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Election of 1848 |
Candidates: 1. Zachary Taylor-winner, honest, ignorant (whig- popular because he was the hero of Mexican War, north: he was a whig, south: owned many slaves) 2. Martin Van Buren (Free Soil Party- made slavery an issue) 3. Lewis Cass-father of popular sovereignty (Democrat). Zachary Taylor became president, died in office, making his vice president Millard Fillmore president |
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Popular Sovereignty |
The concept that political power rests with the people who can create, alter, and abolish government. People express themselves through voting and free participation in government |
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Free Soil Party |
Part of Republican Party, distrusted both Cass and Taylor, Wilmot Proviso – internal improvements -against slavery -free government homesteads for settlers |
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Wilmot Proviso |
Dispute over whether any Mexican territory that America won during the Mexican War should be free or a slave territory. A representative named David Wilmot introduced an amendment stating that any territory acquired from Mexico would be free. This amendment passed the House twice, but failed to ever pass in Senate. The "Wilmot Proviso", as it became known as, became a symbol of how intense dispute over slavery was in the U.S. and causes sectionalism |
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Slavery in California |
-mass migrations to California due to the discovery of gold -California wanted to become a state: slave or free? -migrated by lawless/virtue-less people -outbursts of crime -Constitution of 1849 -> no slavery (south got mad) -threats of secesssion |
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Mexican War |
after disputes over Texas lands that were settled by Mexicans the United States declared war on Mexico in 1846 because they would not sell the rest of America (Polk). It ended with Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848 took Texas and California and Arizona and New Mexico and Nevada and Utah and part of Colorado and paid Mexico $15,000,000 |
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Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo |
February 2 1848. The agreement between President Polk and the new Mexican government for Mexico to cede California and New Mexico to the US and acknowledge the Rio Grand as the boundary of Texas. In return, the US promised to assume any financial claims its new citizens had against Mexico and to pay the Mexicans $15 million. |
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Slidell Mission |
This was a last ditch attempt to gain California for America. Polk sent Slidell to offer a maximum of $25 million for it, but it was rejected by the Mexicans. This prompted Polk to provoke war with the Mexicans. |
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Gadsden Purchase |
The Gadsden Purchase was the 1853 treaty in which the United States bought from Mexico parts of what is now southern Arizona and southern New Mexico. Southerners wanted this land in order to build southern transcontinental railroad. The heated debate over this issue in the Senate demonstrates the prevalence of sectional disagreement. |
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Effects of the Underground Railroad |
– South wanted more stringent Fugitive Slave Laws -> started disobeying laws by congress – Inferiority because slaves kept on running away – threats of secession |
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Twilight of the Senatorial Giants |
The Famous Trio: Last time on stage ** Clay (Great Pacificator), Calhoun (Great Nullifier), Webster ** – Clay: Fugitive Slave Laws – Calhoun: leave slavery alone |
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Stephen A. Douglas |
Senator from Illinois who ran for president against Abraham Lincoln. Wrote the Kansas-Nebreaska Act and the Freeport Doctrine – "Little Giant" > third great compromise |
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Seventh of March |
An address given to the US senate by D. Webster. It was his last great speech in which he put aside his agreement with slavery in favor of his love for the Union. – for the south, traitor to abolitionists, fugitive slaw laws |
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Compromise of 1850 |
Forestalled the Civil War by instating the Fugitive Slave Act , banning slave trade in DC, admitting California as a free state, splitting up the Texas territory, and instating popular sovereignty in the Mexican Cession |
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Senator William H. Seward |
antislaveryite from New York, he stated that on the issue of slavery, there was a higher law than the Constitution |
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Millard Fillmore |
Successor of President Zachary Taylor after his death on July 9th 1850. He helped pass the Compromise of 1850 by gaining the support of Northern Whigs for the compromise. |
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Why did Union not want to go to war? |
– everything depended on south – Yankees resisted secession – material and moral strength |
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Election of 1852 |
In this, the Democrats nominated Franklin Pierce, and the Whigs nominated Winfield Scott. Pierce won the presidency because of the division in the whig party |
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Winfield Scott |
General in the Mexican-War; " Old Fuss and Feathers" ; succeeded in battling his way up to Mexico City by 1847. President because he could protect country |
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Franklin Pierce |
an American politician and the fourteenth President of the United States. Pierce’s popularity in the North declined sharply after he came out in favor of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, repealing the Missouri Compromise and reopening the question of the expansion of slavery in the West. (North felt betrayed and South could not trust him) |
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Clayton Bulwer Treaty |
1850 – Treaty between U.S. and Great Britain agreeing that neither country would try to obtain exclusive rights to a canal across the Isthmus of Panama. Abrogated by the U.S. in 1881. |
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Ostend Manifesto |
a declaration (1854) issued from Ostend, Belgium, by the U.S. ministers to England, France, and Spain, stating that the U.S. would be justified in seizing Cuba if Spain did not sell it to the U.S. **never carried out** |
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Transcontinental Railroad |
Railroad connecting the west and east coasts of the continental US Debate: will it go through south or north? -North because the south secedes and gets not say in the building of it |
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Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 |
Stephen A. Douglas – This Act set up Kansas and Nebraska as states. Each state would use popular sovereignty to decide what to do about slavery. People who were proslavery and antislavery moved to Kansas, but some antislavery settlers were against the Act. This began guerrilla warfare. – Missouri Compromise forbid slavery, so it was repealed > made Free Soilers mad and angers north |
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Whigs (1852) |
– favored BUS, internal improvements, public schools, industry -stop slavery > not abolition -aristocracy |
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Democrats (1852) |
– fugitive slave laws – state’s rights, individual rights |
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Omnibus Bill |
vote for a series of laws as a single package –> at first comp. 1850 is proposed this way bc everyone loses something by voting for it. Douglas breaks it up into parts then it passes. |
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