Whig Ascendancy

1
Whig Ascendancy

• the election of 1840 brought the whig candidate,
  William Henry Harrison, to the presidency and
  installed Whig majorities in both houses of
  congress.
• the whigs had raced to power with a program,
  based on Henry clay's american system, to
  stimulate economic recovery, and they had
  excellent prospects of success.

2

• the whigs had supported a "protective" tariff,
  one set so high as to discourage the importation
  of goods that would compete with the products of
  the american industries.-now the whigs supported
  a modification in the form of a "revenue" tariff,
  one high enough to provide "incidental"
  protection for american industries but low enough
  to allow most foreign products to enter the
  United States.
• The duties collected on these imports would
  accrue to the federal government as revenue.

3

• the whigs then planned to distribute this revenue
  top the states for internal improvements, which
  was popular amongthe southern and and western
  whigs as the tariff was popular among
  northeastern whigs.
• Harrison died after one month in office.
• Vice President John Tyler, who had been placed pn
  the ticket to strengthen the Whigs' appeal in the
  south, took over the presidency.
• He repeatedly used his veto to shred his new
  party's program.
• First he vetoed a Whig bill to create a new
  national bank.
• Then, he vetoed the modified bill the Whigs in
  Congress had just passed.

4

• -The Whigs paid a heavy price for failing to
  enact their program.-They maintained a slight
  majority in the Senate, their rival party took
  control of the House, and the president seemed to
  belong to neither party.

5
TYLER AND THE ANNEXATION OF TEXAS

• In 1842 Tyler's secretary of state, Daniel
  Webster , concluded a treaty with Great Britain,
  represented by Lord Ashburton, that settled a
  dispute over the boundary between Maine and New
  Brunswick. Awarding more than half of the
  disputed territory to the US the treaty was
  popular in the North.
• Tyler reasoned that if he could arrange for the
  annexation of Texas he would build a national
  following.

6

• By the late 1830's anti-slavery northerners
  viewed proposals to annex Texas as a part of an
  elaborate conspiracy to extend American territory
  south into Mexico, Cuba, and south America, thus
  allowing an unlimited number of new slave states
  while British presence in Canada would limit the
  number of free states.
• Green assured Tyler that a prelude to undermining
  slavery in the US, the British would pressure
  Mexico to recognize the independence of Texas in
  return for the abolition of slavery. Calhoun
  embroidered these reports with fanciful theories
  of British plans to use abolition as a way to
  destroy rice, sugar and cotton production and use
  it for themselves.

7

• In spring 1844, Calhoun and Tyler secretly drew
  up a treaty to annex Texas and sent it to
  Congress for ratification. Both Martin Van Buren,
  leading northern Democrat, and Henry Clay, the
  most powerful Whig, came out against annexation
  on the ground that it would provoke sectional
  conflict. By a vote of 35 to 16, the treaty went
  down in to a crushing defeat.Decisive as it
  appears, however, this vote only postponed the
  final decision on annexation to the upcoming
  election of 1844.

8
THE ELECTION OF 1844

• Tyler's ineptitude turned the election into a
  free-for-all.
• Tyler hoped to succeed himself, but he lacked
  base in either party.
• Testing waters as an independent, he couldn't
  gain enough support and was forced to drop out of
  the race.
• Henry Clay had a secure grip on the Whig
  nomination.
• Martin Van Buren seemed to have an equally tight
  hold on the democratic nomination.

9

• Van Buren and Cass effectively blocked each
  others nomination, naming James K. Polk as the
  democratic nominee.
• He was the first "dark-horse" presidential
  nominee.
• Polk was the favorite of southern Democrats.
• Clay shifted his opinion on annexation and caused
  his southern supporters to abandon the Whigs and
  join the Liberty party.
• James G. Birney was nominated for presidency for
  the Liberty party.
• The Whigs infuriated Catholic immigrant voters by
  nominating Theodore Frelinghuysen as his vice
  president.

10

• His presence on the ticket caused the Whigs to be
  known as the orthodox Protestant party.
• This caused Catholic foreign-born voters to
  support the Democratic party.
• On the eve of the election in NYC, so many Irish
  marched to the court house to register to vote
  that the windows had to be left open for people
  to get in and out.

11

• Polk won the electoral vote 170-105, but his
  margin in the popular vote was only 38,000 out of
  2.6 million and lost his own state of Tennessee.
• A shift of 6,000 votes in New York, where
  immigrant vote and Whig defections to the Liberty
  party hurt Clay, would have given Clay both the
  state and the presidency.

12
Manifest Destiny

• The election of 1844 demonstrated that the
  annexation of Texas had more support than Clay
  realized.
• People felt Americas natural destiny was to
  expand into Texas and all the way to the Pacific
  Ocean.
• Advocates of Manifest Destiny, as it was
  called, used eloquent language and used God and
  nature to sanction expansion.

13
Manifest Destiny

• Most saw Manifest Destiny as a solution to the
  post-1837 depression by expanding into California
  and Oregon for more markets for its agricultural
  surplus.
• Basically, many saw expansion as a way to secure
  economic advancement and democracy.

