Post-Mexican-American War Consequences

American victory in the Mexican-American War had dire and unintended consequences for the United States. Most specifically, the reopening of the debate over the slavery question. One that will plunge the U.S. into not only a crisis related to that, but a larger sectional crisis in the 1850s. Which leads to the secession crisis, which is, of course, where the Civil War begins. Before we jump into all of that, we're going to jump ahead a little bit from where we're going to start on the... crisis of 1850. There's a specific crisis. We're going to talk about the next election. The last election we talked about was 44. That was Polk. He had his four goals and one promise. One of those goals was to capture California and New Mexico from Mexico, or gain. But the promise was to only run for one term. So when we get to the election of 1848, Polk declines to seek re-election. citing both his campaign promise and his declining health, although he did consider it briefly. He ended up dying three months after the next president took office, so he would have likely died in office anyway. So the next Democrat up is Louis Cass on the left here on the slide, following the same Jacksonian principles and policies that the Democrats have been basically following since their inception. The wig will be Zachary Taylor. Yes, that Zachary Taylor, the general from the war, winner of the Battle of Palo Alto. He largely follows the American system of Henry Clay, but also learned from Clay's mistake in 44 and also campaigned on being against the expansion of slavery. He was also a war hero, which helped. Massive patriotic swell after the war helped propel Taylor. to this position. And then Martin Van Buren comes back. He was president, as you may recall, from 37 to 41. It was under him that the Panic of 1837 happened, which he is only partially culpable for, but his lack of doing anything earned him the nickname Martin Van Ruin. He's seeking another presidential term, not as the Democrat, obviously, but with the Free Soil Party. It was rare for a Democrat to jump from the pro-slavery Democratic Party to a third party that is anti-slavery, but that's exactly what he did and exactly what the Free Soil Party was, as we discussed back in the slavery lectures. So the Free Soils were specifically against the expansion of slavery. Now, this election is fairly close. The third party, Van Buren, he does win 10% of the popular vote, but does not secure a single electoral vote. Both parties were marked and divided by the crisis that was growing during this time. And actually by this election was basically a full-on crisis. So it's fairly split. But Taylor wins. Becomes the second Whig president. It's a very low bar for Taylor to be better than the first one, which was William Henry Harrison. And then technically Tyler after Harrison died. But remember, Tyler was really a Democrat and got booted from the party. So Taylor doesn't have a high bar to achieve to be the better of the two Whig presidents so far. We won't talk about Taylor much for a little bit because the crisis will take precedence. And also during the first half of it, he's off fighting the war. So we're going to jump ahead to the, not really ahead, but we're going to move away from the main political narrative here with elections and stuff and talk about... The crisis of 1850. Specifically, the origins. In 1850, the slavery debate reached a crisis and the union came close to breaking. What was the big debate about, specifically? The territory acquired from Mexico. How does this all start? Well, it started with something called the Wilmot Proviso. A senator named David Wilmot, pictured here, introduced the proviso to Congress stating that... any territory the U.S. gained from Mexico in the Mexican-American War would be free of slavery. The date here is notable, 1846. Wilmot introduced this not long after the war started, before the second battle had even occurred, if I remember correctly. After Palo Alto, obviously, because that's where the war started, but before the second major battle. Why is he introducing a bill before the U.S. had even gained an inch of Mexican territory? stating this, that any territory the U.S. gained would be free of slavery. Well, Wilmot, like many other politicians and people at the time, saw that if and when, rather when, the U.S. acquired this territory, there was the potential to reopen the debate over slavery, or rather the slavery question. So Wilmot decided to try to get this bill through Congress to try to prevent the debate from happening before it even started. If you just solve it before it becomes a thing, then it doesn't become a thing. I know, the good use of words and language there. I just kind of lost it in the middle of that sentence. The trying to prevent the debate before it even starts, before it can become a problem. We've talked about something like this before. That was the recharter bill of 1832, where... Nicholas Biddle and Henry Clay were trying to prevent there from being a crisis over the National Bank by reauthorizing it or rechartering it four years early. And instead of preventing the debate, they started it four years early. What do you think is going to happen with the Wilmot Proviso? Well, if it had worked, we wouldn't be talking about the crisis of 1850. Instead of preventing the debate before it happens, he started the debate early. So the U.S. is going to start arguing over what to do with the land from Mexico before they had even won the land. This is 1846. The war had barely begun and the bill does pass the Senate, but it did not pass the House. So it didn't actually go into effect. Like the recharter bill, it didn't actually happen. Or the Talmadge Amendment from Missouri Compromise. It didn't actually happen. Sorry, the Missouri Crisis. But the response to the Wilmot Proviso will highlight the sectional difference. And I called it the sectional crisis in general. And by section, we mean section of the country, North, South in particular. So what was the sectional response? The sectional differences here to the Wilmot Proviso. For the South, they saw this as an insult, right? Why not allow slavery in these territories? If slavery was wrong out West, does this mean it was also wrong in the South? They were essentially asking. For the North, they had a positive reaction. Anti-slavery folks, obviously, free-soilers and otherwise, liked this. Shouldn't be