Section1 Manifest Destiny As you read, look for: the concept of Manifest Destiny, the annexation of Texas, the Mexican-American War, and vocabulary terms: manifest destiny, Wilmot Proviso, and Compromise of 1850. PFigure 19 Timeline 1845-1861 When the thirteen colonies declared independence in 1776, they controlled a land area that stretched from Maine to Georgia along the Atlantic coastline and inland as much as three hundred miles. At the end of the Revolution, the United States had expanded westward to the Mississippi River. In 1803, the United States purchased the Louisiana Territory from France and basically doubled the size of the country. In 1810, parts of Alabama and Mississippi were annexed, and in 1819, Florida was ceded to the United States by Spain. 1845 Texas became state 1846 Mexican-American War; Oregon Territory split between Great Britain and US 1852 State convention to consider secession; Uncle Tom s Cabin published 1850 Compromise of 1850 1848 Gold discovered in California 1850 Nathaniel Hawthorne published The Scarlet Letter 1854 Kansas-Nebraska Act; Republican party formed 1853 Gadsden Purchase 1856 The first railroad bridge across the Mississippi River built 1861 Confederate States of America formed 1860 Lincoln elected president; South Carolina seceded 1857 Dred Scott decision 1856 Brooks-Sumner Affair 1858 First message sent across Atlantic cable 1859 John Brown s raid on Harpers Ferry 1845 1850 1855 1860 1860 Pony Express mail service began between St. Joseph, Missouri, and Sacramento, California 326 Chapter 13 The Road to War
In less than fifty years, the United States had grown tremendously in land area and had almost doubled the number of states from thirteen in 1776 to twenty-four in 1820. In 1845, John O Sullivan, editor of the Democratic Review, wrote that it was the manifest destiny of the United States to control all of the land area between the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean. In other words, the United States was destined to control the continent. Many Americans held this attitude and worked to expand the land area of the United States. They had three areas in mind Texas, California, and Oregon. Annexing Texas When Mexico revolted in 1821 and declared its independence from Spain, it looked for support from the United States for its new government. It invited Americans to move into what is now Texas. Led by Stephen F. Austin, thousands of Americans moved into east Texas OREGON TERRITORY 1846 MEXICAN CESSION 1848 GADSDEN PURCHASE 1853 LOUISIANA PURCHASE 1803 TEXAS ANNEXATION 1845 and settled on land granted them by the Mexican government. The settlers brought with them a desire to grow cotton and the slaves needed to do so. But Mexico had abolished slavery in 1821. For several years, the Mexicans overlooked the slaves held by the Americans, but in 1830 the Mexicans ordered the Americans to give them up. Mexico also prohibited more Americans from entering Texas and passed a number of strict laws to control the American settlements. When Stephen Austin traveled to Mexico City to appeal to the Mexican government for relief, he was jailed without a trial for over a year. By 1836, the Americans had had enough and declared themselves independent of Mexico. General Antonio López de Santa Anna, the dictator of Mexico, led an army of about 4,000 men against the rebellious Texans. He quickly took control of San Antonio, but was not able to capture the Alamo, the old Spanish mission being held by the Texas defenders. After a brutal assault, the Mexicans finally succeeded in taking the mission, killing the entire 180 Texans who defended the mission. Included in the casualties were William Barrett Travis and James Butler Bonham, former residents of the Saluda area of South Carolina. A few weeks later, Santa Anna ordered that over 350 Texans being held at Goliad be executed by firing squad. These two incidents inspired the Texans. Led by Sam Houston, the Texans defeated Santa Anna and his army at the Battle of San Jacinto on April 21, CEDED BY GREAT BRITAIN 1816 ORIGINAL UNITED STATES FLORIDA CESSION 1819 Map 30 United States Territorial Acquisitions Map Skill: Which states were included, in total or part, in the Mexican Cession? Section 1 Manifest Destiny 327
Did You Know??During the 1844 campaign, James Polk (below) made five promises: to acquire California from Mexico, to settle the Oregon dispute, to lower the tariff, to establish a sub-treasury, and to retire from the office after four years. When he left office, all of his campaign promises had been fulfilled. 1836. The Texas victory created the Republic of Texas, also known as the Lone Star Republic. The people in Texas wanted to become part of the United States as quickly as possible. John C. Calhoun and other South Carolinians, along with their Southern counterparts, pushed for annexation. President Jackson and his successor, Martin Van Buren, however, were not willing to fight the political battle over adding another slave state to the Union. They thought the annexation would require a formal treaty since Texas was an independent nation. They did not think they could get the two-thirds vote necessary to ratify the treaty. Calhoun, President John Tyler s Secretary of State, negotiated a treaty of annexation, but the Senate rejected it. The admission of Texas to the Union was a major issue in the presidential election of 1844. Democrat James K. Polk campaigned vigorously for annexation and won the election. President Tyler, however, persuaded Congress to pass a joint resolution annexing Texas before Polk became president. Unlike a treaty, a joint resolution requires a simple majority vote. Texas became a state in December 1845, ending its almost ten-year independence. Northern abolitionists were unhappy with the annexation of Texas. Mexico, however, was even more unhappy and declared war on the United States in April 1846. It claimed that Texas was still a possession of Mexico and insisted that the border of Texas was the Nueces River. The Texans claimed that the border was the Rio Grande River. 328 Chapter 13 The Road to War The Mexican-American War The Mexican-American War involved much more than admitting Texas to the Union. Americans hoped to obtain even more territory from Mexico, especially California. Should the United States succeed in obtaining California, the objective of manifest destiny would be achieved, at least in part.
