Topic 11

Territorial Expansion and
Rising Sectional Tensions

A. Economic Development

1. The North

– The Industrial Revolution takes root and industry blooms

– By 1860, NY alone was producing more industrial goods that all the southern states combined.

2. The South remained an agricultural region dominated by the planter class

– Key point: Only about one southerner in four owned slaves.

– And of those who did, only about 10,000, out of a white population of 5 million, were large planters who owned 50 or more slaves.

– But the planters were the people who controlled the South politically before the Civil War – governors, members of Congress, state legislators etc. came from this class.

B. Forces at Work in the 1840s

1. Territorial Expansion – Manifest Destiny

2. The Sectional Conflict over Slavery

3. The North – Abolitionists and Free-Soilers

– Abolitionists: the strongest opponents of slavery

§ William Lloyd Garrison and The Liberator

§ Frederick Douglas and North Star

– Underground Railroad – One of the things that grew out of the Abolitionist movement.

§ This was an informal, secret system of helping runaway slaves escape from their owners in the South to the northern free states and to Canada.

§ Name seems to have originated about in early 1830s when a slave owner lost sight of the slave he was pursuing. Must have disappeared into an “underground road.”

§ Runaway slaves usually traveled at night from point to point getting help from other blacks, especially northern free blacks. Sometimes even shipped in boxes like freight.

§ Probably best known “conductor” was an escaped slave named Harriet Tubman. Is thought that she made 19 trips back into the South and helped hundred of slaves escape to freedom.

§ This informal network of secret routes manned by people trying to help slaves escape to freedom eventually extended from Maine to Nebraska and Kansas.

§ Perhaps 75,000 slaves escaped from slavery to freedom via the various routes of the Underground Railroad before the outbreak of the Civil War.

– Free-Soilers: would leave slavery alone where it existed (for the time being) but were determined to keep slavery out of the new territories of the West.

4. The South and the Pro-slavery argument

– Earlier southerners had felt slavery was a necessary evil.

– As cotton and slavery moved west and as northerners (both Abolitionists and Free-Soilers) increased their attacks, began arguing that slavery was a positive good:

§ Good for the slaves – heathenism in Africa to Christianity in America!

§ Good for both races as it enabled them to live together in the same society

§ Good for the nation – slave labor produced cotton and cotton was the nation’s most important export.

– In addition, southerners were determined that slavery must have a legal right to exist in the West. If only free states admitted to the Union, slave states would become a permanent minority and slavery would be eliminated everywhere.

– Remember the bottom line for the South… the South must have at least an equal voice in the Senate – which meant admitting more slave states in the West in the future.

C. The Texas Question

1. Facts in Brief

– 1821 – Mexico secured independence from Spain and Texas becomes part of the Republic of Mexico.

– 1824 – Mexican government opens Texas to American settlers.

– Large numbers of southerners moved into east Texas and some brought slaves with them. 35,000 Americans by 1835.

– 1836 – Revolution breaks out in Texas

– April 21 - Battle of San Jacinto – Santa Anna’s army defeated and Santa Anna signs treaty recognizing independence of Texas.

– Republic of Texas organized but really wanted annexation.

– Jackson and Van Buren refused to do this.

– Texas maintained a shaky existence….

2. Harrison, Tyler and Texas – Harrison dies, and Tyler becomes a president without a party.

– Upshur-Calhoun Treaty – April 1844

3. Election of 1844 – Henry Clay vs. James K. Polk

– Texas: Clay at first said he opposed annexation but then waffled and wavered and it became difficult to tell where he stood on the question.

– Texas: Polk consistently supported the annexation of Texas and won the election rather easily. Also promised that he would serve only one term (to satisfy more experience Democratic party leaders who felt they should be the nominee rather than Polk).

– Electoral vote: 170-105

4. Tyler completes annexation through a congressional resolution – Resolution annexing Texas passed the last day Tyler was in office. Mexico broke diplomatic relations with the U.S. in protest.

D. The Presidency of James K. Polk

1. Polk – A very tough-minded, determined man due in part to the adversities he had faced as a young man of 17. Surgery to remove stones in his urinary tract with no anesthesia!

2. The Oregon Question – Tough talks leads to the Oregon Treaty, June 1846

3. Issues with Mexico

– Texas question – Mexico refused to accept American annexation.

– Complicated by the boundary claims made by Americans – Rio Grande River rather than the Nueces River.

– California/New Mexico question – Polk wanted all this territory for the U.S.

– American claims for damages – About $2 million. Mexico had never paid

4. Military pressure and Diplomacy:

– General Zachary Taylor sent to the mouth of the Nueces River

– John Slidell sent to Mexico City

– Polk increases the pressure: Taylor ordered to the Rio Grande River

– Slidell gives up and goes to Washington to meet with Polk

– While he was making his way to Washington, a skirmish occurred near the Rio Grande and 11 Americans killed. April 24, 1846.

– Met with Polk on Friday, May 8 and they agreed that the U.S. would be justified in declaring war on Mexico.

– Monday, May 11, 1846, Polk asked for war ….

5. War Declared – But not everyone supported this war!

6. The War – Mexico Invaded by three American armies

– Polk wanted the war to be short as he did not want to build up the reputations of the leading generals who were all Whigs.

– The Army of the North – Zachery Taylor

– The Army of the West – Stephen Kearney

– The Army of Occupation – Winfield Scott

7. The Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo – Mexico gave the U.S. everything that Polk wanted.

8. But this war, like all wars, left problems in its wake, and the philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson made a fateful prediction.

Topic 11 Review

• Who were the Abolitionists? Who were two of the better known Abolitionists (one white, one black)?
• What was the underground railroad and who was Harriett Tubman?
• Who were the Free-Soilers?
• Why do we call John Tyler the “president without a party?”
• How did Tyler complete the annexation of Texas?
• How did Polk settle the Oregon question?
• How did Polk try to deal with Mexico before the outbreak of war?
• Why was young Congressman Abraham Lincoln called “Spotty”?
• Who was the American general who captured Mexico City?
• What were the terms of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo?