"A Hell of a Storm" -  The Impending Crisis of the Union  [1850 to 1854]

Piecing together the chaotic forces of expansion into America's western territories

and the divisive issue of slavery that dominated Antebellum politics. 

 

Historical Context: The issue of slavery in the territories acquired from Mexico disrupted American politics from 1848 to 1850.  There where bills before Congress to establish the territories now of Utah and New Mexico and large swaths of land that could become more than two states. The Compromise of 1850, orchestrated by Henry Clay, attempted to deal with the issue of slavery.

 

 

 

 

In March 1848, there were roughly 800 people in the California territory.  By November 1849, following the massive influx of settlers, the non-native population had soared to more than 100,000. And the people just kept coming.

 

 

 

By the mid 1850s there were more than 300,000 new arrivals—and one in every 90 people in the United States was living in California. All of these people (and all of this money) helped fast track California to statehood. In 1850, just two years after the U.S. government had purchased the land, California became the 31st

state in the Union [16 free states and 15 slave states] 

 

 

Both of the major parties hoped to avoid the slavery issue's divisiveness in 1848. Since President Polk refused to consider a second term, the Democrats turned to Lewis Cass of Michigan, a rather colorless party loyalist. Cass advocated "popular sovereignty" on the slavery issue, meaning that each territory should decide the question for itself — a stance that pleased neither side. 

 

 

 

The Whigs nominated Zachary Taylor, hero of the Battle of Buena Vista, whose earlier military blunders had been forgotten. Taylor had no political experience and had never voted.

 

 

 

 

The election picture was clouded by the presence of two other parties. The Liberty Party, which had run with some success on an anti-slavery platform in 1844, tried again in 1848, but lost its issue to a stronger challenger. The Free-Soil Party nominated former president Martin Van Buren, who garnered nearly 300,000 votes—more than enough to deny victory to Cass and the Democrats.

 

 

PLANS FOR THE WESTERN TERRITORIES

What kind of future will America have? Four plans are going to come together around this debate over slavery in the territories

 

 

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Source: Allan Nevins, Ordeal of the Union, Volume 1, Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1947

"The expiring months of the [James K.] Polk Administration in 1848–49 gave a dark augury [sign] of the storms to come. Congress no sooner met in December than the agitation of the slavery question recommenced [began again]; and even when the surface of the political sea for a few days grew calm, beneath it all was commotion and intrigue. Polk in his last annual message dwelt upon the importance of promptly supplying Territorial governments for California and New Mexico. Three modes of settlement, he suggested, were open. One, which he preferred, was to carry the Missouri Compromise line to the Pacific; another, to let the people of the Territories decide the slavery question when they applied for admission; and the third, to lay the issue before the Supreme Court. But Northern free-soilers and Southern extremists could agree on none of the three.…"

 

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#1  The Wilmot Proviso (a rally cry of the Free Soil Movement). David Wilmot proposed an amendment that stated that the territory from Mexico should remain slave-free. The language was borrowed from the Northwest Ordinance. All but one northern state legislature endorsed it. All southern legislatures condemned it (a sign of things to come???).

 

#2  State sovereignty (states' rights) The question of the individual's constitutional right of ownership in slaves as property and transport of slaves as property is up to the individual states. State sovereignty, states' rights was indeed deeply at the root of the South's growing position here that, ultimately, no Federal Legislature, President--no Federal authority--existed to stop slavery's expansion.

 

#3 Popular sovereignty (a compromise position) not a new idea in the midst of the Mexican War and its aftermath – the idea that there would be no Act of Congress on slavery in the territories. Take Congress out of the story and simply let the people in the Western Territory have a vote. Let them have a referendum. Let there be popular democracy.

 

"It was an idea with much superficial appeal to Americans, invoking as it did the fundamental idea of self-rule, and of allowing the people to decide laws by which they would be governed." 

 

#4 Geographical division – Remember the Missouri Compromise of 1820  the 36º30' parallel from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean  and slavery would never exist north of that line. This plan isn't workable because  half of California is north of the 36 30 line.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 The Compromise of 1850 and How it Changed the Course of American History

 Talk of secession had become a perpetual threat…. The tide begins to shift  because of a  clash of interests (between 1820-1854) 

abolition of slavery vs. territorial expansion - Remember the  word is  COMPROMISE

 

 

 

California was accepted in the Union as a free state.

 

Texas received 10 million dollars in exchange of land it gained during the Mexican American War. It set the present geographical boundaries of the state.

 

Utah and New Mexico would be new territories, and each would have popular sovereignty, meaning their citizens would vote on whether to be slave or free.

 

Slave trade in Washington DC was abolished, but slave ownership continued.

 

The Fugitive Slave Law was revised to include stronger enforcement, such as refusing jury trials for runaway slaves and punishing lawmen who refused to help apprehend runaway slaves. 

 

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CASE STUDIES - REACTIONS TO THE FUGITIVE SLAVE ACT 
Harriet Beecher Stowe (1853) and Harriet Tubman (1860)

 

 

 

 

REVIEW:  Key Works of Art and Literature 

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Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote Uncle Tom’s Cabin in 1852.  The book was loosely based on a visit to a plantation in Kentucky.  The book, which exposed the evils of slavery, was a best seller in the North and helped the abolitionists’ cause.  Southerners, on the other hand, believed the book exaggerated or lied about slavery.

 

It sold 300,000 copies in the first year, by far broke every sales record of any book ever published, ever, anywhere. Reprinted into at least 20 languages in its first five years of existence. Made into stage plays within two years. It brought an awareness to the slavery problem as never before.

 

" ... the appearance of Uncle Tom's Cabin could not have been more aptly timed, as a poignant and humanizing glimpse into the harsh realities of slave life and the perils faced by freedom seeking slaves. "  Land of Hope page #159

 

 

 

 

http://utc.iath.virginia.edu/uncletom/key/kyhp.html

 

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