Chapter 15-19 US History
Dorothea Dix
(1802-1887) New England teacher-author, possessed infinite compassion, travelled and gathered information on insanity and asylums through first hand experience, petition of 1843 to Massachusetts legislature, resulted in improved conditions in cells
Seneca Falls Convention
(1848) gathering of feminists activists in Seneca Falls, New York, Elizabeth Cady Stanton read her Declaration of Sentiments, stating all men and women are created equal
"poor white trash"
+"Hillbillies" - no slaves but defended slavery +Hoped to buy a slave one day - American dream manifested +Pride in outranking blacks - white superiority
Southern whites
+A few (1,733 families, owned 100 or more slaves) +The majority owned fewer than two slaves
Horace Mann
+American Politician and educational reformer +Secretary of Massachusetts Board of Education +Campaigned for better schoolhouses, longer school terms, higher pay for teachers, and expanded curriculum
effects of books on civil war
+Books showed Northerners the awful things happening in the South with slavery. Soon the North became strongly Anti-slavery, more so than they were before. Southerners believed that the books were full of lies. The books created a social gap between the North and the South. +Some books include Uncle Tom's Cabin, and The Impending Crisis of the South. +Thousands of readers swore henceforth they would not enforce the Fugitive Slave Law. +Books became popular aboard even in Europe causing Europe to give support to antislavery cause. +Southern's became increasingly unwilling to sleep under the same federal roof with hostile Yankee bedfellows.
market economy effects
+Caused change and uncertainty. +transformed a subsistence economy of scattered farms and tiny workshops into a national network of industry and commerce. +This raised a lot of questions such as : How tightly should patents protect inventions? Should the government regulate monopolies? Who should own America's technologies and networks (roads, railroads etc.)? +The Supreme Court protected contract rights under John Marshall which led to monopolies. Under the new Supreme Court Chief Justice Roger B. Taney, the needs of the community and public interest were put ahead of any exclusive corporate rights. This encouraged greater competition which would benefit consumers. +The self-sufficient households of colonial days were transformed. People scattered to look for work in mills and factories. The home shifted from a center of economic production (growing own food, making own goods etc.) to a refuge from the workplace. +If people chose to grow cash crops, their whole livelihood might become entirely based off the up and downs of the market (supply and demand). +Advances in manufacturing and transportation brought prosperity but also widened the gap between rich and poor. Cities showed the greatest extremes of economic inequality.
How did controversy over free people endanger free speech?
+Gag Resolution(1836): Antislavery petitions were tabled without debate +Attacked the right to petition and postmasters were arrested for abolitionist papers
Kansas-Nebraska Act
+In 1854, Senator Stephen A. Douglas proposed that the Territory of Nebraska be split into 2 territories, Kansas and Nebraska. The status on slavery would be determined on popular sovereignty, which meant that Kansas would become a slave state while Nebraska would become a free state +Flatly contradicted the Missouri Compromise of 1820, but even so President Pierce fully supported the Bill. Free-soil Congress members were very heated that the Missouri Compromise was being so easily brushed aside. + greased the slope towards the eventual Civil War, as it managed to piss off supports of both the Missouri Compromise and the Compromise of 1850. The Kansas-Nebraska Act destroyed the Democrat party, leading to the offspring of the new Republican party.
mountain whites
+In Appalachian valleys - out of touch with society, hated haughty slaveholders +Played important role in Civil War - peninsula of Unionism jutting into South
Negative economic effects of plantation agriculture
+Many Southerners over-speculated in land because of their land-butchery, and debt increased. +The South was a single-crop economy, which is risky by "putting all their eggs in one basket." +Immigrants would not immigrante due to land prices, competition with slaves, ignorance in cotton cultivation. +The South extremely relied on the North's manufacturing. +The wealthy got wealthier and the poor got poorer. +Slaves cost a lot of the national money, and they might deliberately hurt themselves or run away.
Interests in Texas
+Mexico: looked at the Lone Star Republic as a revolting province to be reconquered at a later time. They never acknowledged its independence and threatened war if the US tried to take in the Republic +Texans: Wanted to remain independent from Mexico and were forced to have a military establishment at all times in fear of Mexican raids. They were forced to negotiate with Britain and France in an attempt to secure a defense shield of a protectorate. In 1839 and 1840, they finished treaties with France, Holland, and Belgium. +British: Wanted Texas as a republic to check the Southern surge of the US and in that way protect their nearby possessions in the New World. They wanted to use Texas as a puppet to turn on the US, a diversion which would allow foreign powers to challenge the Monroe Doctrine +French: The French thought similarly to the British with the divide and conquer mindset, which they hoped would result in fragmentation and militarization of the U.S.