14
Manifest Destiny

• The acquisition of California and Oregon would
  provide enough land and harbors to sustain not
  only the 20 million Americans of 1845, but also
  the 100 million projected for 1900 and the 250
  million projected for 1945.

15
Polk and Oregon

• The promise of gaining Oregon became the premise
  of Polks campaign, although at that time more
  people were still interested in Texas.
• His inaugural address changed peoples minds.
• Gaining Oregon from the British would ensure
  obtainment of the harbors of Puget Sound and the
  southern tip of British-controlled Vancouver
  Island.

16
Polk and Oregon

• Interest in gaining Oregon surged.
• In 1846, Polk told British they could either go
  to war with us or negotiate. They chose to
  negotiate.
• They negotiated because they were involved in too
  many other domestic and foreign problems to go to
  war with us.

17
Origins of the Mexican War

• Mexico hoped to regain Texas or at least keep it
  independent from the US.
• They saw the US as aggressive, and thought taking
  control of Texas would lead to the seizure of
  other parts of Mexico.
• Polk tried to soften Texas by promising to make
  the Rio Grande their southern boundary rather
  than the more northern Nueces River, which was
  viewed by Mexicans.

18
Origins of the Mexican War

• Because of this, a Texas convention voted
  overwhelming on July 4, 1845 to accept
  annexation.
• A border incident between American and Mexican
  troops made Polk start saying that there was a
  war going on.

19
The Mexican War

• Most Europeans expected Mexico to win (army 4x
  larger than American)
• In 1846 Taylor Old Rough and Ready routed
  Mexican army in Texas, and pursued it across Rio
  Grande.
• Bear Flag republic established by Fremont, Sloat,
  hiss successor, and Stephen Kearney. Established
  American Control over California
• Final campaign of war was in Mexico City.
  Winfield Scott forced the city into submission

20
The Mexican War

• City was taken September 13, 1847
• Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo Mexico ceded Texas,
  with the Rio Grande boundary, New Mexico, and
  California to the U.S. Feb 2, 1848
• U.S. paid Mexico 15 million

21
Intensifying Sectional Divisions

• The issue of New States being free or slave
  became increasingly important
• Parts of states that were newley acquired fell
  below the 36,30 line
• President Polk saw the Missouri Compromise as a
  permanent solution to territorial slavery
• Polks biggest opposition came from Northern
  Democrats fearing slavery in new states.

22
Election of 1848

• The Wilmot Proviso gave the Whigs a political
  bonus originating in the Democratic Party, it
  enabled the Whips to portray themselves as the
  Souths only dependable friends. This inclined
  the majority of Whigs to Zachary Taylor. Taylor
  was a political newcomer so he had no loyalty to
  the discredited American System. HE was a war
  hero and had broad national appeal. The Whigs
  presented their nominate, Taylor, as an ideal man
  without regard to creeds or principles

23

• The Democrats faced a greater challenge because
  David Wilmot was one of their own. They couldnt
  ignore the issues of slavery in the territories
  but they embraced the position of either Wilmot
  or Calhoun, the party would split along sectional
  lines. Pole declined to run for reelection, the
  democrats nominated Lewis Cass who solved their
  dilemma by announcing the doctrine of squatter
  sovereignty, later called popular sovereignty.
  Cass argued that Congress should the decision of
  slavery in the territories be decided by the
  people who settled there. Squatter sovereignty
  appealed to many because of its simplicity and
  vagueness. It avoided the issue of whether
  Congress had the power to prohibit territorial
  slavery. Northern and southern Democrats could
  interpret it to their respective benefits as long
  as the doctrine remained vague. Both parties
  attempted to ignore the issue of territorial
  slavery but neither succeeded.

24

• Zachary Taylor benefited from the Democrats
  alienation of key northern states over the tariff
  issue and also from his war-hero stature. Taylor
  captured a majority of electoral votes in both
  North and South. The Free-Soil party failed to
  carry any state yet ran well enough in the North
  to demonstrate the grass-roots popularity of
  opposition to slavery extension. Defections to
  the Free-Soilers probably cost the Whigs Ohio. By
  Showing that opposition to the spread of slavery
  the Free-Soilers sent the Whigs and democrats a
  message that they would be unable to ignore in
  future elections.

25
California Gold Rush

• Slavery in the Far West was more abstract than
  practical because Mexico had not yet ceded any
  territory and relatively few Americans resided in
  either California or New Mexico. Nine days before
  the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was signed and
  American carpenter discovered gold while
  constructing a sawmill in the foothills of
  Californias Sierra Nevada range. Within a few
  months a gold rush was on.

26

• The issue of slavery in the Far West became more
  practical as well as abstract. A hundred thousand
  newcomers came to California in 1849, which
  included Mexicans, free blacks, and slaves from
  the South. Prospectors loathed the thought of
  competing with any of the groups and wanted to
  drive them out of the gold fields. Violence soon
  mounted and demands grew for a strong civilian
  government to replace the ineffective military
  government since the war. Polk began to fear that
  without a reasonable congressional solution to
  the salve issue, Californians might organize a
  government independent of the U.S. The gold rush
  guaranteed the question of slavery in the Mexican
  cession would be the first item on the agenda for
  Polks successor and for the nation.