Transcript The Search for Compromise (cont.)

Chapter Introduction
Section 1: Slavery and Western
Expansion
Section 2: The Crisis Deepens
Section 3: The Union Dissolves
Visual Summary
What Keeps Nations
United?
From the days of the Constitutional
Convention until the late 1840s,
people in the North and South had
made compromises to keep the
nation united. That began to
change in the 1850s as the nation
expanded westward rapidly and the
controversy over slavery in the new
territories intensified.
• Why do you think Northerners
and Southerners became less
willing to compromise in the
1850s?
• Was the Civil War inevitable?
Slavery and Western
Expansion
How did western expansion
cause the North and South
to confront the issue of
slavery?
Big Ideas
Struggles for Rights As sectional tensions rose,
some Americans openly defied laws they thought were
unjust.
Content Vocabulary
• popular sovereignty
• secession
• transcontinental railroad
Academic Vocabulary
• survival
• perception
People and Events to Identify
• Wilmot Proviso
• Underground Railroad
• Free-Soil Party
• Harriet Tubman
• “Forty-Niners”
• Uncle Tom’s Cabin
• Compromise of 1850
• Gadsden Purchase
• Fugitive Slave Act
• Kansas-Nebraska Act
Can you name an issue that seems to
divide the country today?
A. Yes
B. No
A. A
B. B
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A
0%
B
The Search for Compromise
Continuing disagreements over the
westward expansion of slavery
increased sectional tensions between
the North and South.
The Search for Compromise (cont.)
• In August 1846 Representative David Wilmot
proposed an addition to a war appropriations
bill.
• His amendment, known as the Wilmot
Proviso, proposed that any territory the
United States gained from Mexico would not
permit slavery.
• Southerners were enraged and Senator
John C. Calhoun prepared a series of
resolutions to counter the Proviso, but it
never came to a vote.
The Search for Compromise (cont.)
• Senator Lewis Cass of Michigan proposed
the idea of popular sovereignty.
• With the 1848 election approaching, the
Whigs chose Zachary Taylor to run for
president.
• There were two types of Northern Whigs:
Conscience Whigs and Cotton Whigs.
The Search for Compromise (cont.)
• The decision to nominate Taylor convinced
many Conscience Whigs to quit the party.
• Antislavery Democrats and Conscience
Whigs joined members of the abolitionist
Liberty Party to form the Free-Soil Party.
• Taylor still won the election.
The Search for Compromise (cont.)
• In 1848 gold was discovered in California,
and thousands of people headed west,
hoping to become rich.
• By the end of 1849, more than 80,000
“Forty-Niners” had arrived to look for gold.
• California applied for statehood as a free
state.
• Southerners did not want to be in the
minority as slave states and a few Southern
leaders began to talk openly of secession.
The Search for Compromise (cont.)
• Senator Henry Clay tried to find a
compromise that would enable California to
join the Union.
− He offered eight resolutions to solve the
crisis.
− John C. Calhoun wrote a response, frankly
stating that Clay’s compromise would not
save the Union.
The Search for Compromise (cont.)
• At first, Congress did not pass Clay’s bill, but
Taylor died unexpectedly; Calhoun was dead
by the end of the summer.
− Vice President Millard Fillmore succeeded
Taylor and supported the bill.
− Stephen A. Douglas took charge of the
effort to resolve the crisis.
The Search for Compromise (cont.)
• All parts of the original proposal passed—the
Compromise of 1850 eased tensions over
slavery for the time being.
• Read / examine the political cartoon on p.
295; answer the questions that follow (in
complete sentences).
• Answer, incomplete sentences, questions 1,
2, and 6 on p. 309.
The Compromise of 1850
Whose nickname was “The Great
Compromiser”?
A. John C. Calhoun
B. Henry Clay
C. Millard Fillmore
D. Zachary Taylor
0%
A
A.
B.
C.
0%
D.
B
A
B
C
0%
D
C
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D
ANSWER: Yes.—Moving
the 36 votes from Taylor’s
side to Cass’s side would
have reversed the
election’s outcome.
popular sovereignty
government subject to the will of the
people; before the Civil War, the idea
that people living in a territory had the
right to decide by voting if slavery
would be allowed there
secession
withdrawal from the Union