Compromise of 1850
+More helpful to North than south +California is admitted as a free state +The territory disputed by Texas and New Mexico to be surrendered to New Mexico +Abolition of the slave trade in the District of Columbia +The remainder of the Mexican Cession area to be formed into the territories of New Mexico and Utah, without restriction on slavery, hence open to popular sovereignty +Texas to receive $10 million from the federal government as compensation +A more stringent fugitive-slave law going beyond that of 1793
Transcendentalist beliefs
+Rejected empiricist theory (theory from John Locke: all knowledge comes to the mind through senses) +Believed that truth transcend the senses, knowledge cannot be found by observation alone +"Every person possesses an inner light that can illuminate the highest truth and put him in direct touch w/ God/Oversoul +Strong individualism (religious and social) +Commitment to self-reliance, self-culture, self-discipline (bred hostility to authority, formal institutions, and conventional wisdom) +Humanitarian reforms, dignity of individual
Gold Rush
+Slavery controversy grew with the discovery of gold +First discovery of gold was on the American River near Sutter Mills California +Very few "struck rich" many would have been better off staying home unaffected by "gold fever". Most reliable profits were those who used high rates for personal services +Many of the forty-niners kept searching for gold past California, notably Australia in 1851. +Large amounts of crime occurred in California as many miners were outcast and misfits +In San Francisco from 1848 to 1856, large amounts of killings only 3 semi legal hangings. +Drafted a constitution of 1849 that excluded slavery and applied to congress for admission +Southern states opposed very violently to california's rude attempt for freedom.
Cotton Production
+South - slaves harvest cotton, quick profit, produced half of world's cotton +North - reaped profit from trade with foreign consumers +Britain - leading industrial power, used cotton to create cloth
Oregon Territory
+Spain, though the first to raise its banner in Oregon, bartered away its claims to the United States in the Florida Treaty of 1819. Russia also retreated to the line of 54 40' by the treaties of 1824 and 1825 with America and Britain. British claims to the portion north of the Columbia River in Oregon were strong. Americans could also point pridefully to exploration and occupation. Captain Robert Gray in 1792 stumbled upon the Columbia River. The occupation of Oregon was ultimately strengthened by the presence of missionaries and other settlers. These men and women, in saving the soul of the Indian, were instrumental in saving the soil of Oregon for the United States. At the time of the Anglo-American convention, the United States had sought to divide the vast domain at the forty-ninth parallel. The British, however, who regarded the Columbia River as the St. Lawrence of the West, were unwilling to yield this vital artery. +Not all of Oregon: As stated by expansionist Senator Benton of Missouri, "Great Britain is powerful and Mexico is weak." (Great britain controlled Oregon)
Republican Party
+Sprung up in the Midwest +avidly against slavery and included many pissed off Whigs, Democrats, Free-Soilers, and Know-Nothings. This new party heightened sectional tensions, as the Republican party would not cross over the Mason-Dixon line into the slave states Used platform to entice about every group except the south Promised non-extension of slavery for free soilers Promised a protective tariff pleasing the northern manufacturers Promised that there would be no abridgement of rights for immigrants Promised a Pacific railroad for the Northwest Promised internal improvement that would be paid at federal expense for the West Promised free homes in public domain for farmers Did not promise abolition, only non-extension of slavery
causes of the growth of African American population
+The booming cotton economy created a seemingly fulfillable demand for slave labor +Slaves were a primary form of wealth, so the more the better +Most of growth came from natural reproduction not imports +Natural reproductions of enslaved blacks distinguished North American slavery from slavery in more southerly New World societies and implied much about conditions +Slaves could be sold to areas with less worn soil, lower Mississippi valley +Slave woman who had 13 or 14 babies were prized and some were promised freedom if they had 10 babies
smaller slaveholders
+The majority of the southern white population +Owned small farms +Many labored as hard as their slaves and lived in small cabins
The Abolitionist Impact on the North
+They had a heavy economic state in the south and money the south owed them was lost +Disruption of slave labor would cut off northern factories cotton supply and bring unemployment +Hostility developed against the radical abolitionists
War of Words with Britain
+Travel books written by the British criticizing the US, sparked anger towards the British in the US +British magazines criticized US shortcomings and US journals countered with "you're another" arguments +1837, the Caroline was attacked on New York shore by the British, an invasion of US soil, leading to public protest lodged by Washington officials +1841, British offered asylum in the Bahamas to 130 Virginia slaves who had rebelled on the Creole, an American ship.
