A Nation on the Move: Westward Expansion, 1800s

This is Unit Eleven, part three, from the campaigns of the Mexican-American War to the Compromise of eighteen fifty. Part two closed with Lincoln demanding that the president name the spot where American blood had been shed. This half is the war that question was asked about, and everything the victory let loose. Carry one distinction, because it is the most important one in this decade and the easiest to get wrong. Opposing the spread of slavery into the territories is not the same as opposing slavery. There is an entry here that says so directly, and a student who misses it will misread the Free-Soil Party, the early Republicans, and Lincoln himself. By the end you will be able to state the terms of Guadalupe Hidalgo and name the promise that failed. To explain why the United States stopped where it did. To say when gold was found relative to the treaty. To explain why free soil is not abolition. And to state what the Compromise of eighteen fifty actually achieved.

Four entries on the fighting, and note who was given which command, and why.

The first two armies.

USH1 1546 Taylor and Kearny

Zachary Taylor led the Army of the Center and captured Monterrey with superior weapons, becoming a popular hero, while Stephen Watts Kearny accepted the surrender of Santa Fe and moved on to take California. New Mexico residents rose in revolt in January eighteen forty-seven despite Kearny's assurances.

How California fell.

USH1 1547 California Falls

American settlers under William B. Ide took control of Sonoma and declared California an independent republic, and naval commander John D. Sloat seized the town of Monterey in July eighteen forty-six. The navy then took San Francisco with no resistance, so California changed hands largely without a campaign.

The march on the capital.

USH1 1548 Scott's Campaign

Winfield Scott led the Army of the South against Mexico City, assigned partly because Polk wanted to prevent the more popular Taylor becoming a war hero, in a campaign paralleling the route Cortés had taken in fifteen nineteen. Every step was a hard-fought victory, and Mexican soldiers and civilians both fought bravely to save their land.

The fall of the city.

USH1 1549 Mexico City

Scott entered Mexico City's central plaza on September fourteenth, eighteen forty-seven, and the capital had fallen, with young military cadets among the last defenders of the city. Legend holds that the cadet Juan Escutia leapt from the city walls with the Mexican flag wrapped around his body.

Three entries on the settlement, and the middle one is the longest in this lecture for good reason.

What the United States took.

USH1 1550 The Mexican Cession

Mexico ceded nearly half its land, comprising the present states of California, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada and Utah, and portions of Colorado and Wyoming, and also recognised the Rio Grande as the border. The boundary claim that started the war was conceded in the treaty that ended it.

The treaty's terms.

USH1 1551 The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo

The treaty was signed in February eighteen forty-eight and the anchor calls it a triumph for American expansion. Its terms were these. The United States promised to grant Mexican citizens in the ceded territory United States citizenship in the future, when the territories they were living in became states. It promised to recognise the Spanish land grants to the Pueblos in New Mexico. It agreed to assume three million three hundred fifty thousand dollars worth of Mexican debts owed to United States citizens. It paid Mexico fifteen million dollars for the loss of its land. And it promised to guard the residents of the Mexican Cession from Native American raids. Now read the citizenship clause carefully, because it is the one that failed. Citizenship was promised in the future, conditional on statehood, which for New Mexico meant sixty-four years of waiting. The land-grant guarantee was widely ignored in practice, and Mexican landholders lost property through American courts that the treaty had promised to protect. A treaty obligation and an enforced right are different things, and this is the second time this course has shown you the gap. Note finally the sum. Fifteen million dollars is exactly what Jefferson had paid France for Louisiana forty-five years earlier, and it bought a comparable expanse of the continent. The difference is that Louisiana was sold by a European power that had never occupied it, while this territory was taken from a neighbouring republic by invasion and paid for afterwards.

Why they took no more.

USH1 1552 Why the United States Took No More

Some expansionists wanted all of Mexico, and southerners who wanted slave territory opposed absorbing Mexico's large mestizo population, while others objected to incorporating a large group of Roman Catholics. The limit of expansion was racial and religious, not military. The United States stopped where it did because of who it would have had to admit.

Three entries on gold, and the first is a matter of nine days.

What was found.

USH1 1553 Gold at Sutter's Mill

James Marshall discovered gold on January twenty-fourth, eighteen forty-eight, in the millrace of a sawmill he had built with John Sutter on the American River — a discovery made nine days before Mexico signed the land away. Neither government knew. The most valuable thing in the cession was found before the cession was complete and after the fighting had stopped.

Who came for it.

USH1 1554 The Forty-Niners

Most of San Francisco's inhabitants abandoned the town for the American River, and in eighteen forty-nine thousands from around the world followed, easterners sailing around South America or crossing to Panama, and others coming from Hawaii and Europe. Camps took names such as Drunkard's Bar, Gouge Eye and Whiskeytown.

How few succeeded.

USH1 1555 Placer Gold Runs Out

Some found gold by panning or by shovelling river soil into sieve-like contraptions called rockers, and most did not. Placer gold was quickly exhausted, with what remained lying deep below ground. Independent miners were supplanted by companies that could afford hydraulic mining technology and hired labourers.

