Ok, Seems As Though We Ve Been Here Before. the Problem Just Won T Go Away. We Put Band-Aids

SECTIONALISM

Ok, seems as though we’ve been here before. The problem just won’t go away. We put band-aids on it and go on. But, like toast, sectionalism pops up again.

Don’t confuse sectionalism with the slavery question. Slavery is a driving force, but the sectionalism question rests on culture and economics as well. It is not a real moral question at this time either, though it does come to be that with time, a lot of time. Matter of fact, it really doesn’t become the overriding question until well into the Civil War. So don’t break this thing down into simplistic rights and wrongs. Until Lincoln uses slavery to turn the war into a moral crusade so he can avoid unpleasant questions about casualties and his leadership, the issue of slavery is economic and political.

So, what happened in the 1840's? It involves a lot of politics, but mostly expansion. The real issue is settling of the west. Until now the question of what is going to happen in the west is much like a juniors’ answer to questions about what they are going to do after graduation. The thought is, well, we’ll deal with that when it gets here and that’s not for a while. Well, guess what. For America, graduation rears its’ head in the 1840's.

Until then, the US has been content to get rich, settle the land in the east that needed to be developed and deal with a developing industrial revolution in the north and the expansion of the cotton kingdom in the south. The abolitionists are the equivalent of jihadists for most northerners; people just a half bubble short of crazy. Things are pretty good.

Also, the flow here is north/south. The big issues are economic relationships between these areas. The banks, speculation, periodic financial panics, runaway slaves, who’s going to build the Maysville Road, you started it, no I didn’t. All of this takes our attention off of all that land we purchased from Napoleon.

Ok, so what happens? By 1850, the US is complete except for Alaska and Hawaii and we get Hawaii in 1854. In 1810, Michigan is very far away. By 1850 we are halfway to Japan. This is pretty quick and instead of making a series of decisions as we go, we have to make a lot of big decisions at one time. So what drives this?

MANIFEST DESTINY

It’s amazing how we can bring divine intervention into non-divine things. Manifest Destiny was a complete ideology that included a belief that we had a responsibility to spread democracy everywhere in the Western Hemisphere. Our goals are not COMPLETELY selfish; we also want people to have freedom, as we define it. This is something that we now (in the 21st century) understand explicitly.

There was a racial component to it. We were obviously blessed as a race and those opposing us, brown/black/red, were inferior and we could be a civilizing influence. Some believers wanted limited expansion, but most wanted North Pole to South Pole coverage. Most of the early nationalists opposed it, like Clay and Calhoun because they were smart enough to look beyond their own noses for the trouble they knew was coming.

TEXAS

The first area of concern is Texas. We originally claimed it was part of the Louisiana Purchase, but nobody bought this and we even renounced the claim by 1819.

Most know the salient events of the settling of Texas. Stephen Austin in 1822. Sponsorship by the Mexican government. Fredonia in 1826. The Alamo, Battle of San Jacinto in April 1836. Santa Anna signs a treaty after this battle, but signs it under duress, so the Mexican government renounces it immediately and this lays the foundation for the wonderful relationship of Hispanics and Texans to this day.

After the revolution and the founding of the Republic, Sam Houston (probably the smartest Texan that ever lived) wants the US to annex Texas immediately, but the problem is all those slaves in East Texas. So Jackson, Van Buren and Harrison as presidents avoid this issue like the plague.

President Tyler gets Texas to apply for statehood in 1844. Nice gift for everybody that is running for president in 1844 - an issue that can lead to political suicide no matter what stance you take on it if you are a candidate. Oh, by the way, Tyler is not a candidate, so it leads you to think he thought this was funny. It wasn’t. It becomes THE issue of the 1844 election.

OREGON

Oregon, which actually comprises Oregon, Washington, Idaho,parts of Montana and Wyoming and a big chunk of British Columbia, is pretty barren. Settled originally by American fur traders working for the Astor Fur Company and British fur traders working for the Hudson BayCompany. It is isolated and sparsely populated by Indians, Americans, Brits and a few Russians.

This leads to all kinds of disagreements over claims. It appears the whole territory is a point of contention, but because there are so few people there, there doesn’t appear to be much of a fight.

But, some Nez Perce Indians show up in St. LouisMissouri on a misguided religious quest and this sets the hearts of Protestant missionaries all a tizzy. 1820-1830, missionaries move into the Pacific Northwest to convert the Indians. The presence of CATHOLIC missionaries from Canada makes the competition even juicier. They’re not very successful though, they essentially manage to kill most of the Indians with diseases they bring in. The few remaining tribes try to revolt and kill a few of the whites and are destroyed in the process. This makes it so that, surprise! We now have a new territory and all we have to do is fight the British over it, which is something we like to do even if no land or principles are at issue.