New Harmony
+Utopian Community founded by Robert Owen in 1825 in New Harmony, Indiana +Included Hardworking visionaries, radicals, work-shy theorists, scoundrels
Shakers
+Utopian Community founded in England in 1747 brought to America (New York) in 1774 by Mother Ann Lee +Monastic customs, prohibited marriage and sexual relations
Oneida Community
+Utopian Community founded in New York in 1848. +Free love, birth control, eugenic selection of parents to produce superior offspring +Made steel traps
Brook Farm
+Utopian community started in 1841 in Massachusetts. +"Brotherly and sisterly cooperation", transcendentalism, "plain living and high thinking"
slave life
+conditions varied from region to region +slavery was hard work, ignorance, and oppression +men and women worked from dawn until dusk in the fields no civil or political rights +floggings (whip) and some slaves sent to breakers when behaving bad in order to whip sense into them and become a good slave again
Free Soil Party
+immediately came out for the Wilmot Proviso. + condemned slavery because it destroyed the chances of free whites to rise from wage-paying jobs to self-employment. The party included: 1) industrialists unhappy with Polk's reduction of the protective tariff 2) Democrats unhappy with Polk's settling of part of Oregon but taking all of Texas 3) northerners who did not want to share the new western territories with free blacks 4) Whigs who condemned slavery on moral grounds.
Factors that brought an end to the importation of slaves
+legal importation of african slaves into America ended when Congress outlawed slave imports +death penalty for slavers
Zachary Taylor
+never held a civil office. +He had not committed himself on slavery, but owned many slaves himself.
Slaves as investments
+planters spared dangerous work for Irish laborers rather than slaves because they were valuable investments for the planters +at slave auctions families were separated which was slavery's greatest psychological horror
The Gag Resolution
+required that all such antislavery appeals to be tabled without debate +Controversy over free people (slaves) endangered free speech for all +Tons of petitions poured into congress from antislavery reformers, which caused southerners to drive this resolution through House, which seemed like an attack on the right to petition
John Tyler
+stuck to principle and sided with the Whigs because he disliked Jackson's dictatorial tactics. He was still largely democratic, who was used by the whig party as a way to gain the vote of the fringe group of influential southerners. He was later expelled from the Whig party due to his unexpected decisions essentially supporting the democrats. +He vetoed the bank bill for practical/constitutional reason & vetoed the bill providing for "fiscal corporation," which was meant to appease his hatred for "fiscal banks." This went against the expectations of the Whig party and "saved" the Democratic party from dealing with another economic problem but gave into the Tariff of 1842
James K. Polk
+supported expansion of the US with the Democrats, gaining the support of the southerners who cried "Texas or Disunion," and opposed by those assailing annexation and members of the Whig party who feared Texas would be used to help add to "slave power." + Polk's 4 leading goals: included a lowered tariff. His secretary of the Treasury, Robert J. Walker, devised a tariff for revenue bill that reduced the average rates of the Tariff of 1842 from 32% to 25%, called the Walker Tariff Bill. Another goal was the restoration of the independent treasury, unceremoniously dropped by the Whigs in 1841. Third and fourth points were the acquisition of California and the settlement of the Oregon dispute. Acquired the region of Oregon south of the line 49".
Southern women
-Mistress of house - commands multiple slaves -Daily orders to cooks, maids, seamstresses, laundresses, servants, etc.
Planter Aristocracy
-South was oligarchy - power in hands of planter aristocracy -Planter aristocrats - extremely wealthy; educated children in North/abroad, public service/political involvement -Widened gap between rich and poor - slowed public education -Strove to recreated medievalism of feudal Europe
Henry David Thoreau
// - mystic, transcendentalist, non-conformist -Walden: Thoreau rid himself of materialism to gain truth, self-reflection, and individualism. -Civil Disobedience - further idealistic thought of nonviolent protest, and the belief that people need to revolt and speak their mind once in a while to expand society. -Influenced Gandhi and Martin Luther King
minstrel show
// racist form of entertainment that grew in the 19th century. white actors playing with blackened faces playing stock plantation characters
Hudson River School
//(1820's-1830's) excelled in romantic art. established by Thomas Cole; celebrated nature, massive landscapes
Greek Revival
//(1820-1850) Revival of Greek architecture and style mostly in the New York Burned-Over District and the Old Northwest
Ralph Waldo Emerson
//- a poet and philosopher. -Speech: "The American Scholar" that supported individualism, self-reliance, self-improvement, self-confidence, optimism, and freedom. -Book: "Self-Reliance" -ideas reflected the expanding American ideals, such as opposition to slavery, and he supported the Union during the Civil War.
