ROAD TO THE CIVIL WAR

I.   Imperialism in the 1840s: War with Mexico

         Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848)

1.      Mexican cession of 525,000 square miles

2.      U.S. pays $15 million

3.      U.S. assumes $3.25 million in debt to Mexico

ARTICLE VIII

Mexicans now established in territories previously belonging to Mexico, and which remain for the future within the limits of the United States, as defined by the present treaty, shall be free to continue where they now reside, or to remove at any time to the Mexican Republic, retaining the property which they possess in the said territories, or disposing thereof, and removing the proceeds wherever they please, without their being subjected, on this account, to any contribution, tax, or charge whatever.

Those who shall prefer to remain in the said territories may either retain the title and rights of Mexican citizens, or acquire those of citizens of the United States. But they shall be under the obligation to make their election within one year from the date of the exchange of ratifications of this treaty; and those who shall remain in the said territories after the expiration of that year, without having declared their intention to retain the character of Mexicans, shall be considered to have elected to become citizens of the United States.

In the said territories, property of every kind, now belonging to Mexicans not established there, shall be inviolably respected. The present owners, the heirs of these, and all Mexicans who may hereafter acquire said property by contract, shall enjoy with respect to it guarantees equally ample as if the same belonged to citizens of the United States.

ARTICLE IX

The Mexicans who, in the territories aforesaid, shall not preserve the character of citizens of the Mexican Republic, conformably with what is stipulated in the preceding article, shall be incorporated into the Union of the United States. and be admitted at the proper time (to be judged of by the Congress of the United States) to the enjoyment of all the rights of citizens of the United States, according to the principles of the Constitution; and in the mean time, shall be maintained and protected in the free enjoyment of their liberty and property, and secured in the free exercise of their religion without; restriction.

Wilmot Proviso (1846)

COMPROMISE OF 1850

1845: 15-13   (Texas and Florida)

1846: 15-14 (Iowa)

1848: 15-15 (Wisconsin)

1.     Fugitive Slave Act

2.     Abolish slave trade in D.C.

3.     Cali in as Free State

4.     Popular Sovereignty in new territories

5.     Resolved boundary dispute btw. Texas

and New Mexico

II.   The Trouble Escalates:

A. Transcontinental Railroad

·      Stephen Douglas

B.   Kansas-Nebraska Act

C.   “Bleeding Kansas”

·      New England Emigrant Aid Company

·      “Beecher’s Bibles”

·      John Brown

·      Pottawatomie Creek

D.   The Caning of Sumner

IV.   Party Politics

A.   Decline of the Whigs

B.   Rise and Fall of the “Know-Nothings”

C.   Rise of the Republicans

·      The Election of 1856--

V.   On the Verge of War:

A.   Dred Scott

B.   Panic of 1857

C.   Lincoln-Douglas Debates

D.   John Brown’s Raid

E.   The Election of Lincoln