Manifest Destiny and Sectional Tensions

1. Manifest Destinyand Sectional Tensions Period 5 – 1844 to 1867

2. Manifest Destiny • “Away, away with these cobweb tissues of the rights of discovery, exploration, settlement,… [The American claim] is by the right of our manifest destiny to overspread and to possess the whole of the continent which Providence has given us for the development of the great experiment of liberty…” • - John L. Sullivan, Democratic Review, 1845 Fort Laramie, Alfred Jacob Miller (1858-1860)

3. Overland Trails

4. Texas Revolution • American settlement • Fueled by Manifest Destiny • Encouraged by Mexican government • Texas Revolution (1836) • Santa Anna’s policies • The Alamo (Feb-Mar 1836) • Battle of San Jacinto (Apr 21, 1836)

5. Second Party System (1828-1854) Anti-Masonic Party: issue party concerned about Freemasons promoted economic nationalism and social conservatism Liberty Party: abolitionist party Free Soil Party: Prevent expansion of slavery Andrew Jackson Henry Clay • Democrats: • States’ rights • Limited government • Laissez-faire • Expansionism • Pro-slavery • Equal opportunity • South and West • Yeoman farmers, working class, southern planters, immigrants • Whigs: • American System • Strong federal government • Mixed on slavery • Social conservatives • New England • Upper and middle class professionals, evangelical Protestants

6. Taney Court • Chief Justice Roger Taney • Appointed by Andrew Jackson • Slave owner • Ideology • States’ rights • Limited government • Major Cases • Charles River Bridge v. Warren Bridge (1837) • Scott v. Sandford (1857) • Ex parte Merryman (1861)

7. Election of 1840 William Henry Harrison (W) “Tippecanoe and Tyler Too” “Log Cabin and Hard Cider” Martin Van Buren (D) Suffers from Panic of 1837

8. Sectionalist PresidentsWilliam Henry Harrison (W) (1841) Campaign A war hero and hero of the common man Reality Wealthy plantation and slave owner Administration Intended to re-establish and promote American System policies Lasts one month after contracting pneumonia John Tyler assumes presidency

9. Sectionalist PresidentsJohn Tyler (W) (1841-1845) “His Accidency” Assumes full presidential powers A Democrat in Whig Clothing Slave owner from Virginia Rejects American System policies Passionately pursues Texas annexation Webster-Ashburton Treaty (1842) Settles boundary disputes with Great Britain

10. Election of 1844 • James K. Polk (D) • Darkhorse candidate • Expansion platform • Henry Clay (W) • Avoided direct expansionist rhetoric

11. Sectionalist PresidentsJames K. Polk (D) (1845-1849) Jacksonian Democrat, slave owner, and ardent expansionist Agenda Independent national treasury Lower tariffs Oregon California Oregon “54’ 40 or Fight!” 49th Parallel Mexican-American War (1848) Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo Mexican Cession

12. Election of 1848 • Zachary Taylor (W) • Slave owner • War hero • Lewis Cass (D) • Martin van Buren (FSP)

13. Parameters Admit California as free state Mexican Cession Popular sovereignty Reinforced Fugitive Slave Law Texas boundary and debt disputes Slave trade abolished in D.C. “I trust we shall persist in our resistance [to the admission of California] until the restoration of all our rights, or disunion, one or the other is the consequence. We have borne the wrongs and insults of the North long enough.” - John C. Calhoun Compromise of 1850

14. Fugitive Slave Law • Enforcement of capturing and returning escaped slaves • Slaves flee to Canada • Right to trial by jury denied • Special Commission • $10 for those finding for slaveholder • $5 for those finding for fugitive

15. Underground Railroad • Mostly run by free blacks and fugitive slaves • Harriet Tubman • Abolitionists and white supporters • Few white families in South assisted • Slave catchers knowledge

16. Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852) • Harriet Beacher Stowe • “I would write something that would make this whole nation feel what an accursed thing slavery is.” • Bestselling novel • Adapted as a play • Fuels abolitionist guilt and rhetoric in Northern free states

17. Slavery and Literature Anti-Slavery Arguments Pro-Slavery Arguments Sociology for the South, or the Failure of Free Society (1854) – George Fitzhugh “But the chief and far most important enquiry is, how does slavery affect the condition of the slave? One of the wildest sects of Communists in France proposes not only to hold all property in common, but to divide the profits, not according to each man’s in-put and labor, but according to each man’s wants. Now this is precisely the system of domestic slavery with us. We provide for each slave, in old age and in infancy, in sickness and in health, not according to his labor, but according to his wants. The master’s wants are more costly and refined, and he therefore gets a larger share of the profits. A Southern farm is the beau ideal of Communism;” “There is no rivalry, no competition to get employment among slaves, as among free laborers. Nor is there a war between master and slave. The master’s interest prevents his reducing the slave’s allowance or wages in infancy or sickness, for he might lose the slave by so doing. His feeling for his slave never permits him to stint him in old age. The slaves are all well fed, well clad, have plenty of fuel, and are happy. They have no dread of the future – no fear of want. A state of dependence is the only condition in which reciprocal affection can exist among human beings – the only situation in which the war of competition ceases, and peace, amity and good will arise. A state of independence always begets more or less of jealous rivalry and hostility.” Cannibals All! (1857) – George Fitzhugh "the unrestricted exploitation of so-called free society is more oppressive to the laborer than domestic slavery." • Uncle Tom’s Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe • Moral and emotional argument against slavery • Impending Crisis of the South (1857) • Hinton Helper • Empirical analysis of economic impact of slavery on the South • “Freesoilers and abolitionists are the only true friends of the South; slaveholders and slave-breeders are downright enemies of their own section. Anti-slavery men are working for the Union and for the good of the whole world; proslavery men are working for the disunion of the States, and for the good of nothing except themselves."