Margaret Fuller
//- woman's rights advocate and a part of the American transcendentalism movement -Editor of The Dial (transcendentalist journal), author of Woman in the Nineteenth Century (feminist book) -Series of "Conversations" (paid seminars to promote dialogue among women)
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
//-Adopted by less cultured masses -->writing based largely on American values -Evangeline, Song of Hiawatha, The Courtship of Miles Standish
Louisa May Alcott
//-Author of Little Women -Father was transcendentalist philosopher
Edgar Allen Poe
//-Eccentric genius: suffered hunger, cold, poverty, etc. -"The Raven," "Murders in the Rue Morgue," "The Fall of the House of Usher" -Obsessed with mentally unstable antiheroes --> contrasts with time
Transcendentalism
//-Rejected empiricism. Truth transcends the senses. Everyone has an inner light that connects them to God. Individualism. -Rejected: authority, slavery, conservative thoughts, truth is explained only by science conventional wisdom -Supported: individualism, self-reliance, self-improvement, optimism, freedom, everyone possesses an inner light, human dignity, self-culture, self-discipline
William Gilmore Simms
//-The Yamasee and The Cassique of Kiawah --> dealt with southern frontier in colonial days -Very pro-slavery and secessionist
Walt Whitman
//-bold, romantic, emotional, unconventional, speaks about controversial topics openly -Poems: handled unconventional topics -"Leaves Of Grass"
Gabriel's Rebellion
//1800 Richmond, Virginia slave revolt led by slave named Gabriel, betrayed by informants, leaders hanged.
Amistad episode
//1839 slaves in Spanish ship revolted, tried to go back to Africa, driven ashore on Long Island; after 2 years, Quincy Adams got freedom w/ argument in Supreme Court 1841, returned to Sierra Leone
Nat Turner's Rebellion
//831 Virginia slave revolt led by semi-literate slave visionary/preacher Nat Turner-killed 60 Virginians, mostly women and children, swiftly, bloodily crushed.
Elijah P. Lovejoy
//In defiance to slavery he impugned the chastity of Catholic women and he was later killed by a mob
Herman Melville
//Moby Dick - allegory of good vs. evil
Nathaniel Hawthorne
//Original sin and good vs. evil The Scarlet Letter - Puritan New England
James Russell Lowell
//Political satirist in Biglow Papers, criticized Mexican War and slavery
Emily Dickinson
//Recluse poet - explored themes of nature, love, death, immortality
Responsorial style of preaching
//congregation frequently punctuated the minister's remarks with assents and amens
Federal Style
//early national builders used classical greek and roman architecture like symmetry, balance and restraint
Deep South
//furthest states south of the black belt
Lewis Tapper
//his house was attacked by a gang in New York in 1834 because of his abolition support
Black Belt
//in the deep south that was from South Carolina and Georgia into the new southwest states of Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana.
James Fenimore Cooper
//made new world themes respectable through his works like The Spy, Leatherstocking Tales and The Last of the Mohicans. Spoke of the noble savage and explored the future of the American Republic.
Importance of the Rio Grande River, Nueces River, and other borders or boundaries
A deadlock with Mexico was created as a result of boundary disputes. During Spanish Mexican occupation, the southern border of Texas had been the Nueces River, but Texans wanted to extend this boundary south to the Rio Grande. Although this was somewhat far-fetched, Polk wanted to defend the Texans, once it was annexed. Although the Americans were making a big deal out of the issue, Mexico wasn't concerned with this dispute over a river, because in their eyes, they still owned all of Texas, even if it was in a state of revolt. Even with Mexico taking so little interest in the dispute over the boundary, Polk made sure he kept troops out of the area between the Nueces River and Rio Grande.
Aroostook War
A lumberjack clash in the early 1840s caused by the British wanted to build a road connecting Halifax and Québec which ran through disputed territory Maine had claimed in the peace treaty of 1783. Lumberjacks from Canada and the US entered the Aroostook River Valley, fights broke out, and on both sides of the conflict, local militias were summoned.
