces threatened an institution protected in the Constitution. The stable, well-ordered South was the true defender of constitutional principles; the rapidly changing North, their destroyer.

What did Texas claim?

Texas, which allowed slavery, claimed large portions of the new land as far west as Santa Fe. Southerners complained that fugitive slaves were not returned as the Constitution required, and northerners objected to slave auctions held in the nation's capital. Most troublesome of all, however, was the status of slavery in the territories.

What did Lincoln show in these debates?

That, politically, Republicans were now locked in conflict with the Dred Scott decision. By endorsing the South's doctrine of state sovereignty, the Court had in effect declared that the central position of the Republican Party—no extension of slavery— was unconstitutional. Republicans could only repudiate the decision, appealing to a "higher law," or hope to change the personnel of the Court.

What was the Election of 1828 like?

The 1828 election pitted Adams against Jackson in a rowdy campaign. Nicknamed "Old Hickory" after the toughest of American hardwood, Jackson was a rough-and-tumble, ambitious man. Born in South Carolina in 1767, he rose from humble beginnings to become a wealthy Tennessee planter and slaveholder. After leading the Tennessee militia campaign to remove Creeks from the Alabama and Georgia frontier, Jackson burst onto the national scene in 1815 as the hero of the Battle of New Orleans; in 1818, he enhanced his glory in an expedition against Seminoles in Spanish Florida. Jackson served as a congressman from Tennessee, then as the first territorial governor of Florida, and then returned to Washington as a senator from Tennessee, before running for president in 1824.

What was Bleeding Kansas?

The Kansas-Nebraska Act spawned hatred and violence as land-hungry partisans in the sectional struggle clashed repeatedly in Kansas Territory. Abolitionists and religious groups sent in armed Free-Soil settlers; southerners sent in their reinforcements to establish slavery and prevent "northern hordes" from stealing Kansas. Conflicts led to vicious bloodshed, and soon the whole nation was talking about "Bleeding Kansas."

What did Republicans appeal to? Why did many people feel attracted to the Republicans?

The Republicans appealed strongly to those interested in the economic development of the West. Commercial agriculture was booming in the Old Northwest, but residents of that region desired more canals, roads, and river and harbor improvements. Because credit was scarce, a homestead program—the idea that western land should be free to individuals who would farm it and make a home on it—attracted many voters. The Republicans seized on these political desires.

What did these ruling expose?

The Slave Power seemed to have won a major constitutional victory. African Americans were especially dismayed, for Taney's decision asserted that the founders had never intended for black people to be citizens. At the nation's founding, the chief justice wrote, blacks had been regarded "as beings of an inferior order" with "no rights which the white man was bound to respect." Taney was mistaken, however. African Americans had been citizens in several of the original states and had in fact voted.

What did US troops prove themselves as?

The U.S. troops proved unruly and undisciplined, and their politically ambitious commanders quarreled among themselves. Nevertheless, early in the war, U.S. forces made significant gains. In May 1846, Polk ordered Colonel Stephen Kearny and a small detachment to invade the remote and thinly populated provinces of New Mexico and California. General Zachary Taylor's forces attacked and occupied Monterrey, which surrendered in September, securing northeastern Mexico

Why was the Whig Party weak?

The Whig Party was weak, however, and by 1852 sectional discord had rendered it all but dead. President Pierce's embrace of the compromise appalled many northerners. His vigorous enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Act provoked outrage and fear of the Slave Power, especially in the case of the fugitive slave Anthony Burns, who had fled Virginia by stowing away on a ship in 1852. In Boston, thinking he was safe in a city known for abolitionism, Burns began a new life. But in 1854, federal marshals found and placed him under guard in Boston's courthouse. An interracial crowd of abolitionists attacked the courthouse, killing a jailer in an unsuccessful attempt to free Burns, whose case attracted nationwide attention.

How did religion and ethnicity, as much as class, influence party affiliation?

The Whigs' support for energetic government and moral reform appealed to evangelical Protestants. In many locales, the membership rolls of reform societies overlapped those of the party. Indeed, Whigs practiced a kind of political revivalism. Their rallies resembled camp meetings; their speeches employed pulpit rhetoric; their programs embodied reformers' perfectionist beliefs.