Oregon becomes an issue in the 1844 election. Expansionists in both parties, but mostly Democrats, want Oregon to go to the 49th Parallel, which is almost to Alaska. The British want to negotiate somewhere within the realm of sanity. Being Americans, of course we refuse and start talking about war with Britain. The slogan (we seem to always need slogans for wars. It seems we are a nation of advertising men), the slogan is “54 - 40 or Fight”. Don’t ask me what this means, I’ve never understood it, but let it be known we eventually settle pretty much for the present boundary with Canada and this makes President Polk look bad because he is accused to wanting to conquer Mexico more than England.

MOVEMENT TO THE WEST

This is prompted by Manifest Destiny, the rush of slave-owners into Texas to settle the best cotton land, the California Gold Rush of 1849, government sale of land in the west at bargain prices, the beginnings of the great immigration surge of the 19th century, religious zealots wanting souls, the migration of the Mormons from upstate New York under Joseph Smith and later Brigham Young and to a large extent, American restlessness.

ELECTION OF 1844

The issue is expansion and the candidates are in the gates.

The Democrats start to pick Martin Van Buren and the Whigs want to pick Henry Clay (poor Henry, never was pres.). The big issue is Texas and both candidates want to avoid it because making a decision puts them on one side or the other. They both say they are waiting for the approval of the treaty by Mexico, which is like saying they are waiting for the Cowboys to win the Super Bowl. Not going to happen. This makes the expansionists unhappy so they pick James K. Polk for the Democrats. Polk is elected. He wants Oregon and Texas to come in together to maintain and north/south, slave/free, yin/yang thing. Tyler does Polk a favor before he leaves office and brings Texas in as a state.

MEXICAN WAR OF 1846

The issue of Texas has never been settled as far as the Mexicans are concerned. The negotiations break down for a number of reasons, but one is the sheer contempt with which the Mexican delegation is treated. Mexico breaks diplomatic relations.

The argument is over the boundary with Texas. Mexico says Nueces, US says Rio Grande. There is also the issue of New Mexico, which we are claiming.

Polk wants to annex all of Texas, New Mexico and California. He sends the army under General Zachary Taylor to the Rio Grande and the Fleet to California. Mexico waits a few months and show admirable patience. Internal politics in Mexico demand movement of troops to Rio Grande.

Something happens. No one to this day knows what it was. April of 1846, Polk says that a “state of war exists with Mexico”. The incident has never been described and a young Whig politician from Illinois named Lincoln gets a lot of political mileage out of his demand that Polk “show the nation the exact spot on which American blood was spilled”.

Polk can’t, but that doesn’t matter, we now have war with Mexico, something we have been spoiling for since Burr shot Hamilton. May 1846 the yahoo vote overrides cooler heads and we declare war.

The Whigs hate the war. They believe: a) Polk engineered the war and that there was really no incident, which is kind of like saying the sun comes up in the east b) the emphasis of expansion should be on the Pacific North west where there is at least some land of value. The Whigs obviously had been to the Midland/Odessa area.

The Whigs are not the only ones. This is an unpopular little war, though after the victory everyone claimed to support it. Northern industrialists want tax dollars spent on railroads and abolitionists see Texas for what it was - an attempt to spread slavery.

THE WAR

The Mexican War was a training ground for the general officers that would fight each other in the Civil War (a misnamed war if there ever was one). All the big ones, Lee-Grant-Sherman-Jackson-Johnston, are lieutenants and captains and get combat experience. They also forge bonds they think will last forever or at least until they die, which came first.

Polk is worried about Taylor for two reasons. He didn’t think Taylor was a very good soldier and because he was worried that Taylor would use the war as a political stepping stone to the presidency in the next election against Polk. He was right on both counts.

He turns the army over to Winfield Scott (Old Fuss and Feathers. Who came up with that?). Scott is competent and unspectacular. He also sendsKearny west to seize New Mexico and California. John C. Fremont and the Navy attack California with Kearny and pull off the “Bear Flag Revolution”. Note to conquerors: conquest is not a revolution.

Scott’s strategy is to establish a base in the interior of Mexico at Vera Cruz and then to attack Mexico City. He does this and destabilizes the Mexican government. A new one is installed and they sue for peace.

At this point, Polk gets strange. He stalls and stalls and doesn’t appear to want to end the war and leave Mexico. He’s thinking about that Manifest Destiny, North Pole-South Pole thing, but Americans are tired of the war. So Polk sends a man named Trist (what a great name for a diplomat) to negotiate. Polk is really stalling for time so maybe people will change their minds and go for it all. He’s wrong.

