Manifest Destiny and the Road to Civil Wargrayhistory.weebly.com/.../1/...road_to_civil_war.pdf · ROAD TO CIVIL WAR Chapter 13 1844-1865 Manifest Destiny • Americans continued

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MANIFEST DESTINY AND THE ROAD TO CIVIL WARChapter 13

1844-1865

Manifest Destiny

• Americans continued to move westward but many territories were not under American jurisdiction

• Oregon Trail: iconic story of manifest destiny

• Pioneers in Conestoga wagons defied the odds to make the journey

• California Gold Rush of 1849

• Discovery of gold in Sierra Nevada led to rapid settlement of western territory

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Texas Revolution and Annexation

• Texas was inundated by white settlers with the Mexican govt.’s approval• Revolution was a reaction to new restrictions under Santa Anna

• Abolished slavery and prohibited new Anglo immigrants

• Congress was against Texas becoming a state, but a compromise was made in 1845

Mexican-American War

• Mexican-American War: Began as disagreement over whether border was at the Nueces or Rio Grande

• American troops were sent into the disputed area and eventually invaded Mexico City

• Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo of 1848: Mexican cession given to U.S. for $15 million dollars

• Wilmot proviso: failed attempt to ban slavery in territories acquired from Mexico

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Interaction with Asia

• Commodore Matthew Perry was sent to open trade with Japan• Two ports were made accessible to American ships

• Gifts of miniature steam engine and telegraph helped Japan become industrialized nation quickly

• Chinese immigrants worked as laborers and miners in gold rush territories

Slavery in new territories

• Compromise of 1850: Diffused tension over slave v. free state admissions and strengthened Fugitive Slave Act

• Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854): allowed each territory to vote on issue of slavery• Bleeding Kansas: Proslavery voters from Missouri crossed border to fraudulently vote in Kansas

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Dred Scott (1857)

• Scott was a slave who appealed to the supreme court for his freedom• Owner had moved into Illinois and Wisconsin, both free states

• Court determined that Scott was not a citizen and could not sue for his freedom• Further argued that the federal govt. could not prevent territories from allowing slavery

Sectional Breakdown

• Southerner Preston Brooks caned Northerner Charles Sumner on the floor of the senate after anti-slavery speech in 1856

• Harpers Ferry (1859): Abolitionist John Brown captured federal arsenal in hopes of starting a slave revolt

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Rise and Fall of Political Parties

• Free Soilers wanted to prohibit slavery in new territory and improve economic opportunities for white settlers

• American Party (aka Know-Nothings): Nativist and anti-Catholic

• Democrats split between north and south•

Rise of the Republican Party

• Glorified the North as home to progress, opportunity and freedom

• Politically unified the already economically unified Northeast and northwest

• Did not want to abolish slavery, but wanted to stop it from spreading

• Appealed to Whigs, Northern Democrats, Free Soil and Know Nothing Parties

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Election of 1860

• Abraham Lincoln was the Republican candidate

• Stephen Douglas for the Northern Democrats and John Breckinridge for the Southern democrats

• Vote was a clearly sectional split

• Breckinridge in the Deep south

• Lincoln in the North (except NJ)

• Douglas only won Missouri

Secession

• After Lincoln’s election southern states began to leave the union• Feared Republicans would end slavery and their way of life

• Confederate States of America formed before Lincoln’s inauguration in 1861

• Crittenden’s compromise might have prevented the civil war• Slavery would continue where it already existed

• Missouri Compromise line extended to the Pacific

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Ft. Sumter

• Union fort in Charleston, South Carolina’s harbor

• April 12, 1861

• Confederate president Jefferson Davis ordered his troops to fire on union forces