American troops fought on Mexican soil often during the war. Marines landed at Veracruz and easily took the city. Troops under General Winfield Scott captured the Mexican capital city, Mexico City, in September 1847. One important event of the war took place in California in 1846. John C. Fremont led a militia of California residents and a naval squadron and defeated the Mexican forces in California at Sutter s Fort. The Californians then declared their independence and established the Republic of California. It was also called the Bear Flag Republic. With the revolt in California and their capital city in American hands, the Mexicans had little choice but to negotiate. American negotiator Nicholas Trist offered Mexico a little over $18 million for over 500,000 square miles of territory, including the disputed area of Texas. The Mexicans eventually accepted, and the result was the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which was signed in February 1848. The treaty set the boundary of Texas at the Rio Grande and gave the United States all or part of the present-day states of California, Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, Utah, Wyoming, and Colorado. The United States now controlled a good part of the continent from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific. The Mexican-American War is important for reasons other than manifest destiny. The war served as a training ground for many of the generals on both sides of the Civil War. Jefferson Davis, the future president of the Opposite page, above: For twelve days, the Texas rebels held off Mexican forces before falling to General Santa Anna. Remember the Alamo, however, became a battle cry. Below: Though he was seriously wounded, General Winfield Scott s troops captured Chapultapec in the last battle of the Mexican-American War. Section 1 Manifest Destiny 329
Did You Know??Robert E. Lee (below), Thomas Stonewall Jackson, Ulysses S. Grant, and William T. Sherman were among the Civil War military figures who served in the Mexican-American War. Confederacy, was the secretary of war. As a congressman from Illinois, Abraham Lincoln voted against the declaration of war. He was concerned that the territory obtained from Mexico would become slave territory. Lincoln was not the only concerned member of Congress. David Wilmot, a representative from Pennsylvania, added the Wilmot Proviso to an appropriations bill in Congress in 1846. The proviso stated that no land obtained from Mexico could become slave territory. South Carolinians were outraged over the proviso. They had not pushed for the war and they knew that the vast majority of land gained from the war probably would be unsuitable for plantation slavery. To South Carolinians and many other Southerners, if they were going to fight for the United States, then they should have the right to take their property into any American land like all other Americans. While the proviso was defeated in the Senate, it signaled that the admission of more slave states to the Union would be very difficult. Many South Carolinians fought in the Mexican-American War, including the Palmetto Regiment. Overall, 1,048 men from the palmetto state joined the regiment, and 441 died. This death rate of 42 percent was three times the rate of the army as a whole. While South Carolina accepted the casualties as part of war, they could not accept the fact that abolitionists were determined to bring the slavery question further into public view. 330 Chapter 13 The Road to War Oregon The third land area the United States wanted was the Oregon Territory. This region was west of the Rocky Mountains and north of the California border. It stretched northward to 54 40 north latitude, presently the northern border of British Columbia, Canada. Four nations laid claim to the area Spain, Russia, Great Britain, and the United States. With neither Russia nor Spain able to strongly assert its claim to the area, the dispute came down to the United States and Great Britain. In 1846, Great Britain and the United States agreed to split the Oregon Territory by extending the border along the 49th parallel to the Pacific coast. Both countries received part of the region. Acquisition of the area barely registered in South Carolina. State leaders were more concerned with the Mexican- American War and the Wilmot Proviso than they were over the addition of land they knew would not support slavery. The Compromise of 1850 Shortly after the end of the Mexican-American War, gold was found in California. Within weeks, the once sparsely populated land was teeming with settlers. In 1850, California petitioned Congress for admission to the Union as the thirty-first state. The admission of California posed a problem for, in 1850, there were exactly 15 free states and 15 slave states. California would upset the balance in the Senate.
