1. CRISIS & COMPROMISE: COMPROMISE OF 1850 &BLEEDING KANSAS APUSH - Spiconardi

2. A DOSE OF ARSENIC It will be as the man who swallows arsenic…Mexico will poison us. Ralph Waldo Emerson

3. CALIFORNIA GOLD RUSH  In January 1848, gold was discovered in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains  By 1849, 80,000 people had arrived in California  Hence the term 49ers  Competition  Americans, Indians, Mexicans, Chinese, and South Americans all competed for land and resources  “Committees of vigilance” expelled “foreigners” from areas with gold  Indian population drops from 150,000 (1848) to 30,000 (1861)

4. KNOW-NOTHING/AMERICAN PARTY  Political party that formed to oppose immigration and immigrant rights  Platform  Reserve political offices for native-born Americans  Resist the aggressions of the Catholic Church  Anti-slavery (Northern members)  Institute literacy tests for voting  Ended two-party system

5. COMPROMISE OF 1850  In 1850, California applied for statehood as free state  Southern states feared this would upset sectional balance in Congress  John C. Calhoun  “Slavery follows the flag”  Claimed Constitution cannot regulate slavery in the territories  Slaves are property and Constitution cannot limit property rights  Proposed dual presidency  Divide executive power between North and South  Squatter Sovereignty?  Extend the Missouri Compromise line to the Pacific Ocean?

6. COMPROMISE OF 1850  The Compromise of 1850  Proposed by Henry Clay with support from fellow Whig Daniel Webster and Democrat, Stephen A. Douglas  The compromise contained five separate laws  California admitted into the Union as a free state  A border dispute between New Mexico and Texas was resolved  Territories of New Mexico granted popular sovereignty on the issue of slavery  Slave trade abolished in Washington, D.C.

7. COMPROMISE OF 1850  Fugitive Slave Act  Federal government would enforce slave holders rights  Individual citizens had to assist in the capturing of runaway slaves  Federal commissions, not the courts, would decide cases involving fugitive slaves Despite this compromise, “fire-eaters,” (militant proslavery activists) in SC, GA, MS, & AL gathered money and arms “to meet the emergency.”

8. ERIC FONER ON THE FUGITIVE SLAVE ACT

9. KANSAS-NEBRASKA ACT  In 1854, to further his presidential ambitions, Sen. Stephen A. Douglas (D – IL) introduces the Kansas-Nebraska Act  Created the new territories of Kansas and Nebraska  The issue of slavery would be determined by popular sovereignty (white males)

10. KANSAS-NEBRASKA ACT  But what about the Missouri Compromise?  The Kansas-Nebraska Act repealed the Missouri Compromise

11. KANSAS-NEBRASKA ACT Appeal of the Independent Democrats We arraign this bill as a gross violation of a sacred pledge; as a criminal betrayal of precious rights; as part and parcel of an atrocious plot to exclude from a vast unoccupied region immigrants from the Old World and free laborers from our own States, and convert it into a dreary region of despotism, inhabited by masters and slaves. Sen. Salmon Chase (OH) Sen. Charles Sumner (MA)

12. BLEEDING KANSAS  Kansas held elections in 1854 and 1855  Hundreds of proslavery Missourians crossed into Kansas to cast fraudulent ballots  President Franklin Pierce recognized the vote  Settlers from free states started their own government  In 1855 proslavery and abolitionist contingents waged violence against one another  Over 200 killed William Quantrill (proslavery) John Brown (abolitionist)

13. BLEEDING KANSAS Sen. Charles Sumner is beaten within an inch of his life for criticizing a proslavery Sen. Andrew Butler (SC)