surprising. Even if you weren't an abolitionist in the North, even if you weren't even strongly anti-slavery, the Proviso would have stopped the spread of slavery, which most Northerners were for. And even if they didn't have a strong stance on the expansion of slavery, rather on slavery itself, They at least understood or believed that there shouldn't be more of it. So that's how this thing kicks off. This is how the debate reopens. This debate would have opened up after the war, but because Wilmot tries to end the debate before it even starts, it kicks off here in 46. There are four main issues for the crisis of 1850. The first one we're going to spend a lot of time on because it is a defining issue not only for the crisis but for the next decade of American history. The other three will be much shorter, much faster, and will be the start of the next video. So let's look at that first issue. That, of course, unsurprisingly, is the debate over the slavery question. Now before we can even get to that debate, or even the question itself. We need to stop and look at the principles of each side, how they're approaching this to begin with. So we'll look at the principles, and the way that we're going to go through all of this is looking at the different sections. So the principles. For the North, when Northerners argued that slavery should not be expanded, what was their implicit statement about slavery? That it was wrong. Even if they weren't saying themselves, slavery was wrong, you don't put restrictions on the expansion of things that you think are good. And that's, obviously moderation is important, but that's not what they're talking about here. So if you're trying to restrict the expansion of something, the implicit statement is that it's wrong or that it's bad. So even if the North isn't arguing specifically that slavery is bad, even if they're, and they still were, coming at this from purely the political power side of this, right? The three-fifths compromise. all of the issues we've talked about politically with slavery that the North has had, that may be what they're saying, but the implicit implied statement here is that slavery is wrong. How did the South respond to this? What was their principle here? They saw slavery as a positive social good for everyone. We talked about that switch from necessary evil to positive good. But furthermore, The South saw this debate as existential. Basically meaning that if they give in on the expansion of slavery, the debate will eventually shift to slavery itself, and therefore the abolition of slavery as a whole, of which no good Southerner approved. And if slavery itself went away in the South, it would change their entire economy, way of life. Obviously, it would change the slaves'lives for the better, but that's not what they were concerned about. But existential means if you're fighting an existential crisis or if you view something as a debate or something as existential, it's essentially, well, it's part of there in the word, exist. If you lose the debate or the conflict, whatever you're fighting over will cease to exist in general. So as of this recording in 2022, Ukraine is fighting. existential war from their viewpoint against the Russians. If Ukraine loses that war, then Ukraine as they know it, as we know it, will cease to exist. There may still be a Ukraine, but it won't be the same. But furthermore, Ukrainian people, Ukrainian culture, all of that stuff is something Russia is always also attacking. It's also attacking. So if Ukraine loses. It's an existential crisis because they may lose everything. Land, culture, lives. So the South sees this as existential. For them, the debate on the expansion of slavery was a debate on slavery itself. The North is still looking at this politically and specifically on expansion. They're not even thinking about that bigger picture. But the South is and has been for a long time. Thus, the debate on the expansion of slavery became a matter of principle. For the North, the implicit statement that it was bad. For the South, that it was existential. That if they lose on expansion, or they give in on expansion, the next step is that the North will come after slavery itself in the South. So that's the principles. Now, reminder, what is the slavery question? Does Congress or the federal government Have the right to stop the spread of or expansion of slavery into new territories. To answer this question, to have the debate, there are two steps to answer this question. Step one, read the Constitution. If you want to know if the government or Congress have the power to do anything, Constitution's the place to start. So step one, read the Constitution. Step two, look for past precedent. Has... the thing you found in the constitution, your answer to part one, has that been done before? Or has it not been done before? So read the constitution, see what the constitution says about the legal side of this, and then look for past precedent. What's the history of it? What's an example of it? Has it been done? So we have the principles, we have the question, and we have the steps to answer. So what we're going to do now... is go through each section's answer to this. We'll start with the North. So step one, look at the Constitution. And again, the question, does Congress or the federal government have the right to stop the expansion of slavery into new territories? Well, does Congress say, I'm sorry, Congress, does the Constitution say anything about slavery? No. Outside of the Three-Fifths Amendment, which is, you know, technically an addition, it's the only Indirect mention of slavery in the entire Constitution. So your answer is not there if you're the North, as far as approaching this from the slavery side of this. But the last part of the slavery question is into new territories. So does the Constitution give, or who does the Constitution give governance of the territories to anyone? Yes, it does to Congress. Congress controls the territories. You don't have to know this part, but there's the specific article in section. It's Article 4, Section 3. You don't need to know that, but I just like to at least say it so that you know that there's a specific part that specifically says Congress controls American territories. So yes, Congress controls the territories. And if you control the territory, legally, you can set the laws. So for the North, part one, pretty cut and dry. Congress controls the territories. They