Hey, what's going on APUSH people? We have chapter 13 of America's History for you today. This one is on expansion, war, and sectional crisis from 1844 to 1860. There is so much info in this chapter and so much of it is specifically mentioned in the new APUSH curriculum.
So please, I beg you, check out the description for videos that match up with this new curriculum. So many terms that you need to know and are expected to be experts on. I am here to help you, so check it out in the description below. All right, let's start off talking about Manifest Destiny.
This is the defining idea of the 1840s, and Manifest Destiny can be best shown through this painting down on the bottom. We see Lady Liberty is moving to the left or west, and you see she's leaving rivers to the right, which could be the Mississippi River, and she's going west, and you see there are mountains in the distance, and she's stringing telegraph lines as she moves, and you also see trains are moving out west as well, in addition to many people. and wagons and horses and as they're moving out west you see native americans are looking behind and moving further west as well that's really going to be a theme of westward expansion so what is manifest destiny is the belief that is the god-given right to expand from coast to coast and this was coined by a journalist named john o sullivan now let's go over to oregon and this plays a key role in manifest destiny during this time there is a joint occupation with Britain. This whole area here in this yellowish color is called the Oregon Territory, and the U.S. and Britain have a joint occupation.
Now Polk and some Democrats who favored expansion wanted all of this, and there was a slogan 54-40 or fight, meaning the latitude way up here. But eventually the two sides, Britain and the U.S., decide to settle on the 49th parallel, which is this line right here, which continues the border between Canada and the United States. Over in California, this is part of Mexico during the time when they achieved independence in 1821, and there was a series of missions set up in California. Indians on the Great Plains were somewhat sedentary, and many of them did hunt bison.
And with the introduction of European weapons, life was transformed for natives on the plains. It made it easier to hunt, and it also increased the destructiveness of warfare between Native American tribes. And those tribes that were successful were the ones that...
had the most technology or most weapons and were able to best use it so the election of 1844 has my boy here henry clay against this guy james k polk nicknamed young hickory because he was a protege of andrew jackson now polk fully supports annexation of texas and henry clay is a little wishy-washy about it he says he's against it then he says he's for it he looks like a flip-flopper so polk ends up winning the election and texas is annexed via a joint resolution In February 1845, so the month before a poll comes into office, Texas is added to the United States as a slave state. And it is admitted fully into the country in December of that year. Henry Clay and some Whigs resisted expansion, and the number one reason why was that they feared that tensions would increase because of slavery. As the United States expanded, the number one question will be, will this land be free or slave? And we see this come about as a result of the Mexican-American War.
Now, James K. Polk sends John Slidell to Mexico to offer to buy California and New Mexico for $30 million. Mexico is furious that the U.S. just annexed Texas, so they refuse to meet with him altogether. And there is a boundary issue in Texas, and Texas claims the southern Rio Grande but mexico claims the the river to the north the noices river so the area in between the noices river and the rio grande is kind of in dispute conscious wigs were those that opposed the mexican american war on moral grounds and the war starts over this disputed boundary area between the noices and the rio grande when zachary taylor the general gets into a battle with the mech with mexico Ralph Waldo Emerson, the famous transcendentalist, says that Mexico will poison us.
And boy, was this guy ever right. Then we have the Wilmot Proviso, which was introduced by this guy, David Wilmot, a Democrat from New York. He introduced an amendment to a bill that stated that slavery could not and would not exist in any land gained from Mexico.
So think about that for a minute. Who's going to have a problem with this? If you said this out, you are 100% correct. Now, this is introduced several times. And it passes the House of Representatives, but it does not pass the Senate.
And it's important to know that it passes the House because there's more population in the North and there's more representation in the North. So the House of Representatives passes this, but the Senate does not. Now the Free Soil Party is a party that emerges in the 1840s and they share similar ideas to the Wilmot Proviso. They were against the extension of slavery into territories.
Because they felt it took away jobs from whites. So they were anti the expansion of slavery, but most of them were not for the anti-extension of slavery because of moral grounds, but rather because it took away jobs from whites. And their slogan was free labor, free soil, and free men. The election of 1848, the Mexican-American War is over.
General Zachary Taylor, the guy from the Mexican-American War, he wins and he is a Whig. He dies in 1850, however. Now we have a gold rush in California that was discovered at John Sutter's Mills. And in 1849, you see a huge influx of immigrants to California, hence the name of the San Francisco football team, the 49ers. Most of these migrants were men, and the population will increase from 14,000 to 220,000 in four years.
That is astronomically high, so most of them are going there to try to make money. Many Mexicans and Californians were forced off their land. So these were Mexicans that lived there when California belonged to Mexico.
Then we have the Compromise of 1850. There are five parts that you should know. First, popular sovereignty in the Mexican session. Stop, think, what is popular sovereignty? Yes, you're absolutely right.
It is the ability for people living in territories to decide on the issue of slavery themselves. California, the second part is that California is admitted as a free state, and this tips the balance to free states. They are plus one over the slave states.
There is a more strict fugitive slave law, which is by far the most divisive part of this compromise. It upsets the North greatly. The slave trade is outlawed in Washington, D.C., and finally, Texas was claiming a lot of land, and they were paid money to relinquish some of this land. Now, I would be remiss if I did not show.
examine this picture with you really quick. We notice front and center, the dude standing is my boy, Henry Clay. This is his third and final compromise, the Compromise of 1850. Can you think of the other two? Yeah, you know it.
