TERRITORIAL EXPANSION1803-1853

MANIFEST DESTINY During the 1820s Americans, driven by

a hunger for land and opportunity, were increasingly eager to explore and settle the western frontier.

By 1860, over 4 million Americans lived West of the Mississippi River.

MANIFEST DESTINY John L. O’Sullivan, the

editor of the Democratic Review, gave the expansionist spirit a name when he coined the term Manifest Destiny.

O’Sullivan declared that America had a right to expand to the Pacific Ocean.

“Away, away with all these cobweb tissues of the rights of discovery, exploration, settlement,…[the American claim] is by the right of our manifest destiny to overspread and to possess the whole of the continent which Providence has given us for the development of the great experiment of liberty…”

John L. O’Sullivan,Democratic Review, 1845

MANIFEST DESTINY O’Sullivan and other supporters of Manifest

Destiny believed that America was foreordained to extend its civilization across the American continent.

Supporters argued that westward expansion was necessary to extend democratic institutions and the blessings of American agriculture and commerce.

Opponents of manifest destiny included many Whigs and New England abolitionists who feared the spread of slavery.

WESTWARD EXPANSION The first Americans to see the

West were explorers, such as Lewis and Clark, and Zebulon Pike, as well as naturalists, trappers, traders, and missionaries.

Trailblazers and pioneers followed, migrating westward along routes such as Santa Fe and Oregon Trails. For example, Mormons, led by Brigham Young, settled at Great Salt Lake in 1846.

Discovery of gold and silver in California, Nevada, and other western territories accelerated westward expansion and settlement.

WESTWARD EXPANSIONMost westward pioneers migrated to fertile lands of the far Pacific West, such as the valleys of Oregon, thus bypassing the Great Plains, which was seen as too arid (dry) to sustain agriculture.

LANDS ACQUIRED BETWEEN 1783-1853

LOUISIANA PURCHASE (1803) This vast territory was acquired from France

for fifteen million dollars. In 1803, President Thomas Jefferson sent the

Corps of Discovery, led by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark on a scientific exploration of the West.

The objective of the expedition was to seek a water route to the Pacific Ocean, gather geographical facts, and expand commercial relations with western tribes.

FLORIDA (1819) This territory was acquired by treaty

from Spain, satisfying the interests of southern expansionists who had long coveted Florida.

In the Adams-Onis Treaty, Spain also gave up its claims to the Pacific Northwest in return for the United States giving up its claims to Texas.

TEXAS (1845) The United States acquired Texas and what is now parts of what

is now New Mexico, Oklahoma, Colorado, Wyoming, and Kansas by annexation in 1845.

The Spanish had long established missions and settlements in Texas, a sparsely populated northern province of Mexico.

After Mexico won its independence from Spain in 1821, southern slaveholders and other American settlers moved to Texas, drawn in part by generous land grants. Immigrants were to be of the Roman Catholic faith and upon settlement were to become Mexican citizens. These requirements were largely ignored.

By 1830, there were roughly 30,000 people in Texas, the vast majority of whom were Anglo-American settlers and their slaves.

TEXAS (1845) The rapid growth of the Anglo-American population of

Texas alarmed Mexican officials and friction soon developed between the Mexican government and the Anglo-American settlers over such issues as slavery, immigration, and local rights.

In 1830, Mexico emancipated its slaves and prohibited their further importation into Texas, as well as further settlement by troublesome Americans.

When tensions between American settlers and the Mexican government escalated further, Texans rebelled and declared their independence.

TEXAS (1845)THE LONE STAR REPUBLIC

The Texas Revolution began in 1836 and lasted less than two months.

After suffering defeats at the Alamo and Goliad, Texan forces led by Sam Houston defeated the Mexican army at the Battle of San Jacinto.

Sam Houston was elected President of the newly founded Republic of Texas in October 1836.

Houston and most Texans wanted to join the United States and hoped Texas would soon be admitted to the Union.

TEXAS (1845)THE ANNEXATION ISSUE

Many Americans, however, opposed admitting Texas to the Union.

The Texas constitution allowed slavery. Northern anti-slavery Whigs, as well as abolitionists, opposed admitting another slave state to the Union.

Other opponents of annexation warned that annexation of Texas could provoke a war with Mexico.

Both presidents Jackson and Van Buren were forced to put off Texas annexation due to the political opposition of northerners.

BOUNDARY DISPUTE IN MAINETHE “AROOSTOOK WAR”

An explosive controversy of the early 1840s involved the ill-defined boundary between Maine and Canada.

Fighting between groups of lumberjacks from both Maine and Canada soon erupted in the disputed territory of the Aroostook River Valley. The conflict threatened to broaden into a full-fledged war.

BOUNDARY DISPUTE IN MAINETHE WEBSTER-ASHBURTON TREATY

BOUNDARY DISPUTE IN MAINETHE WEBSTER-ASHBURTON TREATY

The conflict was resolved in a treaty negotiated by United States Secretary of State Daniel Webster and a British representative, Lord Alexander Ashburton.

In the Webster-Ashburton Treaty in 1842, the disputed territory was divided between Maine and British Canada.