What did the remaining parties appeal to?

The remaining parties appealed to various segments of the electorate on such issues as immigration, temperance, homestead bills, the tariff, and internal improvements.

What was the Whig's vision for economic expansion?

The Whigs' vision of economic expansion demanded an activist government, while Democrats reaffirmed the Jeffersonian principle of limited government. Whigs sup- ported corporate charters, a national bank, and paper currency; Democrats opposed all three. Whigs generally professed a strong belief in progress and perfectibility, and they favored social reforms, including public schools, prison and asylum reform, and temperance. Jacksonians criticized reform associations for undermining the peo- ple's will by giving undue influence to political minori- ties; Whigs countered they served the common good. Nor did Whigs object to helping special interests if doing so promoted the general welfare. The chartering of corporations, they argued, expanded economic opportunity for everyone, laborers and farmers alike. Democrats distrusted concentrated economic power as well as moral and economic coercion. Whigs stressed a "harmony of interests" among all classes and interests while Democrats saw soci- ety as divided into the "haves" and the "have nots." Whigs feared the "excesses of democracy" and preferred to see society ruled from the top down; they touted self-improvement and thought that society's wealthy and powerful had risen by their own merits. Democrats embraced a motto of "equal rights," alleging that the wealthy and powerful had often benefited from special favors

What is Manifest Destiny?

The belief that American expansion westward and southward was inevitable, just, and divinely ordained dated to the nation's founding but was first labeled "manifest destiny" in 1845, amid the debate over Texas annexation, by John L. O'Sullivan, editor of the United States Magazine and Democratic Review The nation's destiny, he and others believed, was to encompass the continent. Manifest destiny implied that Americans had a God-given right, perhaps even an obligation, to expand their republican and Christian institutions to less fortunate and less civilized peoples. Manifest destiny provided a political and ideological rationale for territorial expansion.

How did Senator Daniel Webster shift his support?

The cause of compromise gained a powerful supporter when Senator Daniel Webster committed his prestige and eloquence to Clay's bill. Abandoning his earlier support for the Wilmot Proviso, Webster urged northerners not to "taunt or reproach" the South with antislavery measures. To southern firebrands, he issued a warning that disunion inevitably would cause violence and destruction. For his efforts at compromise, Webster was condemned by many former abolitionist friends in New England who accused him of going over to the "devil." Only three days earlier, with equal drama, Calhoun had been carried from his sickbed to deliver a speech opposing the compromise. As Calhoun was unable to stand and speak, Senator James Mason of Virginia read his address for him. Grizzled and dying, the South's intellectual defender warned that the "cords which bind these states" were "already greatly weakened." Calhoun did not address the specific measures in the bill; he predicted disunion if southern demands were not met, thereby frightening some into support of compromise. With Clay sick and absent from Washington, Douglas reintroduced the compromise measures one at a time. Although there was no majority for compromise, Douglas shrewdly real- ized that different majorities might be created for the separate measures. Because southerners favored some bills and northern- ers the rest, a small majority for compromise could be achieved on each distinct issue, and for now, the strategy worked.

What were the 5 essential measures of the Compromise of 1850?

The compromise had five essential measures: 1. California became a free state. 2. The Texas boundary was set at its present limits, and the United States paid Texas $10 million in compensation for the loss of New Mexico Territory. 3. The territories of New Mexico and Utah were organized on a basis of popular sovereignty. 4. The fugitive slave law was strengthened. 5. The slave trade was abolished in the District of Columbia.

What did the idea of war do to the general public?

The idea of war unleashed great public celebrations. Huge crowds gathered in southern cities, such as Richmond and Louisville, to voice support for the war effort. Twenty thou- sand Philadelphians and even more New Yorkers rallied in the same spirit. After news came of General Taylor's first two battlefield victories at Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palma, volunteers swarmed recruiting stations. "Palo Alto" hats and root beer went on sale. And new daily newspapers, now printed on rotary presses, boosted their sales by giving the war a romantic appeal

How did Dred's case differ from Harriet's?

