Chapter 13

o Failure of the Slidell Mission
o A lot of Americans (slaveholders) bought land that belonged to Mexico. They see opportunity in the land
o Mexico is Catholic and the Catholic church is taking a position against slavery
o Waged a Civil War against Americans
o 1836-1845 Texas was its own country
o When Polk was elected, he promised territory expansion
o Territorial Dispute – Mexico thought the Texan territory belonged to them, Texas thought they were independent
o Polk sent troops into disputed area (Preemptive strike) but Mexico thought of this as an invasion.
o Went to War – irrelevant war 1846-1848
• Inaccurate guns
• Led to a false sense of what war was going to be like
• Ended in 1848 with the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo
• U.S payed Mexico $15 million

o Wanted to become a state
o Proposed by Henry Clay
o California comes into the union as a free state ***
o South has completely lost its place in the Union (Northern advantages)
o New Fugitive Slave Act
• Tougher
• Federal
• Made it illegal for anyone living in the north to not point out a slave they thought had escaped from the South
o Slavery still exists in the north – Personal liberty law (claimed northerners did not have to follow the New Fugitive Slave Act) – state is sovereign, do not have to pass part of Compromise (states rights- nullification)
o Neither view the constitution as a binding
o Popular sovereignty would be use to determine whether slavery would be used or not.
• Used as a tool to resolve slavery

• Sought to overturn the Missouri Compromise
• Douglas offers his southern friends an opportunity to have slavery where it had previously been forbidden - let popular sovereignty determine slavery in unorganized area
• This was appealing to southern democrats
• In return the transcontinental railroad go to Chicago – this brings money, trade, commerce, and goods. This will make him very popular in Illinois
• This Act Passed
• Settlers flooded Kansas
• “Bleeding Kansas” – Small Civil War
• Created by popular sovereignty
• Failure of democracy
• The Majority of people in Kansas wanted no slavery.
• “Pottawatomie Massacre”
o John Brown – Calvinist, lived in East, decided he was gods agent on earth to free the slaves
o He goes to Kansas bc that’s where the slavery war was fought
o Went to Pottawatomie Creek and went door to door and arrested pro-slave males and slaughtered some of them.
o Brown things this is justified
o Goes back East

• Brooks – pro-slavery
• Speech in senate – anti-slaves speech. Meant to be derogatory
• Brook responded to the speech by going to the office and beat him with a cane.
• Sumner became a martyr
• Brooks became a hero

• Dred Scott Decision (1857)
o What happens if a freed slave goes into a territory?
o He was caught and returned to slavery. Was this legal?
o Missouri Compromise was illegal , only the people can do that – federal gov’t was unable to

• Republican party is born
• Social reformer
• Free soilers or abolition
• 1858 Senate election – Lincoln vs Steven Douglas.
o Lincoln lost
• Lincoln asked Douglas: If a state or territory decided in one time period that they want slavery, and then decide in a later time period that they don’t… what happens?
o Douglas said yes – later voters could reverse their decision
• Problems: That hurt Douglas in the south bc they knew that would happen. (North was more popular that the South)

• Plan stockpile weapons, smuggle into western Virginia
• Industrialists supply him with weapons
• Arm male slaves with pikes
• Planned to seize an arsenal and to use it as a base to go to plantations, free the slaves and arm with pikes
• Raid is put down
• Slaves are returned
• Trial occurred – Brown found guilty
• White martyrdom – martyr for the north

• 1860 Lincoln is the Republican candidate
• Kept people who looked down on him in his cabinet
• Ordered all federal forts in the south to be held
• Also ordered these forts to NOT engage in hostilities
• Did not want to preemptive strike the South
• Fort is surrendered
• This is gonna be a very ugly war that requires justification - it’s a lot harder to make the aggressor look bad if you preemptively strike