Contradictions that Bind: Expansion and Reform (1801-1861)

Related Topics Covered in Lecture 3

• Louisiana Purchase (1803) – Jefferson’s victory• War of 1812 – A draw “spun” as a triumph• Missouri Compromise (1820) – uneasy

handling of slavery issue• Andrew Jackson’s background and rise of

Democratic Party – a gentleman of the frontier epitomizing new realities of mass-based politics

Jackson’s “War” on the National Bank

Nullification Crisis (1832-1833)

• Nominally fought over a protective tariff, but slavery was the proverbial 800 pound elephant in the room

• Could states render individual federal laws null and void?

• Jackson battled his own vice-president, John C. Calhoun, before a compromise was reached

Emergence of Whig Party

Trail of Tears

Election of 1840 – “Log Cabin and Hard Cider” Campaign

Manifest Destiny

Mexican War (1846-1848)

Consequences of Mexican War

• Case of “territorial indigestion” – slavery question exacerbated due to Wilmot Proviso

• Fears among anti-slavery advocates of “slave power” conspiracy

• Heightened partisanship amidst claims of “Mr. Polk’s War”

Spectrum of Opinion on Slavery(In order of greatest defenders to strongest

opponents)

• Southern Democrats (siege mentality)• Northern Democrats• Free Soilers and, eventually, Republicans Whigs• Abolitionists• John Brown

Free Soilers as Third Party

Compromise of 1850 – another “band aid” fix

Uncle Tom’s Cabin

Kansas-Nebraska Act (“slave power” conspiracy at work?)

Birth of Republican Party (1854)

• Moderate in that it advocated only containing the expansion of slavery rather than eliminating it where it already existed.

• At this point only a sectional party.• Appealed to former Whigs and Free Soilers

“Bleeding Kansas”/Caning of Charles Sumner

Dred Scott Decision by Supreme Court (1857)

• Ruling occurred at a time when the majority of justices were slaveholders and/or supported the practice.

• Court found that Scott never should have been able to bring suit in the first place.

• If a slave lives in a free territory, that has no bearing on one’s legal status.

• Congress has no right to bar slavery in the territories (thus Compromise of 1820 was null and void).

Lincoln-Douglas Debates (1858)

John Brown’s Raid at Harper’s Ferry

Election of 1860

Useful Primary Sources

• Webster-Hayne Debate (1830)• Speckled Snake reply to Andrew Jackson

(1830)• “Appeal to the Christian Women of the South”

by Angelina Grimke (1836)• “Annexation” by John O’Sullivan (1845)• First Republican Party Platform (1856)

Useful Primary Sources

Excerpts from Hinton Helper’s The Impending Crisis of the South (1857)

• Excerpts from Lincoln-Douglas Debates (1858)• “On the Death of John Brown” by William Lloyd

Garrison (1859)• South Carolina Declaration of Independence

(1860)• “Cornerstone” Speech by Alexander Stephens

(1861)