An important bonus sneaked in by the same treaty: the British, in adjusting the U.S.-Canadian border farther west, surrendered 6,500 square miles. The area, rich was later found to contain the iron ore-rich Mesabi range of Minnesota.

THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION OF 1844 The annexation of Texas and territorial expansion emerged

as the key issues in the 1844 presidential campaign. The Democratic party was divided over annexation. A northern wing of the party backed the nomination of

former president, Martin Van Buren, who opposed immediate annexation.

A southern faction, however, supported the candidacy of John C. Calhoun, who favored annexation of Texas.

With the Democratic convention deadlocked over of the nomination, delegates in the end nominated a James K. Polk, an expansionist candidate from Tennessee and a protégé of Jackson.

THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION OF 1844 Polk campaigned on

an expansionist platform, favoring annexation of Texas, the “reoccupation” of the “whole” of Oregon, and the acquisition of California.

THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION OF 1844 The Whig party nominated their party’s

standard bearer, Henry Clay. On the crucial subject of Texas, Clay alienated

voters by attempting to straddle the issue. In a series of confusing letters, he stated that

while he personally favored annexing slaveholding Texas (an attempt to curry favor with Southern expansionists, he also favored postponement (an appeal to antislavery northerners).

THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION OF 1844

THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION OF 1844 Polk triumphed in a close election, defeating Clay with

170 votes in the electoral college to Clay’s 105 and 1,338,464 to 1,300,097 in the popular column.

Clay would have won if he had not lost New York State by a mere 5,000 votes.

There a third-party, the Liberty Party, and their candidate James G. Birney, collected nearly 16,000 votes, many which would otherwise have gone to Clay.

Ironically, the anti-Texas Liberty Party, by spoiling Clay’s chances and helping to ensure the election of pro-Texas Polk, hastened the annexation of Texas.

TEXAS (1845)THE ANNEXATION ISSUE

Land-hungry Democrats, flushed with victory, proclaimed that they had received a mandate from the voters to take Texas.

In 1845, after years of controversy, Congress approved a joint-resolution annexing Texas.

The joint-resolution was signed by outgoing president John Tyler during the final days his administration.

Texas, a slave state, became the 28th state in the Union.

OREGON COUNTRY (1846) Both the United States and

Great Britain had long-standing claims to the Oregon territory.

The Democratic party’s candidate in the presidential election of 1844, James Knox Polk, had campaigned on the slogan “All of Oregon or None!”

The belligerent slogan meant that the United States would go to war with Britain in order to acquire the whole of Oregon country.

OREGON COUNTRY (1846) The “reoccupation” of the

“whole” of Oregon had been promised in the campaign of 1844. In the end, Polk and the United States would settle for half.

In accordance with a compromise treaty signed with Great Britain in 1846, Oregon was divided at the forty-ninth parallel.

With the signing of the Oregon Treaty, the United States acquired territory that makes up the present-day states of Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and parts of Montana and Wyoming.

MEXICAN CESSION (1848) What is now California,

Nevada, Utah, Arizona, and parts of New Mexico, Colorado, and Wyoming became part of the United States as a result of the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which ended the Mexican War (1846-1848).

THE MEXICAN WAR While Polk avoided war with Great Britain

, the explosive Texas question remained to be settled with Mexico.

The Mexican War erupted in large part because of Mexico’s objections to the annexation of Texas by the United States.

Outraged by the annexation of Texas, Mexico broke off diplomatic relations with the United States.

THE MEXICAN WAR In 1846, a dispute over the

Texas-Mexican border fueled a growing conflict between the United States and Mexico.

Polk exacerbated tensions by supporting Texas’ claim to the Rio Grande as its southwestern boundary.

The Mexican government denied this claim, insisting that the southern boundary of Texas was farther north at the Nueces River.

THE MEXICAN WAR President James K. Polk, an

outspoken supporter of Manifest Destiny and the acquisition of California, escalated tensions by ordering the United States Army under the command of General Zachary Taylor into the disputed territory.

On April 25, 1846, a Mexican force crossed the Rio Grande and fired upon an American army patrol, killing eleven soldiers.

The incident was quickly exploited by Polk. Declaring that “Mexico has…shed American blood upon American soil,” Polk demanded that Congress declare war on Mexico. Congress obliged and approved a declaration of war on May 13, 1846.

The cup of forbearance had been exhausted…Mexico has passed the boundary of the United States, has invaded our territory and shed American blood upon the American soil. She has proclaimed that hostilities have commenced, and that the two nations are now at war. As war exists, and, notwithstanding all our efforts to avoid it, exists by the act of Mexico herself, we are called upon by every consideration of duty and patriotism to vindicate with decision the honor, the rights, and the interests of our country…I invoke the prompt action of Congress to recognize the existence of the war, and to place at the disposition of the Executive the means of prosecuting the war with vigor, and thus hastening the restoration of peace. . . .

James K. Polk,Message on War with Mexico, May 11th, 1846

THE MEXICAN WAR The Mexican War caused political and sectional conflict within

the United States. Although expansionists, especially southerners, supported the

war, New England abolitionists denounced the Mexican War as an unjust “war of conquest” orchestrated by a southern “slavocracy” intent on adding new slave states to the Union.