The impetus for the lawsuit likely came as much from Harriet as from Dred Scott.They were legally married at Fort Snelling (free territory) in 1836 when Dred was forty and Harriet seventeen. She had already lived as a slave on free soil for at least five years and had given birth to four children, also born on free soil: two sons who died in infancy and two daughters, Eliza and Lizzie, who lived. In all likelihood, the quest to achieve "freedom papers" through a lawsuit—begun in 1846 as two separate cases, one in his name and one in hers—came as much from Harriet's desire to sustain her fam- ily and protect her two teenage daughters from potential sale and sexual abuse as from the aging and sickly Dred. Indeed, her legal case for freedom may have been even stronger than Dred's, but their lawyers subsumed her case into his during the long appeal process.

How did the political world respond to the new Republican Party?

The influence of the Republicans rapidly spread to the East, and they won a stunning victory in the 1854 elections. In their first appearance on the ballot, Republicans captured a majority of northern House seats. Antislavery sentiment had created a new party and caused roughly a quarter of northern Democrats to desert their party.

What emerged as the key to progress?

The key to progress appeared, to many people, to be free labor—the dignity of work and the incentive of opportunity. Any hardworking and virtuous man, it was thought, could improve his condition and achieve economic independence. Republicans argued that the South, with little industry and slave labor, remained backward.

How was the national will to sustain slavery was now tested at every turn?

The national will to sustain slavery was now tested at every turn. This demonstration of federal support for slavery radicalized opinion, even among many conservatives. Textile manufacturer Amos A. Lawrence observed that "we went to bed one night old fashioned, conservative, Compromise Union Whigs & waked up stark mad Abolitionists." Juries refused to convict the abolitionists who had stormed the Boston court- house, and New England states passed personal-liberty laws that absolved local judges from enforcing the Fugitive Slave Act, in effect nullifying federal authority. What northerners now saw as evidence of a dominating Slave Power, outraged slaveholders saw as the legal defense of their rights.

What was going on with California?

The new decade's first sectional battle involved California. More than eighty thousand Americans flooded into California during the gold rush of 1849. With Congress unable to agree on a formula to govern the territories, President Taylor urged these settlers to apply directly for admission to the Union.They promptly did so, proposing a state constitution that did not permit slavery. Because California's admission as a free state would upset the Senate's sectional balance of power (the ratio of slave to free states was fifteen to fifteen), southern politicians wanted to post- pone admission and make California a slave territory, or at least extend the Missouri Compromise line west to the Pacific.

How was the North doing during this time?

The northern economy was booming, and thousands of migrants had moved west to establish productive farms and growing communities. Midwesterners multiplied their yields by using new machines, such as mechanical reapers. Railroads were carrying their crops to urban markets. And industry was beginning to perform wonders of production, making available goods that only recently had been beyond the reach of the average person.

When was the organized movement to secure women's political rights launched?

The organized movement to secure women's political rights was launched in July 1848, when abolitionists Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott, Mary Ann McClintock, Martha Wright, and Jane Hunt organized the first Woman's Rights Convention at Seneca Falls, New York. The three hundred women and men in attendance demanded women's social and economic equality, with some advocating political equality, too. They protested women's legal disabilities and social restrictions, such as exclusion from many occupations. Their Declaration of Sentiments, modeled on the Declaration of Independence, broadcast the injustices suffered by women. The similar premises of abolitionism and women's rights led many reformers, including former slaves like Sojourner Truth, to work simultaneously for both movements in the 1850s. Even among those supporting the movement's general aims, though, the question of female suffrage became divisive. Abolitionists William Lloyd Garrison and Frederick Douglass supported women's right to vote, but most men actively opposed it. At Seneca Falls, the resolution on woman suffrage passed only after Douglass, one of only a few men to take an active role at the convention, passionately endorsed it, but some participants still refused to sign. In 1851, Elizabeth Cady Stanton joined with Susan B. Anthony, a temperance advocate, to become the most vocal and persistent activists for woman suffrage. They won relatively few converts, but they continued to gather many critics even as other national issues eclipsed women's rights.

How was Uncle Tom's Cabin received by society?

The popularity of Uncle Tom's Cabin alarmed anxious white southerners, prompting a forceful defense of slavery's morality. Nearly twenty anti-Uncle Tom novels were published in the 1850s, providing a cultural counterpart to the heightened ideological defense of slavery in the realm of politics. Southern writers defended slavery as more humane than northern wage labor, blamed slave trading on the "outside interference" of Yankee speculators, and attacked Stowe for breaking gender conventions as a woman engaging in such a public critique of the South's integrity.

