Download Manifest Destiny Maine and Oregon

Chapter 17
Manifest Destiny and
Its Legacy, 1841–1848
p367
Introduction to the Presidents
• William Henry Harrison
– A Whig, was elected in 1841 and John Tyler
elected Vice-President
• Cabinet: Secretary of State—Daniel Webster
• Henry Clay spokesman in the Senate, the uncrowned
king of the Whigs.
– Harrison’s election considered first full blown
political campaign
– Harrison contacted pneumonia after giving 2 hr long inaugural
address and dies only four months in office. By far the shortest
administration in American history .
Introduction to the Presidents
• John Tyler:
• Vice President, the “Tyler too” party of the Whig
ticket, assumes presidency
• His enemies accused him of being a Democrat in
Whig clothing
• He was stubbornly attached to principle; forsook the
Democrats for the Whigs because of “King Andrew”
• Was at odds with the majority of his adoptive Whigs
Introduction to the Presidents
• Tyler, abandoned by Whigs does not run for
reelection
• The two major parties nominated their
presidential standard-bearers in May 1844:
– Henry Clay chosen by the Whigs at Baltimore
– James K. Polk of Tennessee chosen by the
Democrats—America’s first “dark horse”
Introduction to the Presidents
• Election results:
• “Dark Horse” Polk nipped Clay 170 to 105 votes in the
Electoral College
• 1,338,464 to 1,300,097 in the popular vote
• Clay would have won if he had not lost New York
State by a scant 5,000 votes:
– There the tiny antislavery Liberty Party absorbed nearly
16,000 votes that would have gone to Clay.
Introduction to the Presidents
– The Democrats campaign was an expression of
Manifest Destiny:
– Polk… in Jackson’s footsteps as an expansionist
Democrat:
• Strongly swayed by Manifest Destiny
• Platform:
– “All of Oregon or None” (The slogan “Fifty-four
forty or fight” was not coined until two years
later)
– The Democrats proclaimed they received a
mandate from the voters to take Texas.
Map 17-1 p363
Maine
• The Maine boundary dispute:
– The St. Lawrence River, main waterway in land,
is icebound several months of the year:
• As a defensive precaution the British wanted to build
a road westward from the seaport Halifax to Quebec
• The road would go though disputed territory claimed
by Maine
• The Aroostook War threatened to widen the dispute
into a full-dress shooting war.
Maine
– Britain sent to Washington a nonprofessional
diplomat, Lord Ashburton, who established
cordial relations with Secretary Webster
• They finally agreed to compromise on the Maine
boundary
• A split-the-difference arrangement, the Americans
retained some 7,000 square miles of the 12,000
square miles of the wilderness in dispute
• Britain got less land but won the desired HalifaxQuebec route.
• KEY: BEGINS PROCESS OF LONGEST CONTINOUS
UNGUARDED BOARDER IN THE WORLD
Map 17-1 p363
Map 17-2 p368
Oregon
• Oregon Country:
– Geography
• From the Rockies to the Pacific Ocean, north of
California to the line of 54-40, the present southern
tip of Alaska panhandle
• This land was claimed at one time or another by:
Spain, Russia, Britain, and the United States
• Two claimants dropped out of the scramble:
– Spain through the Florida Treaty of 1819
– Russia retreated to the 54-40 line by treaties of 1824 and
1825.
Oregon
– British claims to Oregon
• They were based on:
–
–
–
–
Prior discovery and exploration
Treaty rights
Actual occupation
Colonizing agency Hudson’s Bay Company
• Especially the portion north of the Columbia River
Oregon
United States Claim…
• The famed Lewis and Clark expedition of 1804-1806
• Presence of missionaries and other settlers, some of
whom reached the grassy Willamette River valley
– These men and women of God, in saving the soul of the
Indians, were instrumental in saving the soil of Oregon for
the United States
– They stimulated interest in a faraway domain that countless
Americans had earlier assumed would not be settled for
centuries.
• Scattered Americans and British pioneers continued
to live peacefully side by side.
Oregon
– The Anglo-American Convention of 1818
• The United States sought to divide at the forty-ninth
parallel
• The British wanted the Columbia River as the line
• A scheme for peaceful “joint occupation” was
adopted, pending future settlement
• The handful of Americans in the Willamette Valley
was multiplied in the early 1840s by the “Oregon
fever”
Oregon Fever Populates Oregon
• Over the 2,000 mile Oregon Trail (1846) five thousand
Americans had settled south of the Columbia River
• The British could only muster seven hundred north of
the Columbia River
– Actually only a relatively small segment was in
controversy by 1845:
– The Americans offered the forty-ninth parallel
– The British repeated offering the line of the Columbia River
– The whole issue was now tossed into the presidential
election of 1844, where it became overshadowed by the
question of annexing Texas.
Oregon as Part of Polk’s Plan
• Polk’s four-point program:
1. To lower the tariff
• Secretary of the Treasure, Robert J. Walker, devised a tariff-for-revenue bill that
reduced the average rates of the Tariff of 1842 from 32% to 25%
2. The restoration of the independent treasury:
• Pro-bank Whigs in Congress raised a storm of opposition, but victory at last
rewarded the president’s effort in 1846.
3. Settlement of the Oregon dispute
4. Acquisition of California
Settling Oregon
• Settlement of the Oregon dispute:
• “Reoccupation” of the “whole” had been promised to
northern Democrats in 1844 campaign
• 54’ 40 or fight!
• Southern Democrats, once Texas was annexed, cooled
off
• Polk’s feeling bound by the three offers of his
predecessor to London, proposed the compromise
line of 49.
• Britain in 1846 proposed the line of 49 as antiexpansionists were now persuaded that the Columbia
River was not the St. Lawrence.
Map 17-3 p371
Texas as an Independent Country
– Faced threats from Mexico….
• refused to recognize Texas’s independence
• regarded the “Lone Star Republic” as a province in
revolt to be reconquered in the future
• threatened USA with war if it intervened
– Request for annexation into US snubbed
– Absence US annexations, it sought alliances with
other foreign powers
• In 1839 and 1840, the Texans concluded a treaty with
France, Holland, and Belgium.
Texas as an Independent Country
– Britain was interested in an independent Texas
• Texas would serve as a check for Americans moving
South, possibly into British territory
• British abolitionists were busily intriguing for a
foothold in Texas
• British manufacturers perceived the Texas plains for
great cotton-producing in the future relieving Britain
of chronic dependence on American fiber.
VI. The Belated Texas Nuptials
– Texas became a leading issue in the 1844
presidential campaign:
• The foes of expansion assailed annexation
• Southern hotheads cried, “Texas or Disunion”
• The pro-expansion Democrats under James K. Polk
finally triumphed over the Whigs
• Lame duck president Tyler interpreted the narrow
Democratic victory as a “mandate” to acquire Texas.
• Tyler deserves credit for shepherding Texas into the
fold.
VI. The Belated Texas Nuptials
(cont.)
• Tyler despaired of securing the needed 2/3 vote for a
treaty in the Senate
• He arranged for annexation by a joint resolution
• After a spirited debate, the resolution passed in 1845
and Texas was formally invited to become the 28th
star on the American flag
• Mexico angrily charged that the Americans had
despoiled it of Texas
• Mexico left the Texans dangling by denying their right
to dispose of themselves as they chose
VI. The Belated Texas Nuptials
(cont.)
– By 1845 the Lone Star Republic had become a
danger spot:
• Inviting foreign intrigue that menaced the American
people
• The continued existence of Texas as an independent
nation threatened to involve the United States in
wars
• The United States can hardly be accused of haste in
achieving annexation.