Trist negotiates the treaty in good faith and according to all the guidelines that Polk lays out. Polk pays him back by accusing him doing the opposite of what he wanted and says Trist stabbed him in the back. Polk is really posing for the expansionists in hope they will come to his aid. They don’t, so he signs the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. This gives the USTexas to the Rio Grande, California and New Mexico. In return the US will give Mexico 15 million dollars to cover claims by landowners in these areas.

Of course we don’t pay it.

THE WILMOT PROVISO

All this new land is nothing but trouble from the beginning. The Cowboys didn’t make it to the playoffs in 1848 either. And a politician from Pennsylvania named Wilmot proposes a resolution that would ban slavery from all the territory gotten in the Mexican Cession. This is really the beginning of serious decay in American politics. The Wilmot Proviso is not passed by Congress, but it becomes a flash point. Northerners think it should be neutral territory and southerners say that the land belongs to all Americans so they should be able to take their slaves into it because of the Constitutional requirement for uniformity of laws. Nobody at the time noticed it, but this is the first attack on the Missouri Compromise. It won’t be the last.

ELECTION OF 1848

Polk has p.o.ed everybody in sight so he elects not to run. The Democrats choose an amiable old man from Michigan named Lewis Cass and the Whigs choose their candidate along tried and true political guidelines. If you can’t find a candidate with talent, commonsense or ability, then find one that has been successful in killing people. They choose Zachary Taylor.

The American public is so appalled by these two nonentities that some bolt the parties and form the Free Labor Party. This later leads to the collapse of the 2 party system in the 1850's

COMPROMISE OF 1850

California becomes a problem. It wants in and it has gold. So, it is going to come in -come hell or high water. Taylor wants the new territories brought into the union as quickly as possible to avoid controversy. Good luck on that one. He wants to bring in California and New Mexico as a package. The south hates this. Both are Spanish territories and have no tradition of slavery. But, they are also realistic politicians that know that a territory with gold will get in if it wants to. So the southern politicians need to get as good a deal as they can.

There are a lot of issues clouding this thing.

A) There have been attempts in the Congress to abolish the slave trade in Washington D. C. Apparently the northern politicians have some crazy idea that slavery is somehow antithetical to the home of freedom.

B) Personal liberty laws are being passed in a lot of northern states that make it almost impossible for slave catchers to do their jobs in the north.

C) In 1849 there is a 15/15 split in the Senate between slave and free states and no one with half a brain wants to mess with that. But, California, Utah and Oregon are obviously going to be ready to be states before any of the old Spanish territories are and they will obviously be free states due to tradition and the Missouri Compromise.

D) all the state legislatures in the north except one adopt resolutions calling for the banning of slavery in the territories.

This is where Zachary Taylor comes to the rescue. He has been the one that has been opposing any sort of compromise deal and he helps broker the deal he opposed by dying. He ate cherries and drank ice water on a hot day and died of peritonitis. This was in July of 1850. He was inaugurated in March of 1850. He was president for about 100 days. When he was inaugurated he gave the longest inaugural speech in history (still stands) of 4 hours. It could be said that Zachary Taylor’s inaugural speech represented a significant portion of his presidency.

Millard Fillmore takes over and comes to represent the definition of insignificance. But the primary obstacle to a deal about California is now gone, or er, buried.

The actual compromise of 1850 was put together by Henry Clay and was supported by John C. Calhoun. Calhoun is very sick and old, as is Clay, but Calhoun is crazy as Clay is not. Calhoun proposes that part of the compromise will be a constitutional amendment calling for the election of dual presidents, one from the south and one from the north. Each will have a veto over the other. He says this will get rid of sectionalism. He doesn’t mention that it will also get rid of the Constitution, freedom, commerce, and culture and commonsense because it won’t work. Nobody tells him this because he is the great John C. Calhoun and is old. Goes to show that idiocy has no franchise in the young.

Clay is also done for, but a new generation of politicians is now in Congress. Seward of New York, Jefferson Davis of Mississippi and Stephen Douglas of Illinois. All are pragmatic politicians, all are sectionalists, all are ambitious and want to be president and none should have been given the public’s trust. But they did and look what happened in 1861.

Anyway, Douglas shepards the bill through Congress with a series of shady deals, but he gets it passed. California is a free state, the territorial governments are not FORBIDDEN to have slavery, the slave trade in WashingtonD.C. is abolished, though it still exists two miles down the road in Maryland and the Fugitive Slave Act is installed. This last one is a killer.

ELECTION OF 1852

Democrats pick Franklin Pierce of N.H. and the Whigs in a last hurrah pick ole’ Fuss and Feathers hisself, Winfield Scott.