Specie Circular?

The president then ordered treasury secretary Levi Woodbury to issue the Specie Circular, which provided that, after August 1836, only settlers could use paper money to buy land; speculators would have to use specie (gold or silver). The policy proved disastrous, significantly reducing public land sales, which in turn reduced the federal government's surplus and its loans to the states. Meanwhile, a banking crisis emerged. Fearful that bank notes would lose value, people sought to redeem them for specie, creating a shortage that forced the banks to suspend payment. Jackson's opponents were irate. Now "King Andrew" had used presidential powers to defy legislative will, and with disastrous consequences. In the waning days of Jackson's administration, Congress repealed the circular, but the president pocket-vetoed the bill by holding it unsigned until Congress adjourned. Finally, in May 1838, after Jackson had left office, a joint resolution of Congress overturned the circular.

What was the second flaw of the compromise of 1850?

The second flaw lay in the Fugitive Slave Act, which gave new—and controversial—protection to slavery. The law empowered slave owners to make a legal claim in their own states that a person owing them "service" or "labor" had become a fugitive. That claim would then serve as legal proof of a person's slave status, even in free states and territories. Specially appointed federal commissioners adjudicated the identity of the alleged fugitives, and those commissioners were paid fees that favored slaveholders: $10 if they found the person to be a fugitive, and $5 if they judged that he or she was not. The law also made it a felony to harbor fugitives, and required that citizens, even in free states and territo- Party Northern Democrats Southern Democrats Northern Whigs Southern Whigs Northern Free-Soilers Aye Nay 44 42 57 2 0 45 12 7 0 4 ries, could be summoned to hunt fugitives.

How did Democrats and Whigs differ?

The two parties held very different visions of the route to national prosperity. For Democrats, the West's fertile and abundant lands were essential for creating a society in which white men could establish independent livelihoods and receive equal rights, freed from the undue influence of established slaveholders or urban elites. Whigs were more suspicious of rapid westward expansion, though they welcomed the commercial opportunities it might bring. Instead, they pushed for industrial and commercial development within the nation's current boundaries. Henry Clay, a leading Whig, explained that it "is much more important that we unite, harmonize, and improve what we have than attempt to acquire more."

What did the war give an emergence to?

The war spawned an outpouring of poetry, song, drama, travel literature, and lithographs that captured the popular imagination and glorified the conflict. New lyrics to the tune of "Yankee Doodle". Most of the war-inspired flowering of the popular arts was patriotic. But not everyone cheered. Abolitionist James Russell Lowell considered the war a "national crime committed in behoof of slavery, our common sin." Ralph Waldo Emerson confided to his journals in 1847, "The United States will conquer Mexico, but it will be as the man swallows arsenic, which brings him down in turn. Mexico will poison us." Even proslavery spokesman John C. Calhoun saw the perils of expansionism

What was the result of the war?

The war's costs included the lives of thirteen thousand Americans (mostly from disease) and, according to some estimates, fifty thousand Mexicans. Moreover, enmity between Mexico and the United States endured into the twenty-first century. The domestic cost to the United States was even higher. Public opinion was sharply divided. Southwesterners were enthusiastic about the war, as were most southern planters; New Englanders strenuously opposed it. Whigs in Congress charged that Polk, a Democrat, had "provoked" an unnecessary war and "usurped the power of Congress." The aged John Quincy Adams denounced the war, and an Illinois Whig named Abraham Lincoln called Polk's justifications the "half insane mumbling of a fever-dream." Abolitionists and a small minority of antislavery Whigs charged that the war was a plot to extend slavery.

How did the Nebraska and Kansas Act impact political parties?

The weakened Whig Party broke apart into northern and southern wings that could no longer cooperate nationally. The Democrats survived, but their support in the North fell drastically in the 1854 elections. Northern Democrats lost sixty-six of their ninety-one congressional seats and lost control of all but two free-state legislatures.

What was Republican ideology?

Their coalition ideology consisted of many elements: resentment of southern political power, devotion to unionism, antislavery convictions based on free-labor arguments, moral revulsion to slavery, and racial prejudice.