18. Sectionalist PresidentsZachary Taylor (W) (1849-1850) War hero of Mexican-American War States’ rights, but no secession Views on Slavery Slave owner No expansion of slavery Refused to sign Compromise of 1850 Died after a year in office

19. Sectionalist PresidentsMillard Fillmore (W) (1850-1853) Assumes the presidency after Taylor’s death Anti-slave moderate Signs Compromise of 1850 Perry Expedition to Japan (1853-1854)

20. The Death of Compromising? • The Great Triumvirate was no more by 1852 • A new generation of sectional and ambitious politicians assume leadership roles William Seward (W, R) Stephen Douglas (D) Jefferson Davis (D)

21. Election of 1852 • Franklin Pierce (D) • “Doughface” • Winfield Scott (W)

22. Sectionalist PresidentsFranklin Pierce (D) (1853-1857) Jackson Democrat from New Hampshire Doughface Supported Compromise of 1850 Gadsden Purchase Ostend Manifesto (1854) Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854) William Walker and Nicaragua

23. Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854) • Stephen Douglas and Chicago • Parameters • Separate Nebraska Territory into Nebraska and Kansas • Each territory voted for slavery based on popular sovereignty • Impact • Douglas won his railroad and Southern support • Virtually repealed the Missouri Compromise • Ended the Whig Party and Second Party System

24. Bleeding Kansas (1854-1861) • Kansas Territory settled by two groups • Free-Soilers • Border Ruffians • A virtual civil war between anti-slave and pro-slave local governments • Sacking of Lawrence • Pottawatomie Massacre • Pierce and federal government barely addressed the issue A Tragic Prelude, John Steuart Curry, 1937

25. Brooks-Sumner IncidentMay 22, 1856 • Senator Charles Sumner (R) (MA) • ‘Crime Against Kansas’ Speech • Rep. Preston Brooks (D) (SC) • Becomes a Southern hero

26. The Republican Party • Makeup • Disillusioned Northern Democrats • Frustrated Conscience Whigs • Free Soil Party members • Platform: • Increasingly against expansion of slavery • Protective tariffs • Homestead Act/sale of federal lands • Funding for transcontinental railroad

27. Scott v. Sandford (1857) • “[Blacks] had for more than a century before been regarded as beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations, and so far unfit that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect.” • " . . . We think they [people of African ancestry] are . . . not included, and were not intended to be included, under the word "citizens" in the Constitution, and can therefore claim none of the rights and privileges which that instrument provides for and secures to citizens of the United States. . . ." • “For if they were so received, and entitled to the privileges and immunities of citizens, it would exempt them from the operation of the special laws and from the police regulations which they considered to be necessary for their own safety. It would give to persons of the negro race, who were recognized as citizens in any one State of the Union, the right to enter every other State whenever they pleased...to go where they pleased at every hour of the day or night without molestation, unless they committed some violation of law for which a white man would be punished; and it would give them the full liberty of speech in public and in private upon all subjects upon which its own citizens might speak; to hold public meetings upon political affairs, and to keep and carry arms wherever they went. And all of this would be done in the face of the subject race of the same color, both free and slaves, and inevitably producing discontent and insubordination among them, and endangering the peace and safety of the State.” • “. . . [T]he rights of private property have been guarded with . . . care. Thus the rights of property are united with the rights of person, and placed on the same ground by the fifth amendment to the Constitution, which provides that no person shall be deprived of life, liberty, and property, without due process of law. And an act of Congress which deprives a citizen of the United States of his liberty or property, merely because he came himself or brought his property into a particular Territory of the United States, and who had committed no offence against the laws, could hardly be dignified with the name of due process of law.” • “Upon these considerations, it is the opinion of the court that the act of Congress which prohibited a citizen from holding and owning property of this kind in the territory of the United States north of the line therein mentioned, is not warranted by the Constitution, and is therefore void; and that neither Dred Scott himself, nor any of his family, were made free by being carried into this territory; even if they had been carried there by the owner, with the intention of becoming a permanent resident.”

28. Election of 1856 • James Buchanan (D) • “Doughface” • John Fremont (R) • Election results establish Republican Party as legitimate national party • Millard Fillmore (KNP)

29. Sectionalist PresidentsJames Buchanan (D) (1857-1861) “Doughface” Supported Kansas-Nebraska Act Involved himself in Dred Scott decision Lecompton Constitution (Kansas)

30. John Brown and Harpers Ferry (1859) • "I, John Brown, am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but with blood. I had, as I now think, vainly flattered myself that without very much bloodshed it might be done."

31. Election of 1860 • Abraham Lincoln (R) • Stephen Douglas (D) • Northern Democrats • John Breckinridge (D) • Southern Democrats • John Bell (CU) • Coalition of Cotton Whigs and Know-Nothing