can set the laws. And that includes laws for slavery. Step two, is there any past precedents for this action? Precedent or precedents? Not president. Precedent. P-R-E-C-E-D-E-N-T. Precedent. Yes, the Missouri Compromise and the 3630 line. 3630 line specifically restricted the expansion of slavery to new territories north of the line. Technically, you could also go back to the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, but that was under the Articles. Even though Congress basically, the Constitution, under the new Constitution, Congress basically readopted it. That was still technically the Articles. So the big precedence they hung their hat on was... the Missouri Compromise, specifically the 3630 line, which said no territories north of the 3630 line, new territories, could become slave territories. They had to be free. So pretty open and shut case, right? Congress controls the territories and can decide the laws. Past precedence of Congress doing that was the Missouri Compromise 3630 line. Pretty open and shut. However, the South doesn't just say, yep, you got us. The South is going to have their own answer. And of course, the person behind this answer is John C. Calhoun. And he will put the South's answer to the slavery question into what are called Calhoun Senate Resolutions here in 1847. We haven't even reached the end of the war yet. So the South's answer came from John C. Calhoun and Calhoun Senate Resolutions here in 1847. Calhoun keeps reading the Constitution. What does he find? Well, obviously he finds what the Constitution says about Congress and the territories. However, what were slaves considered? They were considered property. And the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution prevents people from having their property taken from them. In general, the Fifth Amendment can be summed up as the Life, Liberty, and Property Amendment, basically taking locks, guarantees, and putting them here. Obviously, there's other instances of all three of those in the other amendments, but the Fifth Amendment sort of guarantees all of that. But specifically, Fifth Amendment protects the right of an American to own property and to take that property wherever they go. And since the Fifth Amendment protects property and slaves are considered such, Calhoun concluded that that is the constitutional answer to this. Slaves are considered property. based on the Fifth Amendment. So Congress cannot take that or restrict that property, take that property away or restrict it. So no, Calhoun answers, the U.S. government cannot restrict slavery in the territories. It deprives the South of their property or slave owners of their property, and it creates an inequality amongst Southerners and Northerners. Can Northerners live wherever they want in the United States with all of their property they own? Yes. Can northerners, sorry, I think I said southerners. Can northerners live wherever they want in the United States with all the property they own? Yes. Can southerners do that? No. Think of it this way. If Michigan, where obviously the city of Detroit is, which is the headquarters for Ford and also, I believe, General Motors. If they said that in order to be a Michigan citizen or resident, you could not own any car. other than a Ford or a GM vehicle. So it'd be Chevy, General Motors, Cadillac, all that stuff. If you owned any other car besides that, can you take all of your property to the state of Michigan? No. Or similarly, if California banned all combustion or gasoline engine cars, could you take your non-electric car with you if you moved to California? No. That's the same argument Calhoun is making. You're depriving someone of their property by restricting what they can own based on geography. So to Calhoun, the case is open and shut. The Fifth Amendment protects a citizen's right to own property no matter where they live in the United States. To him, past precedent doesn't matter because any past precedents would have violated that Fifth Amendment right. So who won? Who's right, rather? Who's right here? Well, they both are. What? Yeah, the Congress has those powers. They've done it before. Constitution guarantees those rights. He's not wrong. And of course, we understand that slaves are people, not property, but legally they were. There's one other side to this. There's a middle ground. So this isn't from one of the sections. This is a middle ground or a compromise side here. And that, I always forget that I have, I've never. I should go in and update and take out that transition. I don't know why Stephen Douglas moonwalks in here, but here he is. Popular sovereignty is the third ground, both the middle ground, the third side to this. Stephen Douglas, pictured here, who helped Henry Clay author the Compromise of 1850, the rising star of the Democratic Party, and also Louis Cass, who was the Democratic nominee in 1848, even though he loses. The middle ground here is popular sovereignty. The idea that the issue of slavery in the territory should be decided by the citizens of the territory in question. Literally, once they reach a certain population benchmark, usually the organized territory, you know, going back to Northwest Ordinance, that population number, the people of the territory would have a vote to whether to become free or a slave. It's very democratic methodology. No denying that. And there's no way this could go wrong, right? In the age of the internet and internet polling, there's no way that this could go wrong, right? Knowing what we know about having people vote with very little control over that voting system. Obviously, actual voting is different because there's a lot of control and all that. We'll talk later about the application of that, but this is issue one, answering the slavery question, the debate over the slavery question. We talked about the principles of it. How to answer the question and what the question was, how the North answered it, Constitution controls territories, they've done it with 3630. South's answer, which is the Fifth Amendment right to property and any past precedent shouldn't matter because it was a violation of the slave owner's constitutional rights to own property. And then the middle ground, popular sovereignty. Let the people of a territory vote at a certain population whether or not to become free or slave. That is issue one. When we come back... We'll talk about the other three issues and the compromise itself.