What did the Whig's charges result in?

These charges fed northern fear of the "Slave Power." Abolitionists had long warned of a slaveholding oligarchy that intended to dominate the nation through its hold on federal power. Slaveholders had gained control of the South by suppressing dissent. They had forced the gag rule on Congress in 1836 and threatened northern liberties. To many white northerners, even those who saw nothing wrong with slavery, it was the battle over free speech that first made the idea of a Slave Power credible. The War with Mexico deepened such fears.

What did these passions bring?

These passions brought violence to the U.S. Senate in May 1856, when Charles Sumner of Massachusetts denounced "the Crime against Kansas." Radical in his anti-slavery views, Sumner bitterly assailed the president, the South, and Senator Andrew P. Butler of South Carolina. Soon thereafter, Butler's cousin, Representative Preston Brooks, approached Sumner at the latter's Senate desk, raised his cane, announced the defense of his kin's honor, and mercilessly beat Sumner on the head. The senator collapsed, bleeding, on the floor while unsympathetic colleagues watched.

Soilers and antislavery people responded how? How did Congress respond?

They said it was a huge betrayal of sacred trust. Congress struggled over the bill for 3 and a half months, but finally prevailed when Douglas won the support of President Pierce. The bill was made into a law in May 1854.

What did Southern Congressmen want?

They wanted to establish slaveholders' rights to have slaves into any territory. They demanded a repeal of the 36 degree 30' limit as the price for their support.

Who were border ruffians and what did they do?

They were Missourians who crossed the border to help Kansas become a slave state. During elections for a territorial legislature in 1855, thousands of proslavery Missourians—known as Border Ruffians—invaded the polls and won a large but fraudulent majority for proslavery candidates. They murdered and intimidated free-state settlers. At one rally of such ruffians with other southerners, flags flapped in the breeze with the mottoes "Southern Rights," "Supremacy of the White Race," and "Alabama for Kansas." The resulting legislature legalized slavery, and in response Free-Soilers held an unauthorized convention at which they created their own government and constitution. Kansas was a tinderbox. By the spring of 1856, newspapers screamed for violence. "In a fight, let our motto be War to the knife, and knife to the hilt," demanded the pro- slavery Squatter Sovereign. Slavery's advocates taunted their adversaries as cowards and likened "abolitionists" to "infidels" worthy only of "total extermination."

What is the significance of the Underground Railroad?

This constant, dangerous flow of humanity was a testament to human courage and the will for freedom. Although it never reached the scale believed by some angry slaveholders and claimed today by some northern towns that harbored runaways in safe houses and hideaways, the Underground Railroad applied pressure to the institution of slavery and provided slaves with a focus for hope.

Why did Jackson reject the idea of state sovereignty?

Though sympathetic to states' rights and distrustful of the federal government, Jackson rejected the idea of state sovereignty. He strongly believed sovereignty rested with the people. Believing deeply in the Union, he shared Webster's dread of nullification. Soon after the Webster-Hayne debate, the president made his position clear at a Jefferson Day dinner with the toast "Our Federal Union, it must be preserved." Vice President Calhoun, when his turn came, toasted "The Federal Union—next to our liberty the most dear," revealing his adherence to states' rights. Calhoun and Jackson grew apart, and Jackson looked to the secretary of state, Martin Van Buren, not Calhoun, as his successor.

Why did three days of riots emerge?

Three days of rioting began when Democratic operatives attacked Whig headquarters in the sixth ward. After beating some Whigs unconscious, the Democrats turned their ire on the police, injuring eight of them severely; even the mayor suffered wounds. Vowing revenge, more than five hundred Whigs stole weapons from the armory, but before they could use them, the state militia restored order. A few months later, an election-day riot in Philadelphia left two dead and five buildings burned to the ground. Although these two riots stood out for their proportions and intensity, voter intimidation and fraud—initiated by both Democrats and Whigs—characterized the second party system.

In the 1820s and 1830s, how did politics begin to shift?

Throughout the 1820s and 1830s, politicians reframed their political visions to appeal to an increasingly broad-based electorate. Hotly contested elections helped make politics the great nineteenth-century American pastime, drawing the interest and participation of voters and nonvoters alike. Voter turnout skyrocketed, and elections really mattered in the expanding republic. But intense interest also fueled bitter, even deadly, rivalries

How did southern and northern democrats explain Cass's statement?

