CHAPTER 18
Renewing the Sectional Struggle, 1848–1854
PART I: Reviewing the Chapter
A. Checklist of Learning Objectives
After mastering this chapter, you should be able to:
1. Explain how the issue of slavery in the territories acquired from Mexico disrupted American politics from 1848 to1850.
2. Point out the major terms of the Compromise of 1850 and indicate how this agreement attempted to defuse the sectional crisis over slavery.
3. Explain why the Fugitive Slave Law included in the Compromise of 1850 stirred moral outrage and fueled antislavery agitation in the North.
4. Indicate how the Whig party’s disintegration over slavery signaled the end of nonsectional political parties.
5. Describe how the Pierce administration, as well as private American adventurers, pursued numerous overseas and expansionist ventures primarily designed to expand slavery.
6. Describe Americans’ first ventures into China and Japan in the 1850s and their diplomatic, economic, cultural, and religious consequences.
7. Describe the nature and purpose of Douglas’s Kansas-Nebraska Act, and explain why it fiercely rekindled the slavery controversy that the Compromise of 1850 had been designed to settle.
B. Glossary
To build your social science vocabulary, familiarize yourself with the following terms.
1. self-determinationIn politics, the right of a people to assert its own national identity and determine its own form of government without outside influence. “The public liked it because it accorded with the democratic tradition of self-determination.”
2. homesteadA family home or farm with buildings and land sufficient for survival. “...they broadened their appeal... by urging free government homesteads for settlers.”
3. vigilanteConcerning self-appointed groups that claim to punish crime and maintain order without legal authority to do so. “...violence was only partly discouraged by rough vigilante justice.”
4. sanctuaryA place of refuge or protection, where people are made safe from punishment by the law. “...scores of ...runaway slaves ...were spirited ...to the free-soil sanctuary of Canada.”
5. fugitiveA person who flees from danger or prosecution. “...southerners were demanding a new and more stringent fugitive-slave law.”
6. topographyThe precise surface features and details of a place—for example, rivers, coastlines, hills—in relation to one another. “The good Lord had decreed—through climate, topography, and geography—that a plantation economy ...could not profitably exist in the Mexican Cession territory. ...”
7. mundaneBelonging to this world, as opposed to a higher or spiritual world. “Seward argued earnestly that Christian legislators must obey God’s moral law as well as mundane human law.”
8. statecraftThe art of government leadership. “The Whigs ...missed a splendid opportunity to capitalize on their record in statecraft.”
9. isthmian(isthmus) Concerning a narrow strip of land connecting two larger bodies of land. “...neither America nor Britain would fortify or secure exclusive control over any future isthmian water-way.”
10. filibustering(filibuster) Adventurers who conduct a private war against a foreign country. “During 1850–1851 two ‘filibustering’ expeditions descended upon Cuba.” (In a different definition, filibuster also refers to deliberately prolonging speechmaking in order to block legislation.)
11. dynasty A succession of monarchs or emperors all descended from the same family; hence, the entire period of time (usually lengthy) in which such a family rules. “The long- ruling warrior dynasty known as the Tokugawa Shogunate. . . . “
12. cloak-and-daggerConcerning the activities of spies or undercover agents, especially involving elaborate deceptions. “An incredible cloak-and-dagger episode followed.”
13. manifesto A proclamation or document aggressively asserting a controversial position or advocating a daring course of action. “ . . . rose in an outburst of wrath against this ‘manifesto of brigands.’”
14. boosterOne who promotes a person or enterprise, especially in a highly enthusiastic way. “An ardent booster for the West, he longed to ...stretch a line of settlements across the continent.”
15. truceA temporary suspension of warfare by agreement of the hostile parties. “This bold step Douglas was prepared to take, even at the risk of shattering the uneasy truce patched up by the Great Compromise of 1850.”
PART II: Checking Your Progress
A. True-False
Where the statement is true, circle T; where it is false, circle F.
1. T F Democratic party politicians and others attempted to avoid the issue of slavery in the territories by saying it should be left to popular sovereignty.
