Unit 8-Causes of the U.S. Civil War

Lesson 46-Slavery in the West

Review

During the early to mid-1800s, the United States had slowly been dividing socially, economically, and politically. The main differences between the North and South was that the North was industrial and the South was agricultural. Lifestyles were different because of this. The one difference that would lead to a brutal war would be the issue of slavery.

Missouri Compromise

• In 1819 the slaveholding territory of Missouri requested to join the Union.

• Many of the Missouri settlers had brought slaves with them, therefore, about twenty percent of the population was African American slaves.

• When Missouri applied to Congress for statehood, its constitution allowed slavery.

Missouri Compromise• In 1819, the nation was divided evenly

between 11 slave states and 11 free states, meaning that the admission of a new state would upset the balance of power.

• The North and South were also competing with one another for new lands in the western territories, trying to give their different economic systems an advantage.

Missouri Compromise

• Northerners wanted to ban slavery in the new territories, while Southerners opposed these efforts.

• The differences led to a strong loyalty to the particular regions of the country, otherwise known as sectionalism.

Missouri Compromise

• The Senate suggested that the problem could be solved by allowing Missouri to be admitted as a slave state while admitting Maine, who had also applied for statehood, as a free state simultaneously.

• They also proposed to prohibit slavery in the rest of the Louisiana Purchase north of 36°30’N latitude.

Missouri Compromise

Missouri Compromise

• Speaker of the House, Henry Clay of Kentucky, helped the Senate bill pass in the House of Representatives in 1820 by dividing it into three separate proposals.

• The Missouri Compromise kept the balance in the Senate between slave and free states, while also calming the issue of slavery with the Louisiana Purchase.

More Conflict Out West

• Congress had been able to keep the issue of slavery in the background for 25 years, but the debate started again in the 1840s.

• The main reason for the debate was due to Texas winning its independence in 1836, and then being admitted to the Union, as a slave state in 1845.

David Wilmot• Months after the Mexican War started,

Wilmot, a representative from Pennsylvania, proposed to Congress the idea that slavery should be prohibited in any lands that may be acquired from Mexico.

• Southerners protested this idea, as they hoped to keep the ability to introduce slavery to California and New Mexico.

David Wilmot

John C. Calhoun

• Calhoun, a senator from South Carolina, argued that neither Congress nor any territorial government had the power to ban slavery or regulate it in any way.

• Neither proposal passed, but it did open heated debate on the issue, and by the end of the war in 1848 no action had been decided for the new territories.

John C. Calhoun

Free-Soil Party

• In 1848 the Whigs chose Zachary Taylor, a Southerner and Mexican War hero, as their presidential candidate.

• Senator Lewis Cass from Michigan was nominated as the presidential candidate for the Democrats.

• Neither candidate took a position on the issue of slavery in the territories.

Free-Soil Party

• Many voters were angered by the fact that neither candidate took a position about slavery.

• Members of the old Liberty Party joined with antislavery members of the Whigs and Democrats to form the Free-Soil Party.

Free-Soil Property

• The new political party’s slogan was “Free Soil, Free Speech, Free Labor, and Free Men,” and supported the proposal of David Wilmot.

• Their party nominated former president Martin Van Buren as their presidential candidate.

Free-Soil Party

Election of 1848

• Zachary Taylor defeated Cass in a close election, while Van Buren only received fourteen percent of the popular vote in the North.

• Although Van Buren lost the election, many Free-Soil Party candidates won seats in Congress.

California

• Taylor tried to persuade leaders of California and New Mexico to apply for statehood immediately.

• He stated that once these territories became states that their citizens would get to decide to allow slavery or not.

• In 1850 California applied for statedhood, but New Mexico did not.

Other Issues • Taylor’s plan stumbled when California’s

statehood got mixed up with other issues presented to Congress.

• Antislavery Northerners wanted to abolish slavery in the nation’s capital of Washington, D.C..

• Southerners wanted a strong national law requiring states to return fugitive, or runaway slaves to their owners.

Other Issues• The concern over the balance of power

between slave and free states came back as well.

• If California, Utah, New Mexico, and Oregon entered as free states, which was likely, the South would be easily outvoted.

• Some Southerners began to talk about having their states secede from, or leave the United States.

Clay’s Proposal

In January 1850, Henry Clay presented a multi-party plan to all the issues that divided Congress.

1. California would be a free state.2. The New Mexico territory would

have no restrictions on slavery.3. New Mexico-Texas border

issue would favor New Mexico.

Clay’s Proposal

4. The slave trade, not slavery, would be banned in Washington, D.C.

5. He recommended stronger fugitive slave laws.

Debates of Clay’s Proposal

• For seven months, Congress debated Clay’s proposal.

• Clay, John C. Calhoun, and Daniel Webster of Massachusetts opened the debate.

• Calhoun was strongly against the plan, believing that protecting slavery was the only way to save the Union.

Debates of Clay’s Proposal• Calhoun warned Congress that if

California was admitted as a free state that the Southern states would have to leave the Union.

• Webster spoke strongly in support of Clay’s plan, arguing that antislavery supporters lost little in agreeing with the compromise and that the land out west was not suitable for plantations, so slavery would not benefit the West.

Compromise of 1850

• Clay’s proposal would not be able to pass as a package because most members of Congress objected one part of it or another.

• President Taylor opposed the plan, but also threatened to use force against the Southern states if they tried to secede.

Compromise of 1850

• In July 1850, President Taylor died suddenly, and the new president, Millard Fillmore, supported compromise.

• The young senator from Illinois, Stephen A. Douglas, divided Clay’s plan in a way that Congress could vote on each part separately.

• This way, Congress would not have to support proposals they were against.

Compromise of 1850• Congress passed five separate bills in August

and September of 1850, which became know as the Compromise of 1850.

• All five parts of Clay’s plan had been passed.• President Fillmore called the Compromise of

1850 a “final settlement” of the conflict between North and South.

Compromise of 1850

Conclusion

• For 25 years the issue of slavery had not been debated in Congress. Slavery became the main debate in 1849 when California applied for statehood. After an emotional debate in Congress, Henry Clay’s five part plan had been passed as a compromise that would temporarily settle the issue. President Fillmore’s idea of the Compromise of 1850 being a “final settlement” would soon be proven wrong.

Assignments

• Answer the four review questions for this lesson.

• Complete Compromise of 1850 Map Activity.

You will have a Unit 8 test after you complete Lesson 49