Passages History 1301 Chapter 12 Outline

Chapter Outline

After the annexation of Texas, President Polk began to look toward America’s border with Mexico with an eye toward expanding the country further, even if it meant war.

A.    War with Mexico:  The two countries clashed from 1846 to 1848, with the United States repeatedly victorious, and future leaders such as Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee made names for themselves in the conflict.

B.     The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo brought the fighting to an end, and its provisions changed America greatly.

1.       Mexico sold California, New Mexico, and all of Texas to the United States for $15 million.

2.       The Rio Grande was recognized as the border between Texas and Mexico.

C.    The Consequences of War:  The war and its consequences exerted a great deal of influence on the presidential election of 1848, and the result was a narrow victory for General Zachary Taylor, a slaveholding planter.

Americans were on the move during the middle years of the 1800s, as the populace spread across the country and immigrants took their place in the East.

A.    Rails, Sails, and Steam:  Steamships plied the waters of the country’s rivers, but it was the development of the railroad industry that truly made it possible for large numbers of people to settle westward.

B.     The Gold Rush:  After gold was discovered in California in 1848, people from the eastern United States flocked to that territory, hoping to strike it rich; few did, but most remained, helping California to grow and prosper.

C.    The Mormon Migration:  One of the largest migrations took place when Brigham Young, leading Mormons on a search for a safe haven from their oppressors, brought them to the Great Salt Lake.

D.    The High Tide of Immigration:  Immigrants fleeing the Great Potato Famine in Ireland flooded the eastern United States in the years following 1845, and Germany’s 1848 revolution pushed about a million people to immigrate to America during the same period.

Some Americans became disillusioned with their lives and set out to make some changes.

A.    Perfect Communities:  Groups experimented with various utopian communities, such as the Oneida Association in New York, but none succeeded over the long term.

B.     Women’s Rights:  Many women began to fight for suffrage, with Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott organizing the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848 to publicize their cause; other women concentrated on changing laws that affected all aspects of women’s lives.

Ease of transportation via the railroads and improved communications via the proliferation of printing presses contributed to the development and spread of a true national culture by the mid-1800s.

A.    Mass Appeal:  Authors used mass printing to appeal to a wide audience, and there seemed to be something for everyone during this era; popular audiences were beginning to demand entertainment.

B.     Hawthorne, Melville, and Whitman:  Though many were read and quickly forgotten, the era also gave America some great American writers of long-lasting appeal.

1.       Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novels, such as The Scarlet Letter, probed the psyche of America while providing vivid descriptions of life in early New England.

2.       Herman Melville performed a similar service with novels such as Moby-Dick, though his genius went mostly unappreciated during his lifetime.

3.       Walt Whitman was the most experimental, laboring for years on his epic volume of poetry, Leaves of Grass, which celebrated the American spirit.

4.       All three of these writers suffered from a lack of recognition and appreciation during their lifetimes, but later audiences have grasped the significance of their works.

The 1850s was a decade filled with political crises, mainly because of the continuing conflict over slavery.

A.    The Crisis of 1850:  California precipitated a nationwide crisis in 1850 when it petitioned Congress to join the Union as a free state.

             California statehood would tip the scales in the Senate toward antislavery, and the South, led by John C. Calhoun, balked.

             Other questions arose also, such as whether slavery should be permitted in any of the new territories gained from Mexico.

             Stephen A. Douglas finally brokered a deal that would be known as the Compromise of 1850: Vote on each question separately, save face for politicians up for re-election, and bring California into the Union.

A.    African Americans and the White North:  African Americans in the North did not fare well, but attitudes of white northerners began to undergo a change after the publication of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin.

Issues such as immigration and territorial expansion contributed to the political chaos that engulfed the country during the 1850s.

            The Know-Nothings:  The new Know-Nothing party dedicated itself to the preservation of “native American” (American born) white society, and it drew disillusioned members from the major parties.

            A Hunger for Expansion:  A hunger for expansion engulfed the country, spurred by Americans who were involved in trade throughout the Pacific as well as in the Western hemisphere.

            Kansas-Nebraska Lets Loose the Storm:  The Kansas-Nebraska Act released a firestorm of controversy over slavery and popular sovereignty, and the upheaval contributed directly to the formation of a new Republican party, one dedicated to drawing the line on slavery.

Conclusion: The 1840s and 1850s were years of rapid change in the United States, as improvements in transportation and communication brought Americans closer together even as they spread across the entire country. Gold brought wealth to some, poverty to many, and statehood to California. Immigrants from Europe flooded the cities of the East, while Chinese workers began to arrive in California. The political scene was tumultuous, and the stage appeared set for a catastrophe of some kind.