2. T F The Free Soil party consisted of a small, unified band of radical abolitionists.
3. T F After the gold rush of 1849, California sought direct admission to the Union as a slave state.
4. T F Southerners demanded a more effective fugitive-slave law to stop the Underground Railroad from running escaped slaves to Canada.
5. T F In the Senate debate of 1850, Calhoun and Webster each spoke for their respective sections in opposition to a compromise over slavery.
6. T F In the key provisions of the Compromise of 1850, New Mexico and Utah were admitted as slave states, while California was left open to popular sovereignty.
7. T F The provision of the Compromise of 1850 that aroused the fiercest northern opposition was the Fugitive Slave Law.
8. T F The Whig Party disappeared because its northern and southern wings were too deeply split over the Fugitive Slave Law and other sectional issues.
9. T F The Pierce administration’s expansionist efforts in Central America, Cuba, and the Gadsden Purchase were basically designed to serve southern proslavery interests.
10. T F The Ostend Manifesto was designed to secure a peaceful solution to the crisis between the United States and Spain over Cuba.
11. T F In negotiating the first American treaty with China in 1844, diplomat Caleb Cushing made sure that the United States followed a more culturally respectful policy than that of the imperialistic European great powers in China.
12. T F Douglas’s Kansas-Nebraska Act was intended to organize western territories so that a transcontinental railroad could be built along a northern route.
13. T F Both southerners and northerners were outraged by Douglas’s plan to repeal the Missouri Compromise.
14. T F The Kansas-Nebraska Act wrecked the Compromise of 1850 and created deep divisions within the Democratic Party.
15. T F The Republican Party was initially organized as a northern protest movement against Douglas’s Kansas-Nebraska Act.
B. Multiple Choice
Select the best answer and circle the corresponding letter.
1. Popular sovereignty was the idea that
1. the government of each new territory should be elected by the people.
2. the American public should have a popular vote on whether to admit states with or without slavery.
3. presidential candidates should be nominated by popular primaries rather than party conventions.
4. the United States should assume popular control of the territory acquired from Mexico.
5. the people of a territory should determine for themselves whether or not to permit slavery.
2. In the election of 1848, the response of the Whig and Democratic parties to the rising controversy over slavery was
1. a strong proslavery stance by the Democrats and a strong antislavery stance by the Whigs.
2. to attack the sectional divisiveness of the antislavery Free Soil party.
3. an attempt to ignore the issue by shoving it out of sight.
4. to permit each individual candidate to take his own stand on the issue.
5. to promise to seek a sectional compromise no matter which party won the presidency.
3. Rapid formation of an effective state government in California seemed especially urgent because
1. proslavery Californians were gaining effective control of the territory.
2. of the threat that Mexico would re-conquer the territory.
3. of the need to provide state subsidies for a transcontinental railroad.
4. there was no legal authority to suppress the violence and lawlessness that accompanied the California gold rush.
5. the influx of gold-seekers from around the world was causing ethnic conflict.
4. The proposed direct admission of California into the Union, without passing through territorial status, was dangerously controversial because
1. the territory was in a condition of complete lawlessness and anarchy.
2. the Mexicans were threatening renewed warfare if California joined the Union.
3. California’s admission as a free state would destroy the equal balance of slave and free states in the U.S. Senate.
4. there was a growing movement to declare California an independent nation.
5. southern California and northern California did not want to be part of the same state.
5. Southerners hated the Underground Railroad and demanded a stronger federal Fugitive Slave Law especially because
1. the numbers of runaway slaves had grown dramatically.
2. they feared that railroad conductors might foment a slave rebellion.
3. northern toleration of slave runaways reflected a moral judgment against slavery.
4. southern states were forced to spend large sums on slave patrols and slave catchers.
5. the risk of un-captured runaways was beginning to depress the price of slaves.
6. Senator Daniel Webster’s fundamental view regarding the issue of slavery expansion into the West was that
1. Congress had no authority to prohibit slavery in the territories.
2. new slave and free states should always be admitted in pairs so as to preserve the sectional balance.
3. there was no need to legislate because climate and geography guaranteed that plantation slavery could not exist in the West.
4. slavery should be prohibited in the West but that the South could expand slavery into Central America and the Caribbean.
