Conflict and Compromise
Regionalism and Differing Attitudes
About the U.S.
What was the western view on
public lands?

Western farmers wanted:
– Cheap land
– Rapid settlement
– Right of the people to settle on any unoccupied
acres they could find.
What view did Eastern manufacturers
and farmers have on public land?

Eastern manufacturers:
– Opposed cheap land for fear that it would draw
off their labor supply.
– Eastern farmers believed that cheap Western
lands would result in unfair competition.
What view did Southerners have
on public lands?
Plantation owners wanted public lands
opened for sale.
 Opposed people taking what ever land they
could find because they might claim the
best lands.

What was the regional view on
protective tariffs?



North: Wanted them to ensure that their factories
could compete successfully with foreign
manufacturers.
South: Opposed high tariffs because they would
have to pay more for imported, manufactured
goods.
Northwestern: In favor of protection hoping that
tariff revenues would be used to build roads and
canals and hopefully increase the urban markets
for farm products.
What did each region feel about the
expansion of slavery into the West?

North:
– Not economically dependent on the slaves.
– A conviction that slavery was morally wrong.
– Did not want slavery extended into new territories

South:
– Wanted to be able to take their slaves anywhere except
the free states
– A fear that there will be no new slave states meaning
the political power of the South would decrease.

West:
– Felt the same way as the North for the most part.
What territory applied for
statehood in 1819?

Missouri
What was the Tallmadge
Amendment?

“And provided, That the further introduction of
slavery or involuntary servitude be prohibited,
except for the punishment of crimes, whereof the
party shall have been fully [duly] convicted; and
that all children born within the said State, after
the admission thereof into the Union, shall be free
at the age of twenty-five years.”

Representative James Tallmadge New York
What part of Massachusetts wanted to
separate and become a state?

Northern part known as
Maine
What was representation like in
the Congress in 1819?

House of
Representatives:
– The North’s population
gave it a majority in
the House.

Senate:
– Representation was
equal due to an equal
number of slave and
free states in the
Union.
– 13 Slave
– 13 Free
What were the terms of the
Missouri Compromise?
Maine enters the Union as a free state.
 Missouri enters the Union as a slave state.
 Slavery in the Louisiana Purchase above 36
degrees and 30 minutes north would be
forbidden.

What is the Wilmot Proviso?

This bill provided that all
territory gained from Mexico
should be closed to slavery.
– Passed in the House of
Representatives
• North had control of the House
– Failed in the Senate
• Equal representation in the North
and South
David C. Wilmot
Wilmot Proviso (continued)
The Mexican Cession: Slave or Free?
What were the similarities between the
Townsend Amendment and the Wilmot
Proviso?
Both were bills that tried to restrict the
spread of slavery.
 Both were passed by the House of
Representatives
 Both failed in the Senate
 Both incensed the South leading to threats
of secession and bloodshed.

What did both the Democrats and Whigs
do in the 1848 election about slavery and
why?
They both tried to downplay or avoid the
issue.
 Would not lose votes that way.

Who were the two candidates for
President in 1848?
Whigs: Zachary Taylor
Democrats: Lewis Cass
What new party emerged and what was
their platform and candidate?


Free Soil Party
Platform:
– No expansion of
slavery into the
territories.
– antislavery

Martin Van Buren
Who won the election and why?

Zachary Taylor
– Martin Van Buren
split the Northern
vote between himself
and Lewis Cass.
– Taylor gets the
Southern vote.
Who returned to a political career to
save the Union?
Compromise of 1850




The admission of California as a free state with the
compromise that the rest of the territory (New Mexico and
Utah would be open to slavery and decided by popular
sovereignty.
Texas to give up its claim to New Mexico in exchange for
federal assumption of its ten million dollars of public debt.
The banning of the slave trade in D.C.
A new fugitive slave law. The Compromise could never
have gotten past President Taylor. While a southerner and
slaveholder himself, he had no sympathy for the South and
saw no reason why the South needed to be bribed to admit
California. He referred with disdain to the Compromise as
the "Omnibus Bill." But "Old Rough and Ready," sixty-five
years old did not live long enough to block the Compromise.
Death of Zachary Taylor
On 4 July 1850, the President was subject to several hours of
oratory in the broiling sun - part of the days celebration. Because of
the heat he consumed an excessive amount of cucumber salad and
iced milk. Washington was a city with open sewers swarming with
flies in the Summer. The City had been built on a swamp and was
extremely unhealthy in the hot summer months. The President
came down with acute gastroenteritis. He would most probably
have recovered if simply left to himself. Unfortunately, no
President is ever left to himself.
The physicians of the Capital descended upon the poor man. He
never had a chance. They rallied around his bedside like the flies in
the nearby swamp. Drugged with large doses of ipecac, calomel,
opium, and quinine, and bled and blistered to boot, the poor man
didn't have a chance. Taylor was given 40 grains of opium per
dosing. Today doctors prescribe morphine in doses of 1/4
grain. One grain is 60 milligrams. The average aspirin dose is 5
grains (imagine 16 aspirin size pills of opium). The quinine was
prescribed to stop the fever and sweating. After a few days of the
finest medical care money could buy, the President gave up the
ghost leaving the office to Millard Fillmore who quickly signed the
compromise package into law
Why did citizens in the North object to
the Fugitive Slave Law, and how did they
resist it?



The word of a slave owner
was taken as conclusive
proof of the identity of the
runaway.
A suspected runaway had
no right to testify in their
own behalf.
Any person might be
required to join in pursuit
of a runaway.
Fugitive Slave Law (continued)



Personal liberty laws
that forbid state
officials from assisting
in the capture of
runaways.
Work to nullify the
law in their own state.
Direct resistance:
– Oberlin, Ohio.
Oberlin, Ohio: Rescuing Slaves.
Who was Dred Scott and why did
he sue his master?


He was an enslaved man
taken by his former master
from the state of Missouri
into territory closed to
slavery and then back into
Missouri again.
For eleven years Scott and
his wife sued for their
freedom with the case
ending at the Supreme
Court.
What was the Dred Scott
decision?



Scott had no right to sue in
a federal court because he
was not a citizen of the
United States.
He also ruled that a ban on
slavery in the territories
was unconstitutional
throwing out the Missouri
Compromise.
He also declared that Scott
was never free due to the
fact that slaves were
personal property.
Roger Taney
What was the reaction in the
North to the Dred Scott decision?



Northerners were more
bitter about slavery.
The Republican party
might as well go out of
existence because the
concept of free soil was
unconstitutional.
Even the principle of
popular sovereignty was
called in to question.