Albert Bierstadt
A luminist painter who made natural landscapes in the romantic tradition
John Greenleaf Whittier
Abolitionist poet
William Lloyd Garrison
Abolitionist, spiritual child of Second Great Awakening, other abolitionists rallied to his standard (The Liberator), they founded the American Anti-slavery society
Identify the chief leaders and organizations of the abolition movement
At first Quakers, transporting Africans back to Africa (American Colonization Society 1817, Liberia), appealed up to Civil War, not appealing, slaves had diff. culture now. 1830s surge, Wilberforce outlawed slavery in Britain 1833, inspired by 2nd Great Awakening; Theodore Weld (evangelized by Finney), appealed to simple farmers, money from Tappan brothers, wealthy NY merchants, went to Lane Theological Seminary, kicked out for filibuster on slavery, proselytized in Northwest, wrote American Slavery as It Is; radicals-William Lloyd Garrison 1831 The Liberator abolitionist newspaper, 1833 American Anti-Slavery Society, Wendell Phillips leader; black abolitionists- David Walker Appeal to Colored Citizens of the World, violent, Sojourner Truth, Martin Delany recolonization, ex-slave Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Garrison called for northern secession, no real solution, Douglass looked to politics, supported Liberty, Free Soil, eventually Republican in 50s
Popular Sovereignty Panacea
Both the Whig and Democratic parties enjoyed powerful support in both the North and the South. If they would have been replaced by sectional groupings, the Union would peril.
If war broke out between North and South
Britain relies on South for cotton production, so they would fight on behalf of the South
Pro-slavery whites (virtually all Christian) found numerous reasons to justify the "peculiar institution." Share at least five of them.
Claimed it was supported by the Bible and Aristotle Good for the African's who were Christianized and Civilized Master-slave relationships resembled families They don't have to worry about unemployment They are cared for in sickness and old age
New England
Dominant portrayal of history
Dred Scott case
Dred Scott, a black slave who lived with his master in Illinois and Wisconsin, felt that he shouldn't be a slave anymore because he has been in the free states for so long. He went to court to sue his master for freedom. The court ruled against him saying since he was a slave he couldn't sue in federal court and also that the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional. South had power over supreme court currently. Roger B. Taney ruled that as private property a slave could not be taken anywhere including free soil. Congress lost power to ban slavery in any territories yet the north defied the court instilling doubt in the south
Kansas
Fights between Pro-Slave and free states began . The incidents, although small, foreshadowed the major battle of the civil war. New England Emigrant Aid Company was biggest anti slavery organization in Kansas. TWO governments in Kansas: one was a slave supports puppet government in Shawnee Mission and the other a free siol set up government in Topeka. Conflict arose over which government to chose. In 1856 a gang of proslavery raiders shot up and burned part of free soil town of Lawrence, was prelude to blood spilling in civil war.
How did slavery affect the mentality of racist whites?
Fostered brutality, paranoia about slave rebellions, abolitionists, theory of biological supremacy of whites; south became reactionary backwater, degrading
Literary Incendiaries
Harriet Beecher Stowe and Hinton R. Helper
John Brown
He meant to make the slaves rise up but in the process he killed many people in the process. When he did reach the slaves they didn't rise up. He was later caught and put on trial. Although republicans did not approve of his method they believed he had good intentions. Some Democrats supported Douglas while the others didn't. This led to the party splitting. Douglas Democrats supported him for the presidency while the other supported Breckenridge. The Constitutional Union party nominated John Bell.
What is the surprising fact regarding the prevalence of anti-slavery societies in 1820?
In the 1820's there was more antislavery societies south of the Mason-Dixon line than north of it
Effects of Mexican War
It cost some thirteen thousand American lives, most of them taken by disease. America's total expanse, already vast, was increased by about one third-an addition even greater than that of the Louisiana Purchase. The campaigns provided priceless field experience for most of the officers destined to become leading generals in the forthcoming conflict, including Captain Robert E. Lee and Lieutenant Ulysses S. Grant. West Point Academy was founded. Yankee military power was not taken as lightly internationally. Mexicans have never forgotten that their northern enemy tore away about half of their country. War marked an ugly turning point in relations between the U.S. and Latin America as a whole. Abolitionists assailed the Mexican conflict as one provoked by the southern slavocracy for its own evil purposes. David Wilmot of Pennsylvania introduced a fateful amendment to Polk's policy: slavery should never exist in any of the territory to be wrested from Mexico. Twice passed the House but not the Senate. Wilmot Proviso never became federal law but was adopted by many free states.