5. the South should be permitted to expand slavery if it abandoned its demand for a Fugitive Slave Law.
7. It appeared that the Compromise of 1850 would fail to be enacted into law when
1. Senator John C. Calhoun agreed that the Compromise was the best solution available.
2. President Zachary Taylor suddenly died and the new president Fillmore backed the Compromise.
3. Senator William Seward stated that a higher law demanded preservation of the Union.
4. violence between radical abolitionists and southern fire-eaters made Congress realize compromise was essential.
5. Henry Clay persuaded President Taylor to reverse his opposition to the Compromise.
8. Under the terms of the Compromise of 1850
1. California was admitted to the Union as a free state, and the issue of slavery in Utah and New Mexico territories would be left up to popular sovereignty.
2. California was admitted as a free state, and Utah and New Mexico as slave states.
3. California, Utah, and New Mexico were kept as territories but with slavery prohibited.
4. New Mexico and Texas were admitted as slave states and Utah and California as free states.
5. the South and North agreed that the number of slave and free states should remain equal.
9. The greatest winner in the Compromise of 1850 was
1. the North.
2. the South.
3. the Whig party.
4. the border states.
5. President Millard Fillmore.
10. The most significant effect of the Fugitive Slave Law, passed as part of the Compromise of 1850, was
1. an end to slave escapes and the Underground Railroad.
2. the extension of the Underground Railroad into Canada.
3. a sharp rise in northern antislavery feeling.
4. a growing determination by radical abolitionists to foment violent slave rebellions.
5. growing northern hostility to radical abolitionists.
11. The conflict over slavery following the election of 1852 led shortly to the
1. death of the Whig party.
2. death of the Democratic party.
3. death of the Republican party.
4. rise of the Free Soil party.
5. takeover of the Whig party by proslavery elements.
12. Southerners seeking to expand the territory of slavery undertook filibustering military expeditions to acquire
1. Canada and Alaska.
2. Venezuela and Colombia.
3. Nicaragua and Cuba.
4. Hawaii and Samoa.
5. northern Mexico.
13. The primary goal of the Treaty of Kanagawa , which Commodore Matthew Perry signed with Japan in 1854, was
1. establishing a balance of power in East Asia.
2. opening Japan to American missionaries.
3. guaranteeing the territorial integrity of China.
4. establishing American naval bases in Hawaii and Okinawa.
5. opening Japan to American trade.
14. The Gadsden Purchase was fundamentally designed to
1. enable the United States to guarantee control of California.
2. permit the construction of a transcontinental railroad along a southern route.
3. block Mexican raids into Arizona and New Mexico.
4. serve the political interests of Senator Stephen Douglas.
5. divert attention from the Pierce administration’s secret plan to seize Cuba.
15. Northerners especially resented Douglas’s Kansas-Nebraska Act because it
1. would encourage the building of a transcontinental railroad along the southern route.
2. would make Douglas the leading Democratic candidate for the presidency.
3. repealed the Missouri Compromise prohibiting slavery in northern territories.
4. would bring Kansas into the Union as a slave state.
5. would end the equal balance of free and slave states in the Union.
C. Identification
Supply the correct identification for each numbered description.
1. ______Hotheaded southern agitators who pushed for southern interests and favored secession from the Union
2. ______The doctrine that the issue of slavery should be decided by the residents of a territory themselves, not by the federal government
3. ______Antislavery political party in the election of 1848 that included moral opponents of slavery as well as white workers who disliked black competition
4. ______The informal network of people who helped runaway slaves travel from the South to the safe haven of Canada
5. ______Senator William Seward’s doctrine that slavery should be excluded from the territories because it was contrary to a divine morality standing above even the Constitution
6. ______The provision of the Compromise of 1850 that comforted southern slave- catchers and aroused the wrath of northern abolitionists
7. ______The two territories that were organized under the Compromise of 1850 with the choice of slavery left open to popular sovereignty
8. ______A series of agreements between North and South that temporarily dampened the slavery controversy and led to a short-lived era of national good feelings
9. ______Political party that fell apart and disappeared after losing the election of 1852
10. ______An 1850 treaty between Britain and America stating that neither country would exclusively control or fortify any Central American canal.