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Period 5 - Covers the time period from 1844 to 1877 and is pretty well…

- - - - Westward expansion into the Oregon territory. Now, both the British and the Americans claimed rights to this territory, and the British did so because they had established a profitable fur trade here. However, relatively few British folks actually lived in the territory, much greater number were the American settlers, mainly missionaries and farmers who had been settling there in the thousands. The reason Americans felt that they had claim to that territory was because of the Manifest Destiny. Then in the election of 1844, James K Polk became the president. This election is important because Polk was a big believer in manifest destiny. He made all sorts of campaign promises regarding Texas, Oregon, and California. Polk won that election and interpreted that as a mandate from the people to add those territories to the union. Seeing the way the sentiment of the country was going, the outgoing president, John Tyler, went ahead and scored a point for his legacy by pushing through the annexation of Texas. When Polk gained office, he took care of Oregon, splitting the territory with the British at the 49th parallel.
      - Mexican American War - Once Texas was officially annexed into the Union, it had the expected effect. Especially at stake in this conflict was the southern border of Texas. Americans claimed it was the Rio Grande, but Mexicans said that it was the Nueces River. The war began when President Polk sent in General Zachary Taylor to advance troops toward the Rio Grande. Mexican troops met them and ended up killing 11 Americans. On April 25th, 1846, the war officially began. Long story short, relatively small bands of American troops were able to gain enough ground against the Mexicans, and they even captured Mexico City in 1847 in order to claim California and New Mexico as territory of their own. The war ended with the signing of the Treaty of Guadalipe Hidalgo in 1848. This treaty established the southern border of the United States at the Rio Grande, and it granted a huge portion of land known as the Mexican Session to the United States which included Cali and New Mexico.
        
        During the first year of the war, an amendment was attached to an appropriations bill in Congress. It was called the Wilmott Proviso. It stipulated that any land that was gained from the Mexican American war would be ineligible for the spread of slavery. The amendment was struck down in the Senate, so nothing really came of it, but the importance of that proviso is in its symbolic value. What it symbolized was the growing tension over westward expansion and the question of slavery. That will be a major theme until it all erupts into a civil war. Westward migration continued after the Mexican American War. One of the significant drivers of that was the gold rush of 1848. Gold was discovered in the hills of California, and so settlers strained that new territory in haste, and they set up mining camps and ramshackle towns with incredible speed. Just to give a sense of scale, the California population in 1848 was about 14,000. By 1860, it was just under 400,000. As this is going on and further westward migration is happening in other territories. The question about the expansion of slavery was starting to heat up as well.
        
        Southerner Position - Argued that slavery was a constitutional right. They believed that with all this new territory, the line that divided free and slave states established in the Missouri compromise. ought to extend all the way to the Pacific. They were pretty sensitive about the slavery issue.
        
        Free Soil Position - Northern Democrats and Whigs wanted all the land gained in the West to be free territory. Their vision for Western lands was one of white opportunity and prosperity. Although they didn't want enslaved blacks in the west, many of them also didn't want free blacks in the west either. There were also abolitionists who not only wanted to ban slavery in the western territories, but everywhere. Some of them went on to form a new political part called the Free-Soil Party. Although not all were abolitionists, the cessation of slavery was certainly a significant piece of their platform
        
        Popular Sovereignty - It would be up to the people living in the territories to decide for themselves whether their slave state would be a free state or a slave state. Both Cali and New Mexico wanted to enter the Union as free states but that would be untenable because that would throw off the balance of free and slave states in the senate,
        
        Compromise of 1850 - Because of Cali and New Mexico throwing off the balance, Henry Clay stepped in and created a compromise to keep the union together. First, the Mexican cession would be divided into the Utah and New Mexico territories and each of them would decide the slavery question by popular sovereignty. Second, Cali would be admitted as a free state Third, the slave trade would be outlawed in Washinton D.C. And fourth, Congress passing a stricter Fugitive Slave Act enabling planters in the South to get their slaves back when they tried to escape to the North. This compromise did end up calming everybody down for a little while, but it was that provision for a Fugitive Slave Act that caused some serious problems. To northerners, slavery was a southern thing. There were lots of abolitionists in the North and they wanted to ban slavery everywhere. However, for many northerners, they weren't necessarily opposed to the institution of slavery, but they didn't want to spread it anywhere. However, with this Fugitive Slave law, slavery came right into their backyard. Now, northerners were legally responsible for reporting runaway slaves and facilitating their return. It was annoying for everybody in the north and it was an intolerable position especially for the abolitionists. Tensions just kept increasing from there.
        