Before we jump into all of that, we're going to jump ahead a little bit from where we're going to start on the... crisis of 1850. There's a specific crisis. We're going to talk about the next election. The last election we talked about was 44. That was Polk. He had his four goals and one promise.

One of those goals was to capture California and New Mexico from Mexico, or gain. But the promise was to only run for one term. So when we get to the election of 1848, Polk declines to seek re-election.

citing both his campaign promise and his declining health, although he did consider it briefly. He ended up dying three months after the next president took office, so he would have likely died in office anyway. So the next Democrat up is Louis Cass on the left here on the slide, following the same Jacksonian principles and policies that the Democrats have been basically following since their inception. The wig will be Zachary Taylor.

Yes, that Zachary Taylor, the general from the war, winner of the Battle of Palo Alto. He largely follows the American system of Henry Clay, but also learned from Clay's mistake in 44 and also campaigned on being against the expansion of slavery. He was also a war hero, which helped.

Massive patriotic swell after the war helped propel Taylor. to this position. And then Martin Van Buren comes back.

He was president, as you may recall, from 37 to 41. It was under him that the Panic of 1837 happened, which he is only partially culpable for, but his lack of doing anything earned him the nickname Martin Van Ruin. He's seeking another presidential term, not as the Democrat, obviously, but with the Free Soil Party. It was rare for a Democrat to jump from the pro-slavery Democratic Party to a third party that is anti-slavery, but that's exactly what he did and exactly what the Free Soil Party was, as we discussed back in the slavery lectures. So the Free Soils were specifically against the expansion of slavery. Now, this election is fairly close.

The third party, Van Buren, he does win 10% of the popular vote, but does not secure a single electoral vote. Both parties were marked and divided by the crisis that was growing during this time. And actually by this election was basically a full-on crisis.

So it's fairly split. But Taylor wins. Becomes the second Whig president. It's a very low bar for Taylor to be better than the first one, which was William Henry Harrison.