To avoid dissension within their party, northern and southern Democrats explained Cass's statement to their constituents in two incompatible ways. Southerners claimed that neither Congress nor a territorial legislature could bar slavery. Only late in the territorial process, when settlers were ready to draft a state constitution, could they take that step, thus allowing time for slavery to take root. Northerners, however, insisted that Americans living in a territory were entitled to local self-government and thus could outlaw slavery at any time.

How did the "Fifty-Four Forty or Fight" emerge?

To the north, Britain and the United States had jointly occupied the disputed Oregon Territory since 1818. Beginning with John Quincy Adams's administration, the United States had tried to fix the boundary at the forty-ninth parallel, but Britain was determined to maintain access to Puget Sound and the Columbia River. As migrants streamed into Oregon in the early 1840s, expansionists demanded the entire Oregon Country for the United States, up to its northernmost border at latitude 54° 40'. Soon "fifty-four forty or fight" became their rallying cry.

How was Polk acting toward Mexico?

Toward Mexico, Polk was particularly aggressive. In early 1846, he ordered American troops under "Old Rough and Ready," General Zachary Taylor, to march south and defend the contested border of the Rio Grande across from the town of Matamoros, Mexico. Polk especially desired California as the prize in his expansionist strategy, and he attempted to buy from Mexico a huge tract of land extending to the Pacific. When that effort failed, Polk waited for war. Negotiations between troops on the Rio Grande were awkwardly conducted in French because no American officer spoke Spanish and no Mexican spoke English. After a three- week standoff, the tense situation came to a head. On April 24, 1846, Mexican troops ambushed a U.S. cavalry unit on the north side of the river; eleven Americans were killed, and sixty-three were taken captive. On April 26, Taylor sent a dis- patch overland to Washington, D.C., which took two weeks to arrive

What view did Traditional Republicanism carry?

Traditional republicanism hailed the virtuous common man as the backbone of the country. In Abraham Lincoln, a man of humble origins who had become a successful lawyer and political leader, Republicans had a symbol of that tradition. They portrayed their party as the guardian of economic opportunity, giving individuals a chance to work, acquire land, and attain success.

True or false: Racial fears and traditional political loyalties helped keep the volatile political alliance between yeoman farmers and planters largely intact through the 1850s?

True: Across class lines, white southerners joined together in the interest of community security against what they perceived as the Republican Party's capacity to cause slave unrest in their midst. In the South, no viable party emerged to replace the Whigs, and as in the North, political realignment sharpened sectional identities.

True or false: the 1852 election gave southern leaders hope that slavery would be secure under the new presidential administration?

True: The 1852 election gave southern leaders hope that slavery would be secure under the new presidential administration. Franklin Pierce, a Democrat from New Hampshire, won an easy victory over the Whig nominee, General Winfield Scott. Because Scott's views on the compromise had been unknown and the Free-Soil candidate, John P. Hale of New Hampshire, had openly rejected it, Pierce's victory suggested widespread support for the compromise.

True or false: The "free" states, moreover, were no longer a safe haven for black folk?

True: whatever their origins; an estimated twenty thousand fled to Canada in the wake of the Fugitive Slave Act.

How successful was Uncle Tom's Cabin?

Uncle Tom's Cabin was the nineteenth century's best seller. By mid-1853, the book had sold over 1 million copies. A publishing sensation in England, too, the book was soon translated into numerous foreign languages, and recreated for the dramatic stage and performed nonstop well into the twentieth century.

Van buren followed what?

Van Buren followed Jackson's hard-money, antibank policies, proposing the Independent Treasury Bill, which became law in 1840 but which was repealed in 1841 when Whigs regained congressional control. The independent treasury—so named for its independence from both the Bank of the United States and British capital—created regional treasury branches that accepted and dispersed only gold and silver coin; they did not accept paper currency or checks drawn on state banks, and thus accelerated deflation.

What was the Election of 1836 like?