Henry David Thoreau, a New England essayist and transcendentalist philosopher, refused to pay his state poll tax as a gesture of his opposition to the war and was jailed.

Thoreau’s essay on “Civil Disobedience” urging passive resistance to laws that require a citizen “to be an agent of injustice” later influenced the non-violent protests of Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

THE MEXICAN WAR Northern Whigs also criticized the Mexican

conflict. Abraham Lincoln, then an unknown freshman

Congressman from Illinois, introduced the so-called Spot Resolutions, challenging Polk to identify the exact spot upon which American blood had been shed.

Many Northern Whigs believed that Polk had drawn Mexico into a fight and then used the ensuing skirmish as a pretext to pressure Congress for a declaration of war.

THE MEXICAN WARTHE WILMONT PROVISO

In August of 1846, David Wilmont, a Democratic Congressman from Pennsylvania, attached a rider to a war appropriations bill. His “proviso” or amendment to the spending bill called for a prohibition on slavery in any territories acquired as a result of the Mexican War.

Wilmont defended his proviso as a necessary means of insuring the “rights of white freemen” to live and work in the new territories without the unfair burden of competing with slave labor.

THE MEXICAN WARTHE WILMONT PROVISO

Supported by Northern lawmakers and vehemently opposed by Southerners, the Wilmont Proviso was passed twice by the House but was twice defeated in the Senate.

THE WILMONT PROVISOIMPACT

The Wilmont Proviso became a rallying point for an antislavery coalition made up of “conscience Whigs” and antislavery Democrats that formed the Free-Soil Party.

The Free-Soilers organized a political platform built upon their opposition to the extension of slavery into the territories, federal funding of internal improvements, and free government homesteads for western settlers.

The party’s 1848 presidential election slogan “Free Soil, free speech, free labor, free men” resonated with Northern voters who opposed the spread of slavery.

The Wilmont Proviso, therefore, reawakened dormant sectional tensions over the expansion of slavery. It thus marked the beginning of a long series of increasingly acrimonious crises that would dominate American politics until the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861.

THE MEXICAN WAR Led by General

Zachary Taylor, American forces won a series of victories in northeastern Mexico.

Taylor became a national hero when American forces under his command defeated a much larger Mexican force at the Battle of Buena Vista.

THE MEXICAN WAR Led by Colonel Stephen

W. Kearny, American forces captured Santa Fe, New Mexico.

When war broke out, Captain John C. Fremont, the explorer nicknamed “the Pathfinder” helped to overthrow Mexican rule in California, leading to the founding of the short-lived California Bear Flag Republic.

THE MEXICAN WARLed by General Winfield Scott, American forces landed at Vera Cruz and then went on to capture the Mexican capital of Mexico City in September of 1847.

THE MEXICAN CESSIONTHE TREATY OF GUADALUPE HIDALGO

Mexico recognized the Rio Grande as the southern border of Texas.

The United States acquired the territories of California and New Mexico (known as the Mexican Cession).

In exchange, the United States agreed to pay the sum of fifteen million dollars to Mexico and to pay the claims of American citizens against the Mexican government.

THE MEXICAN WARIMPACT

Consequently, the acquisition of territory from Mexico unleashed potent sectional forces over the issue of slavery that would put the United States on the path toward Civil War.

“Mexico will poison us”Ralph Waldo Emerson

MANIFEST DESTINY TO THE SOUTH Many southerners were dissatisfied with the

territorial gains from the Mexican War. In the early 1850s, they hoped to acquire new

territories. Southern expansionists focused in particular on

Latin America, where it was believed that the geography and climate of the region were well-suited for the development of a plantation economy and slavery.

The most tempting and eagerly sought prize in the eyes of southern expansionists was Cuba.

THE OSTEND MANIFESTO President Polk had offered to purchase Cuba

from Spain for one hundred million dollars. Spain, however, had refused to sell what was

the last remnant of its once glorious empire. Several southern adventurers led small

“filibustering” expeditions to Cuba in an attempt to take the island by force.

These forays were repulsed, however, by Spanish defenders.

THE OSTEND MANIFESTO Elected to the presidency in 1852, Franklin Piece, a Northern

Democrat, supported expansionism. In 1854, the Secretary of States sent three American ministers to

Ostend, Belgium to draw up a dispatch, soon known as the Ostend Manifesto. The document urged the Pierce administration to offer Spain one-hundred and twenty million dollars in exchange for Cuba. If Spain refused, the document recommended that Pierce undertake military preparations to invade the island.

When the Ostend Manifesto was made public, it ignited a storm of opposition from antislavery members of Congress. To many, the Ostend Manifesto seemed to be little more than a plot orchestrated by southern expansionists to extend slavery.

Under fierce public outcry, the Pierce administration was pressured to abandon the scheme.

GADSDEN PURCHASE (1853) This strip of territory

in southern Arizona and New Mexico was purchased from Mexico in 1853 for the purpose of building a transcontinental railroad to the Pacific along a southerly route.