And then technically Tyler after Harrison died. But remember, Tyler was really a Democrat and got booted from the party. So Taylor doesn't have a high bar to achieve to be the better of the two Whig presidents so far. We won't talk about Taylor much for a little bit because the crisis will take precedence. And also during the first half of it, he's off fighting the war.

So we're going to jump ahead to the, not really ahead, but we're going to move away from the main political narrative here with elections and stuff and talk about... The crisis of 1850. Specifically, the origins. In 1850, the slavery debate reached a crisis and the union came close to breaking. What was the big debate about, specifically? The territory acquired from Mexico.

How does this all start? Well, it started with something called the Wilmot Proviso. A senator named David Wilmot, pictured here, introduced the proviso to Congress stating that...

any territory the U.S. gained from Mexico in the Mexican-American War would be free of slavery. The date here is notable, 1846. Wilmot introduced this not long after the war started, before the second battle had even occurred, if I remember correctly. After Palo Alto, obviously, because that's where the war started, but before the second major battle. Why is he introducing a bill before the U.S. had even gained an inch of Mexican territory?

stating this, that any territory the U.S. gained would be free of slavery. Well, Wilmot, like many other politicians and people at the time, saw that if and when, rather when, the U.S. acquired this territory, there was the potential to reopen the debate over slavery, or rather the slavery question. So Wilmot decided to try to get this bill through Congress to try to prevent the debate from happening before it even started.

If you just solve it before it becomes a thing, then it doesn't become a thing. I know, the good use of words and language there. I just kind of lost it in the middle of that sentence.

The trying to prevent the debate before it even starts, before it can become a problem. We've talked about something like this before. That was the recharter bill of 1832, where...

Nicholas Biddle and Henry Clay were trying to prevent there from being a crisis over the National Bank by reauthorizing it or rechartering it four years early. And instead of preventing the debate, they started it four years early. What do you think is going to happen with the Wilmot Proviso? Well, if it had worked, we wouldn't be talking about the crisis of 1850. Instead of preventing the debate before it happens, he started the debate early.

So the U.S. is going to start arguing over what to do with the land from Mexico before they had even won the land. This is 1846. The war had barely begun and the bill does pass the Senate, but it did not pass the House. So it didn't actually go into effect.

Like the recharter bill, it didn't actually happen. Or the Talmadge Amendment from Missouri Compromise. It didn't actually happen.

Sorry, the Missouri Crisis. But the response to the Wilmot Proviso will highlight the sectional difference. And I called it the sectional crisis in general. And by section, we mean section of the country, North, South in particular. So what was the sectional response?

The sectional differences here to the Wilmot Proviso. For the South, they saw this as an insult, right? Why not allow slavery in these territories?

If slavery was wrong out West, does this mean it was also wrong in the South? They were essentially asking. For the North, they had a positive reaction.

Anti-slavery folks, obviously, free-soilers and otherwise, liked this. Shouldn't be surprising. Even if you weren't an abolitionist in the North, even if you weren't even strongly anti-slavery, the Proviso would have stopped the spread of slavery, which most Northerners were for.

And even if they didn't have a strong stance on the expansion of slavery, rather on slavery itself, They at least understood or believed that there shouldn't be more of it. So that's how this thing kicks off. This is how the debate reopens. This debate would have opened up after the war, but because Wilmot tries to end the debate before it even starts, it kicks off here in 46. There are four main issues for the crisis of 1850. The first one we're going to spend a lot of time on because it is a defining issue not only for the crisis but for the next decade of American history. The other three will be much shorter, much faster, and will be the start of the next video.

So let's look at that first issue. That, of course, unsurprisingly, is the debate over the slavery question. Now before we can even get to that debate, or even the question itself.

We need to stop and look at the principles of each side, how they're approaching this to begin with. So we'll look at the principles, and the way that we're going to go through all of this is looking at the different sections. So the principles. For the North, when Northerners argued that slavery should not be expanded, what was their implicit statement about slavery?

That it was wrong. Even if they weren't saying themselves, slavery was wrong, you don't put restrictions on the expansion of things that you think are good. And that's, obviously moderation is important, but that's not what they're talking about here. So if you're trying to restrict the expansion of something, the implicit statement is that it's wrong or that it's bad. So even if the North isn't arguing specifically that slavery is bad, even if they're, and they still were, coming at this from purely the political power side of this, right?