Vice President Martin Van Buren, handpicked by Jackson, headed the Democratic ticket in the 1836 presidential election. A career politician, Van Buren had built a political machine—the Albany Regency—in New York and joined Jackson's cabinet in 1829, first as secretary of state and then as American minister to Great Britain. Because the Whigs in 1836 had not yet coalesced into a national party, they entered three sectional candidates: Daniel Webster (from New England), Hugh White (from the South), and William Henry Harrison (from the West). By splintering the vote, they hoped to throw the election into the House of Representatives. Van Buren, however, comfortably captured the electoral college even though he had only a 25,000-vote edge out of a total of 1.5 million votes cast. No vice presidential candidate received a majority of electoral votes, and for the only time in American history, the Senate decided a vice presidential race, selecting Democratic candidate Richard M. Johnson of Kentucky.

What was violence a catalyst for?

Violence was a catalyst for the formation of the Antimason Party, which formed in upstate New York in the mid-1820s as a grassroots movement against Freemasonry, a secret male fraternity that attracted middle- and upper-class men prominent in commerce and civic affairs. Opponents of Masonry claimed the fraternity to be unrepublican; Masons colluded to bestow business and political favors on each other, and—in the incident that sparked the organized Antimasonry movement—Masons had obstructed justice in the investigation of the 1826 disappearance and presumed murder of a disgruntled former member who had written an exposé of the society. Evangelicals denounced Masonry, claiming its members neglected their families for alcohol and ribald entertainment

How did Democrats proceed in the election of 1856?

When Democrats met to select a nominee, they shied away from prominent leaders whose views on the territorial question invited controversy. Instead, they chose James Buchanan of Pennsylvania, whose chief virtue was that for the past four years he had been ambassador to Britain, uninvolved in territorial controversies. Superior party organization helped Buchanan win 1.8 million votes and the election, but he owed his victory to southern support. Hence, he was tagged with the label "a northern man with southern principles.

What was the Whig Program?

Whig program: repeal of the independent treasury system and adoption of a new national bank and a higher protective tariff.

How did the issue of the government's role in the economic development sharply divide the parties?

Whigs favored new banks, more paper currency, and readily available corporate and bank charters. Democrats favored eliminating paper currency altogether. Increasingly, the Democrats became distrustful even of state banks; by the mid-1840s, a majority favored eliminating all bank corporations.

How did the Whigs approach the Election of 1840?

With the nation gripped by hard times, the Whigs confidently approached the election of 1840 with a simple strategy: maintain loyal supporters and court independents by blaming hard times on the Democrats. The Whigs rallied behind a military hero, General William Henry Harrison, conqueror of the Shawnees at Tippecanoe Creek in 1811. The Democrats renominated President Van Buren, and the newly formed Liberty Party ran James Birney on its antislavery, free-soil platform.

Did Wilmot demonstrate that it was possible to be both a racist and opponent of slavery?

Yes, it was possible to be both a racist and an opponent of slavery. The vast majority of white northerners were not active abolitionists, and their desire to keep the West free from slavery was often matched by their desire to keep blacks from settling there. Fear of the Slave Power was thus building a potent antislavery movement that united abolitionists and anti-black voters. At stake was an abiding version of the American Dream: the free individual's access to social mobility through acquisition of land in the West. This sacred ideal of free labor, and its dread of concentrated power, fueled a new political persuasion. Slave labor, thousands of northerners had come to believe, would degrade the honest toil of free men and render them unemployable.

Did Lincoln find support in his argument?

Yes. Thousands of ordinary white northerners agreed. During the summer and fall of 1854, antislavery Whigs and Democrats, Free-Soilers, and other reformers throughout the Old Northwest met to form the new Republican Party, a coalition dedicated to keeping slavery out of the territories.

What did the Whig party ensure?

a major political realignment.

What did worried Southern Democrats persuade their party's 1844 convention to adopt? How did this affect the nomination of Martin Van Buren? Who did they go for instead?

a rule requiring that the presidential nominee receive two-thirds of the convention votes, effectively giving the southern states a veto and allowing them to block the nomination of Martin Van Buren, an opponent of annexation. Instead, the party ran "Young Hickory," House Speaker James K. Polk, an avid expansionist and slaveholding cotton planter from Tennessee.

