A SURVEY OF AMERICAN HISTORY

Unit 2: Westward Expansion and Civil WarPart 13: The Watershed Year of 1848

PREPARING FOR WAR WITH MEXICO

• Polk intended to acquire California from Mexico. He wanted the United States to possess San Francisco Bay to increase trade with Asia.

• He sent diplomats to Mexico to negotiate the purchase of California, but Mexico refused to negotiate until it received compensation for Texas.

• In response, Polk sent troops to the Rio Grande, under the leadership of Colonel Zachary Taylor, and prepared for war...

MANIFEST DESTINY

• What Polk and many others believed in was an idea now known as ‘Manifest Destiny.’ That phrase was coined in 1845 as America and Britain resolved the Oregon Territory dispute.

• At that time, the journalist John O’Sullivan declared that it was the “manifest destiny” of the United States “to overspread and to possess the whole of the continent which Providence has given us for the development of the great experiment of liberty and federated self-government entrusted to us.”

MANIFEST DESTINY

• Manifest Destiny is the idea that the United States and its political institutions have won the special favor of God, and that the nation therefore has a holy mission to extend its virtues across the continent.

• Closely related to Manifest Destiny is the idea of American exceptionalism. This idea suggests that, although it is morally wrong for one country to invade another and displace its people, America is allowed to be an exception to this rule because it has a divine duty.

WARTIME SUPPORT AND DISSENT

• On the whole, as war broke out, the Democratic Party supported it while the Whigs opposed it.

• By this time, the Democrats were essentially the party of the slaveholding Southern states. Their support came from the possibility of acquiring territory that would add more slave states to the Union.

• Whig abolitionists opposed the war on the grounds that it was unprovoked and, often, on the grounds that it was a means of extending American slavery.

FREDERICK DOUGLASS

• Born into slavery on a Maryland plantation in 1818 and escaped sometime in the 1830s.

• Published Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass in 1845, detailing his experiences with his abusive master, Mr. Covey, and his escape to freedom via the secret nationwide network of abolitionists who formed the ‘underground railroad’ to shelter runaway slaves as they made their way to the North.

• Caused a sensation with his beautiful prose style and oratory, and became an outspoken and influential abolitionist leader.

HENRY DAVID THOREAU

• Philosopher and naturalist who opposed the war because he was also an abolitionist.

• Author of Civil Disobedience, in which he discussed his reaction to the outbreak of the war.

• Was jailed for not paying taxes.

• Refused to pay taxes as long as they funded the war.

• Developed a means of political action now known as ‘passive resistance,’ blocking day-to-day governance via withdrawal and non-participation.

THE TREATY OFGUADALUPE HIDALGO

• The peace treaty that ended the Mexican-American War in 1848, after eighteen months of battle.

• Mexico signed the treaty after Zachary Taylor’s men defeated the Mexican Army and conquered Mexico City.

• Mexico ceded all or part of present-day Texas, Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, Arizona, Nevada, and California, territory known as the Mexican Cession.

• The Whigs opposed it for its expansionary effects.

THE MEXICAN CESSION OF 1848

THE CALIFORNIA GOLD RUSH

• In early 1848, only two weeks before the end of the Mexican-American War, gold was discovered in California.

• The gold immediately attracted migrants from Oregon, and soon attracted migrants from overseas, particularly China.

• In 1849, the first real year of the gold rush, about 90,000 people arrived in California. By 1855, this figure was 200,000. Of the first immigrants, only a few were Chinese. By 1852, however, the Chinese numbered 20,000.

ELIZABETH CADY STANTON

• Outspoken abolitionist and women’s rights advocate.

• Fought for women’s suffrage as well as parental rights, employment rights, property ownership rights, divorce rights, and birth control rights.

• Co-ordinated the Seneca Falls convention in upstate New York in 1848, the first organized women’s suffrage movement in the United States.

• Drafted the Declaration of Rights and Sentiments, the key document of the convention.

THE SENECA FALLS CONVENTION (1848)

• Attended by three hundred people, men and women.

• Resulted in the drafting of the Declaration of Rights and Sentiments, signed by 68 women and 32 men.

• The Declaration of Rights and Sentiments is based on the Declaration of Independence, copying much of the language word for word and recasting King George III as male authority figures in general.

• Called for the immediate enfranchisement of women.

HOW TO DIVIDE THE NEW TERRITORY?

• Following the Mexican Cession and the acquisition of vast new territory by the United States, the nation faced the question of whether the territory should be carved up into free states or slave states or some of both.

• Creating an equal number of free states and slave states was essential for preserving the Congressional balance of power between the north and the south, but of course the free states wanted more free states and the slave states did not...

THE WHIGS RETURN TO POWER

• Following Polk’s single term in office, the Whigs were eager to reclaim the Presidency in 1849.

• To do that, they drafted Polk’s own most celebrated military strategist, Zachary Taylor, as their candidate.

• Taylor ignored the Whig Party policy platform and lasted only a year in office, dying suddenly of an unknown ailment brought on by eating bad food.

• Taylor was replaced by his Vice President, Millard Fillmore.

A SURVEY OF AMERICAN HISTORY

Unit 2: Westward Expansion and Civil WarPart 13: The Watershed Year of 1848