In Congress, arguments over whether California should be a slave state or a free state were heated. It became clear that the only way California would be admitted to the Union was through a compromise. The most important leaders of the time Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, John C. Calhoun, and Stephen Douglas all worked toward that end. Calhoun warned that the proposed compromise would not solve the problem. The only way the problem would be solved, said Calhoun, was if the North dropped the slavery issue from its political agenda. He said, I have, Senators, believed from the first that the agitation on the subject of slavery would, if not prevented by some timely and effective measure, end in disunion. He proposed a constitutional amendment that would create two presidents, one from the South and one from the North. Each president would have the power to veto laws he felt would hurt his section of the country. The South would thus be able to protect slavery. Obviously, Calhoun s proposal was not adopted. After much debate and behind-the-scenes work, Congress adopted the Compromise of 1850 offered by Henry Clay. The compromise provided for: (1) the admission of California as a free state, (2) the organization of Above: Henry Clay of Kentucky was a Senate leader in 1850. Here, he urges the Senate to pass compromise legislation in order to preserve the Union. Section 1 Manifest Destiny 331
South Carolina Portraits John C. Calhoun John C. Calhoun was born in 1782, in the Calhoun settlement in northwestern South Carolina. His father was a farmer who owned a few slaves. John studied law at Yale, returned home in 1807, and became a member of the bar. In 1807, he also became involved in politics when he gave a speech in Abbeville against the British attacks on American shipping. Calhoun was elected to the South Carolina legislature the next year, beginning a long period of service to South Carolina. He served only one term in the state legislature before being elected to Congress in 1810. He quickly became involved in the affairs of the nation and was labeled a War Hawk, advocating war with Great Britain. Calhoun was an ardent supporter of the War of 1812 and helped raise troops and supplies. After the war, Calhoun became an influential member of Congress. He was one of its most eloquent speakers and, along with Henry Clay of Kentucky and Daniel Webster of Massachusetts, controlled much of the negotiating that took place behind the scenes. He did not remain in Congress long, however. In 1817, he became President Monroe s secretary of war. Calhoun wanted to be president, but he withdrew from the 1824 presidential race to run unopposed for the vice presidency. Calhoun was reelected vice president in 1828, under President Andrew Jackson. Calhoun did not agree with Jackson on the issue of states rights, and soon they began to disagree openly. The most divisive issue was the Tariff of 1828, which Jackson supported and Calhoun opposed. Eventually Calhoun resigned as vice president and returned to Congress as a member of the Senate. There he supported the process of nullification, advocated the protection of slavery, and spoke out for states rights. He worked, however, to achieve compromise when possible. He served briefly as secretary of state for President John Tyler, then spent the rest of his political life in the Senate. In 1850, Calhoun, near death, came to the Senate to speak on the compromise being worked out. Because Calhoun was unable to deliver the speech himself, Senator James Mason of Virginia delivered it for him. Calhoun realized that compromise on the issues dividing the country was impossible. He died in March 1850, less than a month after writing his last speech. John C. Calhoun worked hard to protect the rights of all states, especially those of the southern states. One historian described Calhoun as first in the hearts of his Carolina countrymen. A vote of U.S. senators in 1957 declared Calhoun to be one of the five greatest senators of all time. Opposite page: John C. Calhoun opposed the Compromise of 1850. His death that year helped make compromise possible. Left: Fort Hill, Calhoun s Up Country plantation, was eventually left to the state. Clemson University was founded on what had been the plantation. 332 Chapter 13 The Road to War