The three-fifths compromise. all of the issues we've talked about politically with slavery that the North has had, that may be what they're saying, but the implicit implied statement here is that slavery is wrong. How did the South respond to this?

What was their principle here? They saw slavery as a positive social good for everyone. We talked about that switch from necessary evil to positive good. But furthermore, The South saw this debate as existential.

Basically meaning that if they give in on the expansion of slavery, the debate will eventually shift to slavery itself, and therefore the abolition of slavery as a whole, of which no good Southerner approved. And if slavery itself went away in the South, it would change their entire economy, way of life. Obviously, it would change the slaves'lives for the better, but that's not what they were concerned about. But existential means if you're fighting an existential crisis or if you view something as a debate or something as existential, it's essentially, well, it's part of there in the word, exist.

If you lose the debate or the conflict, whatever you're fighting over will cease to exist in general. So as of this recording in 2022, Ukraine is fighting. existential war from their viewpoint against the Russians. If Ukraine loses that war, then Ukraine as they know it, as we know it, will cease to exist. There may still be a Ukraine, but it won't be the same.

But furthermore, Ukrainian people, Ukrainian culture, all of that stuff is something Russia is always also attacking. It's also attacking. So if Ukraine loses.

It's an existential crisis because they may lose everything. Land, culture, lives. So the South sees this as existential.

For them, the debate on the expansion of slavery was a debate on slavery itself. The North is still looking at this politically and specifically on expansion. They're not even thinking about that bigger picture.

But the South is and has been for a long time. Thus, the debate on the expansion of slavery became a matter of principle. For the North, the implicit statement that it was bad. For the South, that it was existential. That if they lose on expansion, or they give in on expansion, the next step is that the North will come after slavery itself in the South.

So that's the principles. Now, reminder, what is the slavery question? Does Congress or the federal government Have the right to stop the spread of or expansion of slavery into new territories. To answer this question, to have the debate, there are two steps to answer this question. Step one, read the Constitution.

If you want to know if the government or Congress have the power to do anything, Constitution's the place to start. So step one, read the Constitution. Step two, look for past precedent.

Has... the thing you found in the constitution, your answer to part one, has that been done before? Or has it not been done before? So read the constitution, see what the constitution says about the legal side of this, and then look for past precedent. What's the history of it?

What's an example of it? Has it been done? So we have the principles, we have the question, and we have the steps to answer.

So what we're going to do now... is go through each section's answer to this. We'll start with the North.

So step one, look at the Constitution. And again, the question, does Congress or the federal government have the right to stop the expansion of slavery into new territories? Well, does Congress say, I'm sorry, Congress, does the Constitution say anything about slavery?

No. Outside of the Three-Fifths Amendment, which is, you know, technically an addition, it's the only Indirect mention of slavery in the entire Constitution. So your answer is not there if you're the North, as far as approaching this from the slavery side of this. But the last part of the slavery question is into new territories. So does the Constitution give, or who does the Constitution give governance of the territories to anyone?

Yes, it does to Congress. Congress controls the territories. You don't have to know this part, but there's the specific article in section. It's Article 4, Section 3. You don't need to know that, but I just like to at least say it so that you know that there's a specific part that specifically says Congress controls American territories.

So yes, Congress controls the territories. And if you control the territory, legally, you can set the laws. So for the North, part one, pretty cut and dry.

Congress controls the territories. They can set the laws. And that includes laws for slavery.

Step two, is there any past precedents for this action? Precedent or precedents? Not president. Precedent. P-R-E-C-E-D-E-N-T.

Precedent. Yes, the Missouri Compromise and the 3630 line. 3630 line specifically restricted the expansion of slavery to new territories north of the line. Technically, you could also go back to the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, but that was under the Articles. Even though Congress basically, the Constitution, under the new Constitution, Congress basically readopted it.

That was still technically the Articles. So the big precedence they hung their hat on was... the Missouri Compromise, specifically the 3630 line, which said no territories north of the 3630 line, new territories, could become slave territories.

They had to be free. So pretty open and shut case, right? Congress controls the territories and can decide the laws. Past precedence of Congress doing that was the Missouri Compromise 3630 line. Pretty open and shut.

