Conflict and Compromise

Regionalism and Differing Attitudes About the U.S. What was the western view on public lands?  Western farmers wanted: – Cheap land – Rapid settlement – Right of the people to settle on any unoccupied acres they could find. What view did Eastern manufacturers and farmers have on public land?

 Eastern manufacturers: – Opposed cheap land for fear that it would draw off their labor supply. – Eastern farmers believed that cheap Western lands would result in unfair competition. What view did Southerners have on public lands?  Plantation owners wanted public lands opened for sale.  Opposed people taking what ever land they could find because they might claim the best lands. What was the regional view on protective tariffs?  North: Wanted them to ensure that their factories could compete successfully with foreign manufacturers.  South: Opposed high tariffs because they would have to pay more for imported, manufactured goods.  Northwestern: In favor of protection hoping that tariff revenues would be used to build roads and canals and hopefully increase the urban markets for farm products. What did each region feel about the expansion of slavery into the West?

 North: – Not economically dependent on the slaves. – A conviction that slavery was morally wrong. – Did not want slavery extended into new territories  South: – Wanted to be able to take their slaves anywhere except the free states – A fear that there will be no new slave states meaning the political power of the South would decrease.  West: – Felt the same way as the North for the most part. What territory applied for statehood in 1819?  Missouri What was the Tallmadge Amendment?

 “And provided, That the further introduction of slavery or involuntary servitude be prohibited, except for the punishment of crimes, whereof the party shall have been fully [duly] convicted; and that all children born within the said State, after the admission thereof into the Union, shall be free at the age of twenty-five years.”

 Representative James Tallmadge New York What part of Massachusetts wanted to separate and become a state?

 Northern part known as Maine What was representation like in the Congress in 1819?

 House of  Senate: Representatives: – Representation was – The North’s population equal due to an equal gave it a majority in number of slave and the House. free states in the Union. – 13 Slave – 13 Free What were the terms of the Missouri Compromise?  Maine enters the Union as a free state.  Missouri enters the Union as a slave state.  Slavery in the Louisiana Purchase above 36 degrees and 30 minutes north would be forbidden. What is the Wilmot Proviso?

 This bill provided that all territory gained from Mexico should be closed to slavery. – Passed in the House of Representatives • North had control of the House – Failed in the Senate • Equal representation in the North and South David C. Wilmot Wilmot Proviso (continued)

The Mexican Cession: Slave or Free? What were the similarities between the Townsend Amendment and the Wilmot Proviso?  Both were bills that tried to restrict the spread of slavery.  Both were passed by the House of Representatives  Both failed in the Senate  Both incensed the South leading to threats of secession and bloodshed. What did both the Democrats and Whigs do in the 1848 election about slavery and why?  They both tried to downplay or avoid the issue.  Would not lose votes that way. Who were the two candidates for President in 1848?

Whigs: Zachary Taylor Democrats: Lewis Cass What new party emerged and what was their platform and candidate?

 Free Soil Party  Platform: – No expansion of slavery into the territories. – antislavery  Martin Van Buren Who won the election and why?

 Zachary Taylor – Martin Van Buren split the Northern vote between himself and Lewis Cass. – Taylor gets the Southern vote. Who returned to a political career to save the Union? Compromise of 1850  The admission of California as a free state with the compromise that the rest of the territory (New Mexico and Utah would be open to slavery and decided by popular sovereignty.  Texas to give up its claim to New Mexico in exchange for federal assumption of its ten million dollars of public debt.  The banning of the slave trade in D.C.  A new fugitive slave law. The Compromise could never have gotten past President Taylor. While a southerner and slaveholder himself, he had no sympathy for the South and saw no reason why the South needed to be bribed to admit California. He referred with disdain to the Compromise as the "Omnibus Bill." But "Old Rough and Ready," sixty-five years old did not live long enough to block the Compromise. Death of Zachary Taylor

On 4 July 1850, the President was subject to several hours of oratory in the broiling sun - part of the days celebration. Because of the heat he consumed an excessive amount of cucumber salad and iced milk. Washington was a city with open sewers swarming with flies in the Summer. The City had been built on a swamp and was extremely unhealthy in the hot summer months. The President came down with acute gastroenteritis. He would most probably have recovered if simply left to himself. Unfortunately, no President is ever left to himself.

The physicians of the Capital descended upon the poor man. He never had a chance. They rallied around his bedside like the flies in the nearby swamp. Drugged with large doses of ipecac, calomel, opium, and quinine, and bled and blistered to boot, the poor man didn't have a chance. Taylor was given 40 grains of opium per dosing. Today doctors prescribe morphine in doses of 1/4 grain. One grain is 60 milligrams. The average aspirin dose is 5 grains (imagine 16 aspirin size pills of opium). The quinine was prescribed to stop the fever and sweating. After a few days of the finest medical care money could buy, the President gave up the ghost leaving the office to Millard Fillmore who quickly signed the compromise package into law Why did citizens in the North object to the Fugitive Slave Law, and how did they resist it?  The word of a slave owner was taken as conclusive proof of the identity of the runaway.  A suspected runaway had no right to testify in their own behalf.  Any person might be required to join in pursuit of a runaway. Fugitive Slave Law (continued)

 Personal liberty laws that forbid state officials from assisting in the capture of runaways.  Work to nullify the law in their own state.  Direct resistance: – Oberlin, Ohio. Oberlin, Ohio: Rescuing Slaves. Who was Dred Scott and why did he sue his master?  He was an enslaved man taken by his former master from the state of Missouri into territory closed to slavery and then back into Missouri again.  For eleven years Scott and his wife sued for their freedom with the case ending at the Supreme Court. What was the Dred Scott decision?  Scott had no right to sue in a federal court because he was not a citizen of the United States.  He also ruled that a ban on slavery in the territories was unconstitutional throwing out the Missouri Compromise.  He also declared that Scott was never free due to the fact that slaves were personal property. Roger Taney What was the reaction in the North to the Dred Scott decision?

 Northerners were more bitter about slavery.  The Republican party might as well go out of existence because the concept of free soil was unconstitutional.  Even the principle of popular sovereignty was called in to question.