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Map 31 Compromise of 1850 Map Skill: According to the Compromise of 1850, should the Utah Territory have been slave or free? the territories of New Mexico and Utah with no mention of, or restriction on, slavery, (3) the end of the slave trade in the District of Columbia, (4) the payment of the Texas government s debt by the federal government, and (5) a new and stronger federal fugitive slave law. Of the five parts, only the last two benefited the South in general, and only the last benefited the entire South. Most southern representatives in Congress voted for the compromise, but South Carolina s representatives did not. They followed the advice of Calhoun, who died during the debate on the bill. When the bill passed, some South Carolinians suggested that the state should secede from the Union. Those in favor of secession were called fire-eaters, for they were hot-tempered. Most of the people in South Carolina were not yet in favor of secession, but after Calhoun died no leader of the state could fully restrain the actions of the fire-eaters. A Call for Secession What did tame the fire-eaters in 1850 was the refusal of other southern states to join them in the call for secession. The fire-eaters, led by Robert Barnwell Rhett of Beaufort, urged South Carolina to secede. Other South Carolinians, led by Langdon Cheves, argued that South Carolina should secede only if other southern states would do so. In the elections of 1850, Cheves and others who held his viewpoint won a majority of the seats in the South Carolina legislature. They voted to call a state convention for 1852 to consider the crisis. On April 26, 1852, a state convention met in Columbia to consider two proposals. One proposal stated that the federal government had violated the rights of the state by passing measures such as the Compromise of 1850, the Missouri Compromise, and the various tariffs. The other proposal stated that South Carolina or any other state had the right to secede from the Union at any time, although now (1852) was not the right time to do so. Both measures were adopted. South Carolina remained in the Union, at least for the time being. 334 Chapter 13 The Road to War Reaction to the Fugitive Slave Law Few people in the North or the South were happy with the Compromise of 1850. In reality, the compromise settled nothing regarding the issue of slavery. If anything, it made the issue worse.
Southerners, especially South Carolinians, were not happy because the Compromise gave the free states a majority in the Senate; the free states already had a majority in the House of Representatives. Southerners were afraid that if Congress could pass a law outlawing the slave trade in the District of Columbia, there would be nothing to stop it from passing a law to abolish slavery in all of the United States. At stake, as far as the South Carolinians were concerned, was their way of life. Northerners were not happy with the provision changing the fugitive slave law. The United States had a fugitive slave law for many years. Under that law, slave owners could recover their slaves, but at their own expense and through their own efforts. Under the compromise, however, the responsibility for capturing and returning fugitive slaves fell to the United States government. Federal marshals were appointed, and their primary duty in the 1850s was the capture and return of fugitive slaves. Many northerners believed the new law put the federal government in the business of slavery; they began to take matters into their own hands. In several northern states, especially Pennsylvania, citizens interfered with the federal marshals. Jails where fugitive slaves were being held were attacked, and the slaves freed. In addition to interfering with the fugitive slave law, Northerners and abolitionists increased their efforts to free slaves covertly, or secretly. During the 1840s a groups of abolitionists formed a system of safe houses to move runaway slaves to the North or Canada. The system, nicknamed the Underground Railroad, transported many slaves to freedom. Though the system was never as organized as the name indicates, individuals called conductors helped the runaway slaves get from safe house to safe house, hiding during the day and moving at night. Harriet Tubman was one of the most famous conductors. She and other conductors risked jail and even death if they were caught in the process of helping slaves run away. To the South, the actions and attitudes of the northerners were frightening. The people were openly ignoring a law passed by Congress. Southerners began to fear that northerners possibly would attack the South to free the slaves. Above: Slave owners often used woodcuts like this one in newspaper ads used to find their runaway slaves. It s Your Turn 1. What were three target areas for expansion of the United States? 2. What land area did the United States acquire through the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo? 3. How did the Mexican-American War contribute to the Civil War? Section 1 Manifest Destiny 335