Causes of Mexican War
January 13, 1846 under General Zachary Taylor, 4000 men marched from the Nueces to the Rio Grande. When no clash occurred, Polk proposed to declare war on the basis of unpaid claims and Slidell's rejection, both rather flimsy pretexts. Soon on April 25, 1846, Mexican troops crossed the Rio Grande and attacked General Taylor. Polk sent a vigorous war message to Congress. "Mexico or Death!". Both sides believed in their own righteous causes.
Lucy Stone
Kept her maiden name after marriage
Lincoln-Douglass Debates
Lincoln came into the light as a Anti-Slavery republican. Lincoln showed his power with republicans and with the North.
Freeport Doctrine
Lincoln posed the question of who holds the power in abolishing slavery, the people or the court Douglas presented the Doctrine stating that if people voted slavery down it would stay down despite the Supreme Court's ruling History was on its side, the government couldn't enforce unpopular laws
those who owned no slaves at all
Lived individualistic lives Subsistence farmer
"camp meetings"
New style of worship +Highly emotional +"Divine communion with God"
Decisive battles of Mexican-American War
On February 22-23, 1847, at Buena Vista, General Zachary Taylor, alongside his 5000 men, were attacked by 20,000 march-weary troops led by Santa Anna. After a difficult battle, the Americans were able to repulse the larger Mexican force. On September 13-14, 1847, at Mexico City, General Winfield Scott ("Old Fuss and Feathers"), battled his way up to Mexico City through Veracruz, and finally won, in one of the most decisive and final battles of the war. After this victory, the Treaty of Guadalupe was signed by both sides, and the war ended
Benjamin West
One of the many artists that moved to England to find training and patrons
Thomas Cole
Painter of The Oxbow and The Course of Empire. celebrated sublimity and divinity of nature. established Hudson River School.
Maine Law of 1851
Prohibited the manufacture and sale of liquor
Lucretia Mott
Quaker, antislavery
Oregon Treaty of 1846
Set the boundary between the United States and Canada at the 49th parallel West of the Rocky Mountains. Although this boundary was denied by the British minister in Washington, but when the British proposed the boundary of 49° in 1846, the Senate quickly agreed to the compromise partly influenced by the fact that the US was in the midst of a war with Mexico, even if it was in disagreement with the 1844 pledge to 54° 40' made by Polk and against the chants of a few diehards who continued to yell "Fifty-four forty forever!" as well as "Every foot or not an inch."
What four events do historians believe may have been crucial in turning the Virginia legislature back from the emancipation proposals in 1831-1832?
Slave states tightened their slave codes and moved to prohibit emancipation, Nat's Rebellion in 1831, Garrison's Liberator and his arrest, and the Nullification Crisis of 1832
Crittenden Amendments
Slavery allowed in territories north of 30 degrees,
Slave response to an intolerably degrading life
Slowed down labor speed to minimum, (created "black people are lazy" myth), stole food/goods from plantation owners, sabotaged equipment, even occasionally poisoned masters' food; ran away; rebelled (Denmark Vesey etc.)
Abraham Lincoln
South Carolina liked Linclon getting elected because it was an excuse to secceed. If the Democrats had united under Douglas then they might have won
The Electoral Upheaval of 1860
South Carolina liked Linclon getting elected because it was an excuse to secceed. If the Democrats had united under Douglas then they might have won.
The Secessionist Exodus
South Carolina liked Linclon getting elected because it was an excuse to secceed. If the Democrats had united under Douglas then they might have won.
the struggle to abolish slavery
Southern cotton production grew by at least 300% from 1820 to 1860. It spread more into the south and not at all up north. A lot of production was on the southern part of the Mississippi River (even into Texas)
impact of the Aroostook War
The Aroostook War ended with the Maine Boundary Settlement, a compromise over the border. The US kept 7000 of 12000 square miles of wilderness, and the British kept less of the wilderness, but won the Halifax-Québec route they had been seeking. Also, the earlier Caroline affair which had been left sitting since 1837, was cleaned up and ended. A small bonus for the US, was gaining 6500 square miles of land when the boundary was moved west, which were found to contain Mesabi iron of of Minnesota
Misunderstandings with Mexico
The U.S. had claims against the Mexicans for some $3 million in damages to American citizens and their property. During the era of Spanish Mexican occupation, the southwestern boundary of Texas had been the Nueces River. But the expansive Texans were claiming the more southerly Rio Grande instead. In Mexico's eyes all of Texas was still theirs. President Polk dispatched John Slidell to Mexico City, instructed to offer a maximum of $25 million of California and territory to the east. Mexicans would not budge.