What did the Kansas Nebraska Act expose? What was the other problem of it?

exposed the conflicting interpretations of popular sovereignty. Northerners and southerners still disagreed violently over what territorial settlers could constitutionally do. The other problem was that it lay within the Louisiana Purchase, and the Missouri Compromise of 1820 prohibited slavery in al that land up to the Canada border. If popular sovereignty were to mean anything in Kansas and Nebraska, it had to mean that the Missouri Compromise was no longer in effect and that slavery could be established there.

Who took the lead in demanding women's legal and political rights in the 1840s?

female abolitionists

What was Stephen A Douglas willing to risk? What did he have in mind?

he was willing to risk some controversy to win economic benefits for Illinois, his home state. A transcontinental railroad would encourage settlement of the Great Plains and stimulate the Illinois economy.

What did the election of 1856 show?

just how polarizing the nation had become

Lincoln-Douglas Debates

massive crowds assembled on September-October, 1858. Both candidates crisscrossed Illinois, with Lincoln traveling 4,350 miles and delivering some 63 major speeches, and Douglas logging over 5,000 miles and speaking 130 times. These two talented candidates, one tall and lean, the other short and stocky, squared off over the great issues dividing the country: the westward expansion of slavery, the meaning of abolitionism, the character of federal power over property in slaves, whether the Declaration of Independence had signaled some kind of racial equality, and ultimately the future existence of the American republic. Tens of thousands of people attended these outdoor events, arriving by foot, by wagon, on trains, and accompanied by brass bands. Perhaps never before or since have Americans demonstrated such an appetite for democratic engagement.

How did the Second Party System emerge?

n the 1830s, opponents of the Democrats, including remnants of the National Republican and Antimason parties, joined together to become the Whig Party. Resentful of Jackson's domination of Congress, the Whigs borrowed the name of the eighteenth-century British party that opposed the Hanoverian monarchs' tyranny. They, too, were the loyal opposition. From 1834 through the 1840s, the Whigs and the Democrats competed on nearly equal footing, and each drew supporters from all regions. The era's political competition—the second party system—thrived on intense ideological rivalry

What did the "Bleeding Summer" and "Bleeding Kansas" become for the Democrats and Republicans?

rallying cries.

How did the Slave Powers' influence over the government seem more blatant?

the Buchanan administration and southerners demanded a proslavery outcome, contrary to the majority will in Kansas. Breaking with the administration, Douglas threw his weight against the Lecompton Constitution. But his action infuriated southern Democrats. After the Dred Scott decision, southerners like Senator Albert G. Brown of Mississippi believed slavery was protected in the territories. Increasingly, though, many southerners believed their sectional rights and slavery would be safe only in a separate nation. And northern Democrats, led by Douglas, found it harder to support the territorial protection for slavery that southern Democrats insisted was theirs as a constitutional right. Thus, in North and South, the issue of slavery in the territories continued to destroy moderation and promote militancy

How did Jacksonians and Whigs differ? What did they both agree on?

the Democrats and Whigs took distinct positions on many salient issues. With certain exceptions, such as removing Native peoples from ancestral lands, Democrats emphasized small government, whereas Whigs advocated an activist federal government to promote economic development and maintain social order. Democrats championed the nation's agricultural expansion into the West, while Whigs urged industrial and commercial growth in the East, fostered through their "American System" of high protective tariffs, centralized banking, and federally funded internal improvements. Together, Whigs and Democrats forged the second party system, characterized by strong organizations in both North and South, intense loyalty, and religious and ethnic voting patterns.

What did the Democratic platform call for?

they called for occupation of the entire Oregon Territory and annexation of Texas. The Whigs, who ran Henry Clay, argued that the Democrats' belligerent nationalism would trigger war with Great Britain or Mexico or both. Clay favored expansion through negotiation, whereas many northern Whigs opposed annexation altogether, fearful it would add slave states and strain relations with vital trading partners.

During the annexation process, Polk urged Texans to do what?

to seize all land to the Rio Grande and claim the river as their southern and western border. Mexico held that the Nueces River was the border; hence, the stage was set for conflict. Polk wanted Mexico's territory all the way to the Pacific, and all of Oregon Country as well. He and his expansionist cabinet achieved their goals, largely unaware of the price in domestic harmony that expansion would exact.