        Example of tensions between northerners and southerners - The Underground railroad was picking up steam during this time. This was a series of trails and safe houses by which southern slaves were given safe passage to the north. Tens of thousands of slaves made this dangerous trek fleeing the plantations and to the great consternation of the plantation owners. The publication of Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel Uncle Tom's Cabin, it was a fictionalized account of southern slavery that exposed the brutal and paternalistic nature of the institution and quickly became the best-selling book in America. The popularity of this book helped stoke the northern fires of abolition, which in return further polarized the nation. Scott vs Sanford in 1857 the story in brief is that Dred Scott was a slave is Missouri but was taken by his enslaver to live for two years in the free state of Wisconsin. Therefore, Scott sued for his freedom, arguing that his time on free soil meant that he was in fact, a free man. Justice Roger Taney, a southern democrat, handed down a decision, along with the majority of the court ruling against Scott. First, they argue that slaves are not technically citizens and therefore are ineligible to sue in federal court. Second, slaves were considered property, and the constitution explicitly states that no person can be deprived of their property except by due process of law. John Brown was a militant abolitionist from Kansas and in 1859 he led a small group of followers on a raid at the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry. His goal was to seize weapons and ammunition and armed the southern slave population and then incite an uprising. Two days after the raid, the rebellion was squashed and John Brown was later hanged but the effect of this event was acute. In John Brown's raid, SOutherners thought they could finally discern the true intentions of the North to dismantle with slave rebellions.
        
        The passage of the Kansan Nebraska act in 1854. The Nebraska Territory was still unorganized, but her population was growing, and soon, it would be eligible to apply for statehood and then again, the slavery question would break everybody's mind. The Kansas Nebraska act divided the Nebraska territory into two sections, Kansas and Nebraska. Additionally, it was decided that when these territories applied. for statehood, the slavery question would be decided by popular sovereignty. That one decision set off a firestorm in the North because it effectively overturned the Missouri Compromise which had nigh onto scriptural authority for the Northerners. As a result of this act fighting broke out between the anti-slavery and the pro-slavery factions in that territory. This became known as bleeding Kansas. When it came time to set up a legislature for that state, Missouri, and started pouring over the border and set up a pro-slavery legislature in Compton. The anti-slavery folks refused to recognize the legitimacy of that legislature and set up their own legislature in Topeka. This further fueled the division between the rest of the country. One effect of the Kansas Nebraska fiasco was the birth of the Republican Party. There were a coalition of free soil and anti-slavery Whigs and Democrats and their main goal was to stop the spread of slavery.
        
        Refresher on the Missouri Compromise - it was decided in 1820 that there would be no slavery in the western territories above the southern border of Missouri, except in Missouri. Kansas and Nebraska dang squarely north of that line.
        
        The final event was the depth of America's sectional division being the election of 1860 - The Northern Democrats nominated Stephen Douglas as their candidate, and then the republicans went with Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln was explicit in his campaign rhetoric that he did not oppose slavery existing in the south. He just wanted to keep it from spreading. What's astonishing is that Lincoln won the presidency without a single Southern electoral vote, mainly owing to the North's larger population, and therefore its larger electoral strength. Southerners saw that they had no longer any voice in America's political future regarding slavery and therefore they went ahead and seceded from the Union. The First to secede was South Carolina in December of 1860, and within six weeks, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Texas, Mississippi, and Louisiana seceded to. Together, the secessionist states joined themselves together into the Confederate States of America. They wrote a constitution that was similar to the United States Constitution, with the main differences being a strict limitation on federal power and the enshrinement of slavery as a perpetual institution.
        
        Civil War - Once the shooting had begun at Fort Sumter, a few other states went ahead and joined the confederacy as well, namely Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas. Not every state that had slavery also seceded from the Union. Delaware, Missouri, Kentucky, and Maryland were slave states, but they did not secede and thus remained part of the union. Lincoln's goal explicitly was to save the Union. That's why it took him about a year and a half to make a proclamation to free the slaves. To do so, he would have alienated the slave border states that remain in the Union and Lincoln felt that to keep the border sates was vital to a Union victory. This tells us from the northern perspective that the war was not entirely about slavery at least not in the beginning. Both the north and the south had distinct advantage when it came to fighting this war. For the South, their main advantaged were fighting a defensive war and much better generals like Robert E Lee and Stonewall Jackson. North on the other hand had population on its side, which is to say about four times the amount of people than were in the South. The North also had a robust navy, which would enable them to control the seas and rivers. Additionally, the North had the economic advantage since they had most of the nation's banks, was home to much of the nation's manufacturing, and held about 70% of the nation's railroads. The final advantage was well-established central government and a very vigorous executive. So, when the south set up their own government, most of the power resided in the states of the expense of the federal government. On this last point, the South really suffered. It's basically a tirade against the power of the federal government. So, when the South set up their own government, most of the power resided in the states ti the expense oif the federal government. This arrangement would make it very difficult to wage war and finance the war.
        
        A main plank of the Union strategy during the war was the use of the US navy to form a blockade of southern seaports and eventually gain control of the Mississippi River. thus, cutting the confederacy in half. This was called the Anaconda plan. Confederacy strategy relied on help from foreign countries, mainly Britian and France. Britian and France might help the confederacy because they relied heavily on cotton to make their textile mills run. The South believed that King Cotton would convince them to send aid. However, Britian and France went looking for cotton elsewhere and found some in India and Egypt.
        
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