However, the South doesn't just say, yep, you got us. The South is going to have their own answer. And of course, the person behind this answer is John C. Calhoun. And he will put the South's answer to the slavery question into what are called Calhoun Senate Resolutions here in 1847. We haven't even reached the end of the war yet.

So the South's answer came from John C. Calhoun and Calhoun Senate Resolutions here in 1847. Calhoun keeps reading the Constitution. What does he find? Well, obviously he finds what the Constitution says about Congress and the territories. However, what were slaves considered?

They were considered property. And the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution prevents people from having their property taken from them. In general, the Fifth Amendment can be summed up as the Life, Liberty, and Property Amendment, basically taking locks, guarantees, and putting them here. Obviously, there's other instances of all three of those in the other amendments, but the Fifth Amendment sort of guarantees all of that.

But specifically, Fifth Amendment protects the right of an American to own property and to take that property wherever they go. And since the Fifth Amendment protects property and slaves are considered such, Calhoun concluded that that is the constitutional answer to this. Slaves are considered property.

based on the Fifth Amendment. So Congress cannot take that or restrict that property, take that property away or restrict it. So no, Calhoun answers, the U.S. government cannot restrict slavery in the territories. It deprives the South of their property or slave owners of their property, and it creates an inequality amongst Southerners and Northerners.

Can Northerners live wherever they want in the United States with all of their property they own? Yes. Can northerners, sorry, I think I said southerners.

Can northerners live wherever they want in the United States with all the property they own? Yes. Can southerners do that? No. Think of it this way.

If Michigan, where obviously the city of Detroit is, which is the headquarters for Ford and also, I believe, General Motors. If they said that in order to be a Michigan citizen or resident, you could not own any car. other than a Ford or a GM vehicle.

So it'd be Chevy, General Motors, Cadillac, all that stuff. If you owned any other car besides that, can you take all of your property to the state of Michigan? No. Or similarly, if California banned all combustion or gasoline engine cars, could you take your non-electric car with you if you moved to California? No.

That's the same argument Calhoun is making. You're depriving someone of their property by restricting what they can own based on geography. So to Calhoun, the case is open and shut.

The Fifth Amendment protects a citizen's right to own property no matter where they live in the United States. To him, past precedent doesn't matter because any past precedents would have violated that Fifth Amendment right. So who won? Who's right, rather? Who's right here?

Well, they both are. What? Yeah, the Congress has those powers. They've done it before.

Constitution guarantees those rights. He's not wrong. And of course, we understand that slaves are people, not property, but legally they were.

There's one other side to this. There's a middle ground. So this isn't from one of the sections. This is a middle ground or a compromise side here.

And that, I always forget that I have, I've never. I should go in and update and take out that transition. I don't know why Stephen Douglas moonwalks in here, but here he is. Popular sovereignty is the third ground, both the middle ground, the third side to this. Stephen Douglas, pictured here, who helped Henry Clay author the Compromise of 1850, the rising star of the Democratic Party, and also Louis Cass, who was the Democratic nominee in 1848, even though he loses.

The middle ground here is popular sovereignty. The idea that the issue of slavery in the territory should be decided by the citizens of the territory in question. Literally, once they reach a certain population benchmark, usually the organized territory, you know, going back to Northwest Ordinance, that population number, the people of the territory would have a vote to whether to become free or a slave. It's very democratic methodology. No denying that.

And there's no way this could go wrong, right? In the age of the internet and internet polling, there's no way that this could go wrong, right? Knowing what we know about having people vote with very little control over that voting system. Obviously, actual voting is different because there's a lot of control and all that. We'll talk later about the application of that, but this is issue one, answering the slavery question, the debate over the slavery question.

We talked about the principles of it. How to answer the question and what the question was, how the North answered it, Constitution controls territories, they've done it with 3630. South's answer, which is the Fifth Amendment right to property and any past precedent shouldn't matter because it was a violation of the slave owner's constitutional rights to own property. And then the middle ground, popular sovereignty.

Let the people of a territory vote at a certain population whether or not to become free or slave. That is issue one. When we come back...

We'll talk about the other three issues and the compromise itself.

Transcript for:Post-Mexican-American War Consequences

Transcript for:
Post-Mexican-American War Consequences