Gadsden Purchase
The US were very eager to build a transcontinental railroad connecting the East to the West. However, this idea ran into problems when the architects realized that the only way to properly and safely build a railroad was to build it in Mexican Land. In 1853, James Gadsden signed a treaty in which the US would pay $10 million for much needed land. The fact that the railroad would be built in the South led the North to push for the organization of territories like Kansas and Nebraska.
Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo
The chief clerk of the State Department, Nicholas P. Trist, arranged for an armistice with Santa Anna, at cost of $10,000. Trist then went on to sign the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo on February 2, 1848, and forwarded it to Washington. The U.S. was to acquire Texas and California, half of Mexico. The U.S. would pay $15 million and assume the claims of its citizens against Mexico in the amount of $3250000. Antislavery Whigs in Congress-Conscience Whigs-were denouncing this war with increasing heat. They secured control of the House in 1847 and even threatened to vote down supplies for the armies in the field. Polk offered to pay $25 million indemnity but cut it down to 18.25 million after winning the war.
Manifest Destiny
The emotional upsurge known as Manifest Destiny emerged out of the presidential campaign of 1844. It was a feeling of a sense of mission and the belief that Almighty God had "manifestly" destined the American people for a hemispheric career. They were to spread their democratic institutions over at least the entire continent, possibly over South America as well. Expansionist Democrats came out flat-footedly in their platform for the "Reannexation of Texas" and the "Reoccupation of Oregon" to 54 40.' They shouted "All of Oregon or None" and the slogan "Fifty-Four forty or fight" was coined two years later in 1846.
Effect on immigration
The high cost of fertile land and the European ignorance toward king cotton.THe prices for houses shot up after the land-speculation and the land-botchery. They were also in competition with slaves for cheap labor.
Growing resentment felt by "true souls of the South"
The negative conditions of the Southern economy, like the heavy price of slaves and the single-crop society led to the resentment of Southerners selling their goods to the North. Their cotton was essential in the North's manufacturing society through industry. Th South resented living in a Yankee-driven world.
Importance of California
This was one of many events leading up to the civil war. There was disagreement between the northern and southern states within the senate as to whether California should be a slave state or not. David Wilmot, a representative from Pennsylvania, fearing "slavocracy," proposed an amendment stating that slavery would never exist in any territories the US was to gain from Mexico. Although being approved twice by the House of Representatives, the Wilmot Proviso, as it came to known, never managed to pass through the Senate. Although it never became federal law, the Wilmot Proviso was eventually endorsed by the legislatures of all but one of the free states and clearly embodied the issue of slavery in US territories.
Benjamin Latrobe
Used neoclassicism for additions to the white house and U.S. Capital
Opium War
War in china that resulted in further trading rights given to the British, which the US looked at with much jealousy.
Winfield Scott
Whig nominee of election of 1852. ablest general at the time
Lincoln's spot resolution
While serving as a congressman from Illinois, Abraham Lincoln, a Whig produced the spot resolutions to request information as regarding the precise "spot" on American soil, where American blood was shed in response to Polk's message to Congress saying "American blood upon the American soil." This moved Congress and the entire nation to move towards war although Polk had made this up, American blood had been spilled on land Mexico considered to be theirs. As a result of his resolutions, Lincoln was called "spotty Lincoln," who could die of "spotted fever."
Susan B. Anthony
Women's suffrage
William H. Seward
a strong antislaveryite who came out against concession. Argued that Christian legislators must obey God's moral law as well as man's mundane law, and appealed to an even higher law than the Constitution (while talking about slavery in territories)
Underground Railroad
a system of secret routes used by escaping slaves to reach freedom in the North or in Canada South lost slaves to it and North advocated it
Franklin Pierce
a very weak figure, served in Mexican War, nominated by Democrats in election of 1852, a prosouth northerner
The Liberator
an antislavery newspaper, published by Garrison, triggered a 30 year war of words, factor of the Civil War, displayed Garrisons colors and proclaimed that under no circumstances would he tolerate slavery
Wilmot Proviso
an attempt to ban slavery in lands taken from Mexico, failed to pass through the senate, but was endorsed by all but one of the free states, symbolizing the conflict. south didn't want to be robbed of future slave states and antislavery men fought for exclusion of slaves, this was never a federal law was endorsed by legislatures of all but one free state, symbolized burning issue of slavery in the territories
Edward Everett
an eminent Boston scholar and orator who placed a draped Apollo sculpture in his home
Grimke Sisters
antislavery
John C. Calhoun
believed that slavery would, if not prevented by some timely and effective measure, end in disunion. He wanted to leave slavery alone, return runaway slaves, give South its rights as a minority, and create a system in which there were two presidents: one from the North and one from the South.