Three entries on who was pushed out of the gold fields, and the second is the hardest in this unit.

The Chinese miners.

USH1 1556 Chinese Miners

Chinese migrants made up roughly eight percent of nearly three hundred thousand arrivals, and earned reputations as frugal men and hard workers, routinely taking over diggings others had abandoned as worthless. California taxed foreign miners in eighteen fifty and prohibited all immigration from China in eighteen fifty-eight.

Native peoples in the gold fields.

USH1 1557 Native Peoples in the Gold Fields

Observers reported miners forcing Native Americans to work their claims, driving them off their lands, stealing from them and murdering them — a systemic campaign of extermination, in the anchor's own phrase. The anchor records that some scholars view the resulting loss of life as a clear example of genocide in the United States.

How fast California filled.

USH1 1558 California's Growth

San Francisco counted only a few hundred residents in eighteen forty-six and reached thirty-four thousand by eighteen fifty, with the territory's population swelling from a few thousand to about one hundred thousand. By eighteen fifty California was ready to enter the Union, and the question of slavery expansion emerged again at once.

Two entries now, and the second is the distinction I flagged at the start.

The amendment that framed it.

USH1 1559 The Wilmot Proviso

Pennsylvania congressman David Wilmot amended an eighteen forty-six revenue bill to prohibit slavery in any territory acquired from Mexico, with text largely derived from the seventeen eighty-seven Northwest Ordinance. It passed the House and failed in the Senate, which is the Senate arithmetic of part one working exactly as designed.

What free soil actually meant.

USH1 1560 Free Soil Is Not Abolition

Wilmot's stated purpose was to prevent American slaveholders bringing what they viewed as their lawful property into the western lands. But his motive was not abolition. He opposed slavery's expansion because of his belief that slavery hurt White workers, and that lands acquired by the government should be used to better the position of White small farmers and labourers — a proviso that would have reserved the entire Mexican Cession for free White labour. This is the most important distinction in the decade and students routinely miss it. Free soil is not abolition. The free-soil position is that the territories should be closed to slavery so that White workers do not have to compete with enslaved labour, and it is compatible with complete indifference to the enslaved. Read the Proviso as an antislavery moral position and you will misread the Free-Soil Party, the early Republican Party, and Lincoln's own campaign statements.

Two entries on the alternative, and the party that formed against it.

The rival doctrine.

USH1 1561 Popular Sovereignty

Popular sovereignty held that residents of a territory should have the right to decide for themselves whether slavery would be allowed in it, and the eighteen forty-eight Democratic convention selected Lewis Cass, an advocate of the doctrine. It would allow slavery in any territory, including those from which earlier laws had banned it.

The party that formed against it.

USH1 1562 The Free-Soil Party and 1848

The Free-Soil Party formed in eighteen forty-eight, uniting Barnburners, antislavery Democrats from New York, with antislavery Whigs and former Liberty Party members, under the slogan Free Soil, Free Speech, Free Labor, and Free Men. They nominated Martin Van Buren, split the Democratic vote, and gave the election to the Whig Zachary Taylor.

Two entries to close the unit, and the second tells you what the first was worth.

The settlement.

USH1 1563 The Compromise of 1850

Congress negotiated for eight months from January eighteen fifty, led by Henry Clay, and produced five measures. California was admitted as a free state in accordance with its own constitution. Popular sovereignty would determine the status of slavery in New Mexico and Utah, even though Utah and part of New Mexico lay north of the Missouri Compromise line. The slave trade was banned in the nation's capital, while slavery itself was allowed to remain. A new fugitive slave law penalised those who helped escaped people or refused to assist in their return. And the border between Texas and New Mexico was established. There were five separate measures, because no majority existed for all five together. The second measure is where the Missouri Compromise begins to die. Applying popular sovereignty north of thirty-six thirty abandons the geographic principle of eighteen twenty without repealing it, and Unit Fourteen covers what happens when the repeal comes.

What it settled.

USH1 1564 A Truce, Not a Settlement

The compromise brought temporary relief, resolved the issue of slavery in the territories for the moment, and prevented secession, and most Americans believed it had saved the Union. The anchor states the outcome plainly. Instead of relieving tensions between North and South, it had actually made them worse.

Look at what you can now do. You can state the terms of Guadalupe Hidalgo — citizenship promised on statehood, Pueblo land grants recognised, Mexican debts assumed, fifteen million dollars paid, protection from raids promised — and you can name the clause that failed, which is the citizenship one, deferred sixty-four years in New Mexico's case. You can explain why the United States took no more of Mexico, which was about who it would have had to admit rather than what it could have held. You can say that gold was found nine days before the treaty was signed, and that neither government knew. You can explain why free soil is not abolition: Wilmot wanted the territories closed to slavery so that White workers would not compete with enslaved labour, a position compatible with indifference to the enslaved. And you can state what the Compromise of eighteen fifty achieved. It bought time, and the anchor says it made the tensions worse.