Ch. 18: Renewing the Sectional Struggle

1. Ch. 18: Renewing the Sectional Struggle

2. 1. The Popular Sovereignty Panacea • Whigs and Democrats still had supporters from both the North and South, and neither party openly discussed the issue of slavery. • President Polk steps down after serving 1 term. • Democrats ran Lewis Cass: a supporter of leaving the slavery issue up to voters. • However, popular sovereignty might spread slavery…

3. 2. Political Triumphs for General Taylor • Whigs nominated General Zachary Taylor AKA “Old Rough and Ready.” • Taylor owned slaves. • This made both candidates too pro-slave for antislavery voters.

4. 2. New Political Triumphs for General Taylor • Free Soil party was formed by antislavery men in the North. • Spoke openly against slavery in new territories and wanted to make internal improvements and offer free land. • Worried slave labor would keep whites from rising up the social ladder. • Nominated Van Buren. • Who it attracted: • Industrialists against Polk’s tariff reduction • Northern Democrats • Racist western settlers • “Conscience Whigs”

5. 2. New Political Triumphs for General Taylor • Zachary Taylor wins 1848 Election!

6. 3. “Californy Gold” • Tens of thousands pour into California after discovery of gold in 1848. • Crime was common. Many murders, robberies, and vigilante killings occurred. • California applies to the Union as a free state- puts the South in an uproar.

7. 4. Sectional Balance and the Underground Railroad • With admission of California, the balance between free and slave states would give the North more power in the Senate. • Worried other Mexican Cession states like New Mexico and Utah would follow. • Underground Railroad carried thousands of runaways through safe houses to Canada. • Harriet Tubman • Caused the South to demand a strict Fugitive Slave Law.

8. 5. Twilight of the Senatorial Giants • “Fire-eaters” in South already demanding secession in 1850. • Trio of Calhoun, Clay, and Webster try to prevent war before they all die (seriously). • Calhoun’s idea was to elect two presidents- one from the North and one from the South. • Daniel Webster’s Seventh of March Speech (1850) convinced the North to compromise by enacting a tougher fugitive slave law. • Abolitionists called him a traitor.

9. 6. Deadlock and Danger on Capitol Hill • “Young Guard” from the North wanted to purify the Union, not preserve it. • William H. Seward, antislavery NY senator, encouraged Congress to follow a “higher law” than that of the Constitution. • Presidents Taylor agreed. Threatened to veto a compromise. • Meanwhile, Civil War almost begins when Taylor threatens to invade Texas if it tried to take Santa Fe. • Thankfully(?!) Taylor dies and war is averted.

10. 7. Breaking the Congressional Logjam • Millard Fillmore becomes president after Taylor’s death, signing the Compromise of 1850 into effect. • South and North are both angry, but their representatives were more concerned with preserving the Union.

11. 8. Balancing the Compromise Scales • Who got the better end of the deal in the Compromise of 1850? • The North received California as a free state permanently upsetting balance in Senate. • The South won the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850. • Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 • did not allow runaways to testify in their own trials which could not have juries. • any abolitionist supporters could be fined/jailed. • States set up “personal liberty laws” making the law tough to enforce locally. • True problem w/this law: It made the North more anti-slavery and anti-South.

13. 9. Defeat and Doom for the Whigs • Democrats nominated Franklin Pierce of New Hampshire. • Weak, indecisive. Supported Compromise of 1850. • Whigs nominated Winfield Scott AKA “Old Fuss and Feathers” • Personality repelled votes, also praised Compromise. • Winner of Election of 1852: Pierce! • Whig party was split into southern and northern factions. • This election marks the end of the Whig party.

14. RIP Whigs

15. 10. President Pierce the Expansionist • US was still in the mood for a little Manifest Destiny… • “Slavocrats” wanted more potential slave territory. • William Walker seized Nicaragua with southern soldiers in 1856. • Central Americans planned to overthrow him, Pierce withdrew support • Meanwhile on the Pacific… • Contacts established with China • Commodore Matthew C. Perry commanded a fleet of warships to open up isolationist Japan to US trade in 1854

16. 11. Coveted Cuba: Pearl of the Antilles • South also saw sugar producing Cuba as a prime target for Manifest Destiny. • Spanish easily put down two southern “filibustering” missions. Seized Black Warrior steamship. • Ostend Manifesto urged US to declare war if Spain would not accept $120 million for Cuba. • Manifesto leaked and outraged Free Soilers

17. 12. Pacific Railroad Promoters and the Gadsden Purchase • Many feared California would break away without adequate transportation. The solution was a transcontinental railroad. • Best route would run South, so James Gadsden was appointed minister to Mexico to negotiate the Gadsden Purchase in 1853 for $ 10 million.

18. 13. Douglas’s Kansas-Nebraska Scheme • Senator Stephen A. Douglas (Illinois) AKA “The Little Giant” wanted railroad to pass through Chicago. • Helped pass Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854) which allowed Nebraska and Kansas to decide on slavery issue at the polls, even though both would undo the Missouri Compromise line of 36˚, 30’. • Critics in the North called him Judas, traitor.

19. 14. Congress Legislates a Civil War • Kansas-Nebraska Act and Fugitive Slave Law grew the ranks of antislavery movement. • Republican Party earned new support in the Mid-West, Michigan, Wisconsin. • Included ex-Whigs like Abraham Lincoln and other enemies of the Kansas- Nebraska Act • Overnight, it became a sectional (Northern) party. • This is not good for the Union….