Charles Bulfinch
designed the Massachusetts State House
The Financial Crash of 1857
drove a bigger gap between the North and South. The North was not doing well during the panic while the South was stable. This made the South realize that there economy was stable: they could survive on their own.
Deism
elied on reason and science rather than revelation and the Bible. They believed in a Supreme Being and the capacity humans have for moral behavior. include Jefferson, Franklin, and Thomas Paine.
Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell
first female graduate of medical college
Fugitive-Slave Law
fleeing slaves could not testify in their own behalf, and they were denied a jury trial. Northerners who helped runaway slaves could be subject to fines or even jail time. The capturing of Anthony Burns, a runaway slave from Virginia, Many states in the North moved towards nullifying the law, and nearly pushed the North to raise arms.
William H. Prescott, Francis Parkman
histories of Mexican/Peruvian conquest, wars between Britain and France, etc.
Ostend Manifesto
implemented after Spain seized a US steamer stipulated that the US would offer $120 million for Cuba. If Spain refused but continued to endanger US interests, the US would forcibly seize Cuba
Thomas Jefferson
inspired by Andrea Palladio in building his Virginia hilltop home, Monticello
William Walker
led the Southern charge over trying to successfully conquer land for more slaves in the Caribbean. proclaimed himself president of Nicaragua in 1856 but was later dethroned by a coalition of Central American nations.
Seventh of March Speech
made by Daniel Webster in 1850, helped turn the tide in the North towards compromise. It was especially pleasing to the banking and commercial centers in the North.
free blacks
many owned property (mostly in New Orleans), but in some parts of the south they couldn't work certain jobs, couldn't testify in court against a white, and always vulnerable into being hijacked back into slavery.
Gilbert Stuart
moved back to America from England and painted idealized and dehumanized versions of Washington, including the one dollar bill
Mexican War
ohn C. Fremont, an explorer, aided the American naval officers in overthrowing Mexican rule, hoisting the banner of the short lived California Bear Flag Republic. Zachary Taylor meanwhile kept pushing onwards. He reached Buena Vista around February 22-23, 1847. His weakened force of 5000 men was attacked by some twenty thousand march-weary troops under Santa Anna. The Mexicans were finally repulsed with extreme difficulty. American strategy now called for a crushing blow to Mexico City. The command of the main expedition was entrusted to General Winfield Scott.
Charles Willson Peale
painted 60 portraits of Washington
Louis Daguerre
perfected the crude photograph as the daguerreotype
Lewis Cass
picked by the Democratic National Convention to be the Democratic nominee, veteran of War of 1812, father of Popular Sovereignty
Henry Clay
proposed and skillfully defended a series of compromises, and argued that the North and South both make concessions and that the North partially yield by enacting a more feasible fugitive-slave law.
Washington Irving
published the Knickerbocker's History of New York and The Sketch Book and immortal gothic tales. Called the ambassador of the new and old world through letters
John Trumbull
recreated heroic scenes from the revolutionary war
Treaty of Kanagawa
signed in 1854 after Commodore Perry met with the Japanese leaders. This treaty gave the US even more trading rights within eastern Asia.
Clayton-Bulwer Treaty
stipulated that neither the British nor the US would seek exclusive rights on any Central American canals
Treaty of Wanghia
the US claimed many new trading and moral rights with the Chinese.
Popular Sovereignty
the idea that the sovereign people of a territory, under Constitution, should determine the status of slavery within their state
Daniel Webster
urged all reasonable concessions to the South, including a new fugitive-slave law "with teeth." Wanted compromise, concession, and sweet reasonableness.
Nat Turner
visionary black preacher who led a rebellion on August 21, 1831 in Virginia that led to the death of around 60 white people, mostly women and children, retaliations were swift and bloody but it was stopped
Lecompton Constitution
whatever the territory voted, either free state or pro-slavery, it still legalized all slaves already there.
William Cullen Bryant
wrote exceptional poetry like "Thanatopsis" and edited the New York Evening Post
George Bancroft
wrote ten volume history of US
