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Missouri Compromise
Creates state of Maine and admits it as a free state so that Missouri can be accepted as slave state. And Slavery would be banned north of Missouri's southern border or the 36º30' latitude line -
Texan Independence: In 1829 Mexico freed its slaves, this clashed with the beliefs of American-texan. By 1835 there were 35,000 Americans +5,000 slaves in Texas compared to only 5,000 Mexicans.
Mexican President Santa Anna tried to enforce power over texas and texans responded by declaring independence in the winter of '35. Santa Anna marched north with a large army which was met by a defense of some 187 texans by March they were defeated. An american army led by Sam houston however came to aid and defeated the mexcians by April 1836 at the Battle of San Jacinto. Santa Anna was captured and forced to recognise Texan independence -
Texas joins the Union
After becoming independent texas had wanted to join the union however accepting it into the union would mean the Slave states' power would grow considerably Jackson and van Buren both avoided this political hot potato and did nothing. For the 1844 campaign democrat Polk promised to add to the union texas and oregon. Outgoing president Tyler wanting to leave a mark prepared a resolution for the annexation of Texas that passed in Congress in 1845 -
Manifest Destiny
Polk wished to annex California and New Mexico too. The Mexican population was small and Americans were starting to settle here. Many believed it was the god given right of americans to expand westwards Manifest Destiny -
Start of Mexican War: Mexican War: USA had much stronger industrial base than Mexico and a higher military potential than. Mexico was also poorly led and ill-equipped.
USA:
- Stronger artillery
- its pool of junior officers, most of whom had been well trained at West Point
- Naval Supremacy
- Enthusiastic southern and western volunteers
Summer of 1846 US cavalry, led by Colonel Kearney,
marched unopposed into Santa Fe and proclaimed the
annexation of New Mexico. Kearney then set off to California. By the time he arrived the province was largely under US control. Polk hoped General Santa Anna would finally surrender but he refused to do so -
Outbreak of mexican war: Texan annexation angered mexico, the usa also inherited the problem of disputed boundaries between mexico and texas.
One long-standing US grievance was the failure of the Mexican government to pay some $2 million in debts it owed to American citizens.
Polk's ambition to expand westwards and the ever-changing mexican government made it difficult for relations to improve.
Polk sent US troops into the disputed area of Rio Grande hoping to have the mexicans draw first blood so he could justify starting a war. In May 1846 mexicans soldiers ambushed and wounded 16 men and war started with Congress's approval. -
Wilmot Proviso: David Wilmot, a Democrat from Pennsylvania, proposed that slavery should be excluded from any territory gained from Mexico. They weren't abolitionist they simply thought Polk was too pro-south.
Whilst keen on a Mexican war he hadn't pursued the Oregon territory. Instead an agreement had been reached whereby Britain took the area north of the 49th parallel: the USA took southern Oregon. It would have been foolish to have fought both Mexico and Britain. But Northern Democrats felt that this symbolised his pro-Southern bias.
Passed in Congress but not the senate so didn't become law -
Calhoun Doctrine
a series of resolutions in which he claimed Congress had no authority to place restrictions on slavery in the territories. If the Northern majority continued to dictate over the rights of the Southern minority, the Southern states would have little option but to secede -
End of Mexican War
US War heroes Zachary Taylor and Winfield Scott. Taylor won a series of victories over Santa Anna in 1846 and then defeated the Mexicans at the battle of Buena Vista in February 1847. General Scott, with only 11,000 men, marched 260 miles inland over difficult terrain, storming several fortresses before capturing Mexico City in September 1847.
War cost americans $100 million and 13,000 casualties (85% due to diseases) -
Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo
California and New Mexico were ceded to the USA.
The US agreed to pay Mexico $15 million and to pay the claims of American citizens against Mexico, amounting to some $3.25 million. Despite winning everything Polk had gone to war over he thought more land could have been gained, he considered rejecting the treaty but given Northern opinion he acquiesced -
1848 Elections
Polk worn out by constant opposition decided not to run for re-election. so the democrats went with Lewis Cass and supported popular sovereignty. The whigs nominated Zachary Taylor (war hero and Louisiana slave owner).To avoid a split between its Northern and Southern wings, the Whig Party had no national platform on slavery expansion.
Van Buren ran for the Free soil party (included all anti-slavery por Wilmot Proviso people)
Taylor wins with 47.5% and 163 electoral votes -
Calhoun's "Address to the People of the Southern States"
It was an effort to unite all southern congressmen under the 'Southern Cause'. The Address essentially condemned northern aggression and defended slavery. His tactic failed as most placed there confidence in Taylor. -
Gold Rush
Thousands of settlers rushed to California with the discovery of Gold, within months there were 100,000 settlers and it applied for statehood.New Mexico had fewer people.
