Outline of US History by U.S. Department of State - HTML preview

CHAPTER 6: SECTIONAL CONFLICT

should be accomplished by legal and 1836 the House voted to table such

peaceful means . Garrison was joined petitions automatically, thus effec-

by another powerful voice, that of tively killing them . Former President

Frederick Douglass, an escaped slave John Quincy Adams, elected to the

who galvanized Northern audiences . House of Representatives in 1830,

Theodore Dwight Weld and many fought this so-called gag rule as a

other abolitionists crusaded against violation of the First Amendment,

slavery in the states of the old North- finally winning its repeal in 1844 .

west Territory with evangelical zeal .

One activity of the movement in-

TEXAS AND WAR WITH

volved helping slaves escape to safe

MEXICO

refuges in the North or over the bor-

der into Canada . The “Underground Throughout the 1820s, Ameri-

Railroad,” an elaborate network of cans settled in the vast territory of

secret routes, was firmly established Texas, often with land grants from

in the 1830s in all parts of the North . the Mexican government . However,

In Ohio alone, from 1830 to 1860, as their numbers soon alarmed the au-

many as 40,000 fugitive slaves were thorities, who prohibited further im-

helped to freedom . The number of migration in 1830 . In 1834 General

local antislavery societies increased Antonio López de Santa Anna estab-

at such a rate that by 1838 there were lished a dictatorship in Mexico, and

about 1,350 with a membership of the following year Texans revolted .

perhaps 250,000 .

Santa Anna defeated the American

Most Northerners nonetheless ei- rebels at the celebrated siege of the

ther held themselves aloof from the Alamo in early 1836, but Texans

abolitionist movement or actively under Sam Houston destroyed the

opposed it . In 1837, for example, Mexican Army and captured Santa

a mob attacked and killed the an- Anna a month later at the Battle of

tislavery editor Elijah P . Lovejoy in San Jacinto, ensuring Texan inde-

Alton, Illinois . Still, Southern re- pendence .

pression of free speech allowed the

For almost a decade, Texas re-

abolitionists to link the slavery issue mained an independent republic,

with the cause of civil liberties for largely because its annexation as a

whites . In 1835 an angry mob de- huge new slave state would disrupt

stroyed abolitionist literature in the the increasingly precarious balance

Charleston, South Carolina, post of- of political power in the United

fice . When the postmaster-general States . In 1845, President James K .

stated he would not enforce delivery Polk, narrowly elected on a platform

of abolitionist material, bitter de- of westward expansion, brought the

bates ensued in Congress . Abolition- Republic of Texas into the Union .

ists flooded Congress with petitions Polk’s move was the first gambit in

calling for action against slavery . In a larger design . Texas claimed that

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OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

its border with Mexico was the Rio forces, mainly among the Whigs, at-

Grande; Mexico argued that the

tacked Polk’s expansion as a proslav-

border stood far to the north along ery plot .

the Nueces River . Meanwhile, set-

With the conclusion of the Mexi-

tlers were flooding into the territo- can War, the United States gained

ries of New Mexico and California . a vast new territory of 1 .36 million

Many Americans claimed that the square kilometers encompassing the

United States had a “manifest des- present-day states of New Mexico,

tiny” to expand westward to the Pa- Nevada, California, Utah, most of

cific Ocean .

Arizona, and portions of Colorado

U .S . attempts to purchase from and Wyoming . The nation also faced

Mexico the New Mexico and Cali- a revival of the most explosive ques-

fornia territories failed . In 1846, tion in American politics of the time:

after a clash of Mexican and U .S . Would the new territories be slave

troops along the Rio Grande, the or free?

United States declared war . Ameri-

can troops occupied the lightly

THE COMPROMISE OF 1850

populated territory of New Mexico,

then supported a revolt of settlers Until 1845, it had seemed likely

in California . A U .S . force under that slavery would be confined to the

Zachary Taylor invaded Mexico, areas where it already existed . It had

winning victories at Monterrey and been given limits by the Missouri

Buena Vista, but failing to bring the Compromise in 1820 and had no op-

Mexicans to the negotiating table . In portunity to overstep them . The new

March 1847, a U .S . Army command- territories made renewed expansion

ed by Winfield Scott landed near of slavery a real likelihood .

Veracruz on Mexico’s east coast,

Many Northerners believed that if

and fought its way to Mexico City . not allowed to spread, slavery would

The United States dictated the Trea- ultimately decline and die . To jus-

ty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in which tify their opposition to adding new

Mexico ceded what would become slave states, they pointed to the state-

the American Southwest region and ments of Washington and Jefferson,

California for $15 million .

and to the Ordinance of 1787, which

The war was a training ground forbade the extension of slavery into

for American officers who would the Northwest . Texas, which already

later fight on both sides in the Civil permitted slavery, naturally entered

War . It was also politically divisive . the Union as a slave state . But the Polk, in a simultaneous facedown California, New Mexico, and Utah

with Great Britain, had achieved territories did not have slavery . From

British recognition of American sov- the beginning, there were strongly

ereignty in the Pacific Northwest to conflicting opinions on whether

the 49th parallel . Still, antislavery they should .

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