It's the Missouri Compromise of 1820 and the Tariff Compromise of 1833. Nice job. All right, let's go to the end of the second party system. The impact of the Futurist Slave Act that I just mentioned, this actually increases the power of the South to come to the North and retrieve runaway slaves. This leads to, in the North, the passage of many personal liberty laws.
What is a personal liberty law? It is a law that is passed by Northern states that barred involvement in returning runaway slaves. So it actually forbids people in the North from getting involved in returning the runaway slaves. It is essentially a form of nullification of the Fugitive Slave Act, and this infuriates the South.
The Wisconsin State Supreme Court declared the Fugitive Slave Act unconstitutional. And this increased tensions between the North and the South. Keep in mind, it is not the Supreme Court that did it. It's the Wisconsin State Supreme Court.
There is a difference. Sadly, in 1852, on June 29th to be exact, Henry Clay dies. And later that year in October, Daniel Webster dies. And the Whigs essentially disappear. Franklin Pierce becomes president in the election of 1852. And he favors expansion, especially overseas.
We see the Ostend Manifesto, which is this idea that the U.S. would buy Cuba from Spain, and if Spain refused, the U.S. would take it by force. This does not happen because a lot of free soil people block this plan, and there's this fear that Cuba would be made a slave state. The Gadsden Purchase completes the present-day boundaries of the continental United States, and if you have not already, please pause this video, go to YouTube, type in Jimmy Fallon Gadsden Purchase, and be prepared to laugh for four minutes and 30 seconds. It is one of the funniest skits you'll ever see. It's fantastic, and it's a great history lesson as well.
So Pierce sends the U.S. Secretary of War, Jefferson Davis, to buy land from Mexico, and it is here in this yellow, this land, and the whole purpose the U.S. wanted this was for a transcontinental railroad, and it looks like the South is going to get the transcontinental railroad first. However, in 1854, we have the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act. And this is a response to the Gadsden Purchase because the North wanted a railroad.
Specifically, Stephen Douglas in the North wanted Illinois to be the center, to be a hub for the Northern Transcontinental Railroad. So what this proposes is popular sovereignty in the Nebraska Territory. Sounds great, right? One small problem that would overturn the Missouri Compromise.
Now, Henry Clay was not alive in 1854. But if you worry, probably say something like, Stephen, why are you repealing my compromise, bro? Why are you overturning the compromise of 1820? And the idea was that Kansas would be slave and Nebraska would be free.
That is the idea, the plan, kind of doesn't work out that way. So let's go over to Lincoln really quick. He married Mary Todd from Lexington, Kentucky, and she actually knew Henry Clay.
She would ride horses at his house. Her father was good buddies with Henry Clay. And if you're wondering, yes, Lincoln loved Henry Clay. He said it was his. his beau ideal of a political statesman.
Lincoln early on shared beliefs with the American Colonization Society, the idea that African Americans should be transported back to Africa. In 1858, we have the Lincoln-Douglas debates, which is a series of seven debates for the Senate seat in Illinois. Douglas ends up winning, but he alienates the South in the process. And Lincoln emerges on a national level.
Douglas alienates the South by something called the Freeport Doctrine. And he says if a territory wanted to, it could keep slavery out. by passing laws that are not favorable to slavery. This freaks the South out and splits the Democratic Party along sectional lines.
Douglass will continue to be popular in the North, but not at all in the South. In 1859, we have John Brown and his raid at Harper's Ferry. He hoped to incite a slave rebellion and he took over this arsenal and he hoped that many slaves will come up, gather weapons, and there would be this massive slave rebellion.
It does not happen. It ends badly for John and his followers, some of which were his own children. And many Southerners were very upset. They felt betrayed and they felt that the North and the Republican Party was dominated by people like John Brown. Now the election of 1860 occurs and Lincoln wins without receiving a single electoral vote from the South.
I do have a brand new video on the election of 1860. Check that out as well. And secession begins. Many Southerners feel...
How can we be a part of this country if the president can win without winning a single southern state? Alright, let's do a quick review with videos in the description of each and every one of these. We have Manifest Destiny, Expansion, and that leads to problems over slavery.
Mexican-American War again leads to problems over slavery, especially when examining the Wilmot Proviso. Free Soil Platform is the idea that slavery will not expand into the territories. Compromise of 1850, no, all five of those parts, especially the Fugitive Slave Act. Kansas-Nebraska Act and Bleeding Kansas are a part of this. In the Dred Scott decision, I did not mention this in the chapter, but the Supreme Court ruled that Dred Scott, a slave, was a slave, could not sue in court, and he therefore was not a citizen of the United States.
This is a huge step backwards for African Americans. And finally, the election of 1860 was a major, immediate cause of the Civil War. all right guys thank you very much for watching i wish you nothing but the best of luck on all of your tests especially the one in may you're brilliant you will do very well on it if you have not already please subscribe to my channel and help me spread the word if you found this video helpful share it with somebody that you would know if you have any questions or comments feel free to leave them in the section below i thank you so very much for watching i will see you right back here for chapter 14 we're getting into the civil war we'll see you then have a good day