However, thousands of Mormons had settled around Salt Lake City in 1846–7. -
Zachary Taylor's moves: Even though he was a slave owner he was determined to act in a way that benefitted the nation as a whole.
Hoping that a quick solution to the California–New Mexico problem might reduce tensions, he encouraged settlers in the areas to frame constitutions and apply immediately for admission to the Union without first establishing territorial governments. He was confident people in both states would vote to be free. He wasn't an abolitionist but this way he hoped to calm the debate pleasing northerners and southerners given individual states were deciding whether they would be free or slave states. -
California ratifies a constitution abolishing slavery. It also applies for admission to the union. Taylor was also ready to admit New Mexico even though it didn't have enough people to enter. Another problem was New Mexico's disputed borders with Texas
North and Taylor supported New Mexico and Texan rights were supported by Southerners. A clash seemed imminent. Southerners:
- Excluded from territory gained
- Territories shouldn't be admitted as free states without compensating the South
- Oct 1849 Mississippi called to all slave states to meet at Nashville in June 1850 to devise and adopt ‘some mode
of resistance to Northern aggression’.
- Northerners weren't following the Fugitive Slave Act
Northerners:
- Slavery still existed in Washington -
The Compromise of 1850
Proposed by Henry Clay
- California was to be admitted as a free state
- Utah and New Mexico were to be organised as territories without any mention of, or restriction on, slavery
- Slave-trading but not slavery itself should end in Washington
- A more strict Fugitive Slave Act should be passed
- In order to resolve the Texas–New Mexico dispute, Texas
should surrender the disputed land to New Mexico. In return
Congress would assume the $10 million public debt that Texas still owed -
Period: to
Debates on The Compromise
- Clay gave a four hour speech in February warning the South against secession and that nature would check slavery better than Wilmot provisos
- Calhoun seriously ill so his speech is instead read by Senator Mason (4 of March, month later he died) he argued that the south would have no option but to secede if the north kept threatening
- Webster (69 years old) hoped also for a compromise to extend an olive branch
- Clay gave a four hour speech in February warning the South against secession and that nature would check slavery better than Wilmot provisos
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Nashville Convention
Delegates from 9 slave states meet at Nashville
6 slave states didn't send delegates. There was little enthusiasm for secession in the convention. Moderates took over and isolated the extremists.
The Nashville Convention had little impact -
Zachary Taylor dies of gastroenteritis
This has a huge impact as Fillmore takes over, he is much more moderate. If Taylor had lived civil war would've probably ensued. He supported the Compromise unlike Taylor. -
Henry Clay's Compromise of 1850 is defeated
Mainly because northern congressmen who didn't want to be seen as giving in to the South voted against it -
Stephen Douglas ("Little Giant") takes over from Henry Clay
Compromise bill split and passed as separate bills
By Sept:
• statehood for California
• territorial status for Utah and New Mexico, allowing popular sovereignty
• resolution of the Texas–New Mexico boundary dispute (this one is slightly tweaked to satisfy southerners)
• abolition of the slave trade in Washington
• a new Fugitive Slave Act -
Fugitive Slave Act
Reforms the 1793 act, makes it harsher, people more likely to comply. Was the compromise the Democrats had to reach in order for the 1850 compromise to pass Posses could be formed that had to hunt down slaves, failure to do so meant a 1000$ fine (A lot of money, basically would ruin you) Increases Sectional Tension as northern citizens believe this is yet another example of Slave power (the economic, social and political influence held by slaveholders in the Southern United States) -
Uncle Tom's Cabin: Novel by Harriet Beecher Stowe (sells 300,000 copies)). An abolitionist novel, it achieved wide popularity, particularly among white readers in the North, by vividly dramatizing the experience of slavery
Uncle Tom, while being transported by boat to auction in New Orleans, Tom saves the life of Little Eva, whose grateful father then purchases Tom. Eva and Tom soon become great friends. Always frail, Eva’s health begins to decline rapidly, and on her deathbed she asks her father to free all his enslaved people. He makes plans to do so but is then killed, and the brutal Simon Legree, Tom’s new owner, has Tom whipped to death after he refuses to divulge the whereabouts of certain escaped slaves. -
Gadsden Purchase
More land from Mexico because they wanted a southern transcontinental rail line -
Bleeding Kansas
(1854–59), small civil war in the United States, fought between proslavery and antislavery advocates for control of the new territory of Kansas under the doctrine of popular sovereignty. Kansas was given popular sovereignty to decide over the slavery issue. As a consequence, free-soil forces from the North formed armed emigrant associations to populate Kansas, while proslavery advocates poured over the border from Missouri, each looking to sway the vote in their favour. -
Republican party is created
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Kansas-Nebraska Act
Allowed for two new territories north of the Missouri Compromise line to decide if they wanted to be salve or free states (Popular sovereignty) -
Topeka Government
