Slavery 1800-1840
the South feared being outvoted by the North in the Senate if the States abolishing slavery outnumbered the States using it. Slavery became caught up in politics
In 1831, Nat Turner led slave revolt in Virginia, and 57 whites died; William Lloyd Garrison, a fiery Puritan abolitionist in Massachusetts, started the "Liberator" newspaper to demand an end to slavery. 1833 - the American Antislavery Society
Congress instituted a "gag rule" from 1836 to 1844 to prohibit its members from circulating proposals concerning slavery, especially abolitionism
Other Developments 1800- 1850
Counting California, which joined the Union in 1850, five new states were added to the United States: Florida, Texas, Iowa, Wisconsin and California. This included the two largest states in area in the continental United States (California and Texas), and what are now three of the four largest in population (California, Texas and Florida). This was the greatest addition of new states since the 1810s. The nation as we know it today was taking shape.
"Manifest Destiny"
exploration and expansion was a mission from God on the Oregon Trail.
1843- the Oregon territory, and 1000 pioneers traveled all the way from Missouri to Willamette Valley (a trip that took 4 to 6 months then).
From 1811 to 1818, the first national road was built
In 1836, Texas fought and won its independence from Mexico
the "gold rush" - in 1848 , hit a fever pitch in 1849, attracting many to California (the football team the "San Francisco 49ers" is named after those settlers)
Social Change
Utopian communities in the 1840s (and earlier) the Shakers, Brook Farm, the Rappites, the Oneida Community ;
David Thoreau!
the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (the Mormon Church), the only major church founded in America, was established in 1830 by Joseph Smith in western New York.
The Seventh Day Adventist Church began 1844 -developed an approach to good health that included building hospitals
Women's rights
Began as a social movement in 1848 in Seneca Falls, New York: a Declaration of Sentiments that called for granting women the right to vote
In 1849, the English-born Elizabeth Blackwell became the first woman to receive a medical degree in America, which she obtained from Geneva College in New York.
Other Milepost Events
In 1842, the union workers' movement; it became
legal for workers to organize a union and to strike. The unionization of government workers recently became a national controversy
("prohibition", or the "temperance movement") began in 1826 and lasted until the 18th Amendment passed in 1919 to ban alcohol nationwide (it was later repealed by the 21st Amendment during the Great Depression);
public school education. Horace Mann - the first state school board.
James K. Polk and War with Mexico
instigated, fought and won the Mexican War (also called the Mexican-American War) (ended in 1848 with the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo)
annexed Texas (1845)
settled a dispute with British (Canada) by establishing the northwest boundary in Oregon Treaty (1846)
reduced tariffs
reestablished an independent treasury (bank)
admitted Iowa as a free state in 1846 (under the Missouri Compromise), with Iowa having the highest percentage of farmland of any State
set off the gold rush by announcing there was gold in California (1849)
Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo
the Texas-Mexico border would be set at the Rio Grande River
Mexico would grant to the United States about 525,000 square miles (55% of its prewar territory)
the United States would pay Mexico $15 million
the United States government would pay off up to $3.25 million worth of debts owed by Mexico to U.S. citizens, relieving Mexico of those obligations
Kansas-Nebraska Act
Ill-advised law to be the greatest single step towards Civil War
each new region could decide for itself whether to allow slavery.
anti-slavery activists founded the Republican Party in 1854 on the moral grounds of ending slavery :
stop the expansion of slavery
repeal the Kansas-Nebraska Act
repeal the Fugitive Slave Law
end slavery in D.C.
"Bleeding Kansas"
Civil war in Kansas; In early 1856, pro- slavery forces burned down the "Free State Hotel" and destroyed the offices and presses of antislavery newspapers. A man was killed.
John Brown - the Pottawatomie Massacre.