Manifest Destiny

Eve of Civil War 3rd Period

Texas Annexation-Wilmot Proviso

 Not Appealing to the North  Southerners approved due to agriculture  Texas submits treaty of annexation in 1844  President John Tyler approves, shattering the fragile peace, spurring the Mexican- American War  Wilmot Proviso created the “Free-Soil” party, which would later evolve into what we know today as the “Republican Party”  Anti-slavery treaties repeatedly attempted by northerners  Calhoun dismissed the Wilmot case, furthering aggression responsible for the Civil War

 The War went in the United States favor even though they were sometimes outnumbered. It also trained officers that would participate in the Civil War such as Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant.  Mexico lost over 500,000 square miles of territory to the United States, this was approximately 1/3 of their territory. It included what is present- day California, Utah, Nevada, Arizona, and New Mexico.  The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ended the war and was signed on February 2, 1848. It is one of the oldest treaties still enforced.

Compromise of 1850 (Gold Rush) •California was admitted to the union as the 16th free state •South was guaranteed no restrictions on slavery in Utah and New Mexico territories •A fugitive slave law was passed, requiring northerners to return runaway slaves to their owners under penalty of law •Texas looses boundary dispute with New Mexico •Slaveholding permitted in Washington D.C •Gold Rush caused mass migration to California in search for gold, which caused California to attempt to enter the union •Abolition of the slave trade (but not slavery) in the District of Colombia •Texas gets in compensation from the federal government $10 million

Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe

•Uncle Tom's Cabin was originally published in serials for a newspaper called the National Era, starting on June 5, 1851 to April 5, 1852. The National Era was an anti-slavery newspaper, that spurred sympathy for enslaved African Americans. •The book followed two slaves who went through tribulations and persecution, while searching for freedom. The background is the compromise of 1850 and the Fugitive Slave Act. •Her book galvanized the Abolition Movement, and is a contributing factor to the Civil War. •Relied Heavily on powerful imagery and pathos. •“…the enslaving of the African race is a clear violation of the great law, which commands us to love our neighbor as ourselves,” ~Harriet Beecher Stowe.

Original publication of Uncle Tom’s Cabin in the newspaper, The National Era. Kansas-Nebraska Act

 Kansas and Nebraska could choose between being free or slave states  Went against the Missouri Compromise and angered the North  People, both for and against slavery, flooded the states to affect the election  There were three elections, in two of them the people for slavery were charged with fraud, in the other election the people for slavery refused to vote. This led to two opposing legislatures in Kansas.  Violence soon erupted from a group led by John Brown , then Kansas earned the nickname “bleeding Kansas”  Anti-slavery settlers soon outnumbered pro-slavery settlers, and Kansas entered the union as a free state on January 29, 1861, right before the start of the Civil War

The Dred Scott Decision

During the 1780s there was a large question for whether or not slavery would be accepted in the new territories. This problem was constantly avoided until the supreme court case Dred Scott vs. Sanford. Scott was the slave of John Emerson, an army surgeon. In 1846 Dred Scott sued for his freedom on the grounds that he had lived in a free state for multiple years, thereby deeming himself a free man. It took 11 years for the case to reach the supreme court, and the final say would shape all of the events to come. The court ruled that the time Scott spent in Illinois did not make him a free man, that as a black man he was not included as an American citizen, and that congress never had any power to prohibit slavery. It was said that the African American populace was not a part of the sovereign people who wrote the constitution, and that prohibiting slavery in new territories was a violation of the fifth amendment. The Chief Justice presiding over the case was the former slave owner by the name of Roger B. Taney, four other members of the southern justice in the nine member court were also slave holders which swayed the verdict immensely. So now the Legislative and the Executive branch had failed to come to a solid decision, leaving the country weak and on the road to civil war. Lincoln vs. Douglas Debate

Lincoln challenges Douglas for the Illinois senate seat. Lincoln brings up issue of slavery being decided by the popular vote, as opposed to Congress deciding. Douglas argued that a law that the people didn’t agree with could not be enforced, similarly to the case of Jefferson's embargo. Douglas ultimately wins the senate seat, but only due to inequitable apportionment. Douglas hurts chances for presidency by splintering his party, while Lincoln seems the obvious choice for Republican candidate. This debate proved was one of the preliminary battles of the Civil War.