‘Free-state’ or ‘free-soil’ settlers in Kansas, denying the validity of the pro-slavery legislature, set up their own government at Topeka. The free-staters were divided, y between ‘moderates’ and ‘fanatics’. The (minority) ‘fanatics’ held abolitionist views, the ‘moderates’ were openly racist: the main reasons they were anti-slavery was that it would result in an influx of blacks. The Topeka government, dominated by moderates, banned blacks, slave or free, from Kansas. -
Sack of Lawrence, part of Bleeding Kansas
A proslavery mob swarmed into the town of Lawrence and wrecked and burned the hotel and newspaper office in an effort to wipe out the “hotbed of abolitionism.” The day after the attack on Lawrence the Caning of Sumner took place -
Caning of Charles Sumner (AKA Brooks-Sumner Affair)
A representative Preston Brooks of the House of Representatives entered the Senate Chamber and savagely beat a senator into unconsciousness Brooks was Butler's South Carolina kinsman, whom Sumner had defamed (alongside Stephen Douglas) in his "Crime Against Kansas" speech . He chose a light cane of the type used to discipline unruly dogs. Beat him for over a minute. Brooks died a year later whilst sumner remained in the Senate for 18 more years -
Pottawatomie Massacre
Murder of five men from a proslavery settlement on Pottawatomie Creek, by an antislavery party led by the abolitionist John Brown and composed largely of men of his family. In response to the sacking of Lawrence -
Lecompton Constitution
Instrument framed in Lecompton, Kansas, by Southern pro-slavery advocates of Kansas statehood. It contained clauses protecting slaveholding and a bill of rights excluding free blacks. -
Dred Scott Decision. Legal case in which the U.S. Supreme Court (5 Southerners) ruled (7–2) that a slave (Dred Scott) who had resided in a free state and territory was not thereby entitled to his freedom
That African Americans were not and could never be citizens of the United States; and that the Missouri Compromise (1820), which had declared free all territories west of Missouri and north of latitude 36°30′, was unconstitutional
Pres.
Buchanan was told by Chief Justice Roger Taney the decision two days before it was public and he encouraged people to accept the decision (as if he didn't know before hand) this is clear collusion of the legislative with the executive branch. -
Lincoln Douglas Debates
Aug 21-Oct 15
Part of the 1858 Illinois senate race which Lincoln lost
Attended by 72,000 people
Lincoln: Slavery shouldn't be allowed to expand westwards
Douglas: Forcing abolition would be undemocratic
Debates cements Lincoln's popularity -
Raid of Harper's Ferry
With Tubman Brown planned an attack on slaveholders, as well as a United States military armory
22 men in all, including his sons Owen and Watson, and several freed enslaved people 4 Harpers Ferry citizens killed, including mayor.
A militia made up of men from the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad arrived in town and assisted in countering Brown’s attack. Brown was forced to move his remaining men and their captives to the armory’s engine house, a building that later became known as John Brown’s Fort -
John Brown hanged aged 59
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Democrat Government of Buchanan is found guilty of fraud by a House investigative committee. This damages Democrats chances of re-election
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1860 presidential election
Lincoln (Hannibal Hamlin runs as his vice-president) wins with 39% of popular vote and 60% of the electoral vote and becomes the first republican president.
And wins with an electoral majority from only northern states -
Reasons for Republican win in 1860
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Congress meets to try to reach a compromise.Sets up committees to explore solutions. The Senate Committee of 13, on which Kentucky unionist John Crittenden played a significant role, was more effective, creating the Crittenden proposal:
- Extend the Missouri Compromise line to the Pacific, slavery would be recognised south of 36°30′ in all present territories, as well as those ‘hereafter acquired’
- The Crittenden proposals recommended a constitutional amendment guaranteeing that there would be no interference with slavery in those states where it already existed
- Congress would be forbidden to abolish slavery in Washington and would not be allowed to interfere with the inter-state slave trade
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South Carolina Secedes
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Missisipi Secedes
85-15 votes -
Florida
62-7 votes -
Alabama Secedes
62-39 votes -
Georgia Secedes
208-89 votes -
Louisiana Secedes
113-17 votes -
Texas secedes (Only place where a referendum was held)
Despite Opposition of Governor, secession went head 166-8 votes. A referendum was then held to ratify secession were 77% of the population voted in favour of seceding -
Lincoln on Slavery and Secession
I say now ... as I have all the while said, that on the territorial question – that is, the question of extending slavery under the national auspices – I am inflexible. I am for no compromise which assists or permits the extension of the institution on soil owned by the nation
However in a letter to his soon to be secretary of state in Feb he admitted that he was ready to be flexible on things such as the fugitive slave act,
and slavery in Washington Lincoln believed Slave power theory -
Virginia Peace Convention
At request from Virginia convention meets in Washington to see if it could bring back seceded states. 133 delegates met (none from the confederacy) proposals were similar to those of Crittenden and were ignored by Congress