Chapter 8teen *

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Chapter 8teen

• Presented By Isabella and Steven

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Breaking the Congressional Logjam

• President Taylor had helped the cause of
  Concession (as by granting something as a right,
  accepting something as true, or acknowledging
  defeat) by dying
• It took Congress 7 months to pass the Compromise
  of 1850
• "Fire-eaters" of the south hated the idea and had
  boycotted Northern goods.

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Defeat and Doom for the Whigs

• Franklin Pierce accepted into the slavery wing of
  the Democratic party
• His platform revived the Democrats commitment to
  territorial expansion as pursued by President
  Polk and endorsed the Compromise of 1850
• Compromise of 1850 California is a free state,
  New Mexico and Utah to popular sovereignty, ended
  the slave trade in Washington DC, and introduced
  a more stringent fugitive slave law
• The Whig platform praised the Compromise of 1850
  as a lasting arrangement, less enthusiastically
  than the Democrats though
•  Antislavery Whigs of the North had accepted
  Scott as their nominee but absolutely deplored or
  disapproved his platform which endorsed the
  hated Fugitive Slave Law

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Defdeat and Doom for the Whigs ( continuation )

• Southern Whigs doubted Scotts loyalty ti the
  Compromise of 1850 and the Fugitive Slave Law,
  accepted the platforn but spat on the candidate
  unlike the northerners who spat on the platform
  but accepted the candidate
• The election of 1852 was fraught with frightening
  significance, it marked the effective end of the
  disorganized Whig party
• Whigs had won only to presidential elections
  (1840 and 1848) both with wat heroes, but
  finally ended with the disgrateful Fugitive Slave
  Law
• Henry Clay and Daniel Webster who were both
  leaders and statesmen  died during the 1852
  campaign but the good they had done to the nation
  lived long after their death the preservation
  of a united United States.

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The Senates deliberations over the Compromise of
1850 -Henry Clay of Kentucky, Daniel Webster of
Massachusetts, and John C. Calhoun of South
Carolina. Webster called for a compromise to
preserve the Union while Calhoun argued that the
Union could only be preserved if Northerners
respected the Southern institutions including
slavery. In this painting Clay has the floor,
Calhoun stands third from the right, and Daniel
Webster, head in hand sits on the left.
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Expansionist Stirrings South of the Border

• After the victory over the Mexican War, Gold had
  been discovered in California
• Led to the California Gold Rush
• Atlantic-to-Pacific was the only route 
• This troubled the two American continents because
  whoever held imperial control had control over
  all maritime nations of the united nations
• New Granada and the United States had felt
  unsecured by the British appearance within the
  area in the port of San Juan del Norte
• It guaranteed the American right to transport
  across the isthmus in return for Washington's
  pledge
• This provided a legal cover for the assertion of
  American control over the Panama Canal Zone in
  1903

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Expansionist Stirrings South of the Border (cont.)

• Also led to the construction of the First
  "Transcontinental" railroad
• The Clayton-Bulwer Treaty of 1850 avoided a
  "full-blown" confrontation by stating that
  neither America nor Britain would fortify or seek
  exclusive control over any future isthmian
  waterway
• This was later rescinded by the Hay Paunceforte
  Treaty of 1901
• negotiated in 1899 and 1901 by Secretary of
  State, John Hay and British Ambassador, Julian
  Paunceforte
• Southern "slavocrats" strive for southward
  expansion for new slave trade

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Expansionist Stirrings South of the Border (cont.
II)

• President Polk offered 100,0000 for the land of
  Cuba
• Cuba was sugar-rich 
• Spaniards rejected the offer and said they would
  rather see the island sink into the sea rather
  than have it in the hands of the hated Yankees

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Pacific Railroad Promoters and the Gadsden
Purchase

• Another legacy of the Mexican War was
  transportation problems with California and
  Oregon being eight thousand miles west of the
  nation's capitol
• Sea routes to and from the Isthmus of Panama were
  too long and traveling by wagon was slow and
  dangerous
• Land transportation was so imperative or
  absolutely necessary / required, that camels were
  being used as their way of transportation from
  the west to the east, but that didn't work out as
  planned
• Decisions were made to have railroad routes to
  the Pacific Coast put in the north, since they'd
  reap rich rewards in wealth, population and
  influence
• The southerners then were eager to extend
  railroads through the southwestern territory all
  the way to California

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Pacific Railroad Promoters and the Gadsden
Purchase ( continuation )

• The best railway route ran slightly south of the
  Mexican border
• Secretary of War Jefferson Davis appointed James
  Gadsden as minister of Mexico, in 1853 he
  negotiated a treaty ceding to the United States
  the Gadsden Purchase.
• The Gadsden Purchase acquired additional land
  from Mexico for 10 million to facilitate the
  construction of a southern transcontinental
  railroad
• Many schemes proposed in Congress for organizing
  territories were denied by the Southerners - they
  didn't want to help or facilitate northern
  railroads

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Douglass Kansas-Nebraska Scheme

• Senator of Illinois, Stephen A. Douglas wanted to
  pass the Kansas-Nebraska Act
• This would divide the Nebraska Terr. into two
  sections Kansas and Nebraska
• His goal was to break the North-South over
  deadlock over westward expansion
• The status of slavery would depend on popular
  sovereignty
• Kansas would remain a Slave-State while Nebraska
  would become a Free-State
• The Missouri Compromise of 1820 had forbidden
  slavery in the Nebraskan Terr. which was located
  North of the 3630' line

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Douglass Kansas-Nebraska Scheme (cont.)

• Douglass foes accused him of angling for
  presidency in 1856
• He declared repeatedly that he didn't care
  whether slavery was voted up or down the
  territories 
• Northerners felt the Missouri Compromise as an
  intolerable breach of faith, that they'd resist
  to tall future southern demands for slave
  territories
• As Abraham Lincoln had said, North wants to give
  the West " a clean bed, with no snakes in it. "
• Northerners saw Douglass as a traitor for not
  doing much to stop slavery, but his population
  still remained in the Democratic Party and in
  Illinois as a stronghold of population
  sovereignty - the belief that the legitimacy of
  the state is created by the will of its people

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Congress Legislates a Civil War  

• The Kansas-Nebraska Act was a "curtain-raiser to
  a terrible drama" 
• It wrecked the Compromises of 1820 and 1850
• It led to a Civil War
• The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 caused more
  tension between the North and South
• The new Republican Party had sprung up in the
  Middle-West, mostly in Wisconsin and Michigan
• The party protested against slavery
• In result, the Republican Party was not allowed
  in the Southern areas of the Mason-Dixon Line 

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