Download Chapter 13 Summary

CHAPTER 13
AN AGE OF EXPANSIONISM
BOUNDLESS AMERICA
Henry Clay once defended the acquisition of Florida by whatever means because “it fills a space in our
imagination.” For Americans in the first half of the nineteenth century, there were many such places
demanding to be filled. Ask your students to visualize the boundaries of the United States, and the
answer is immediate: the Atlantic, the Pacific, Canada, and Mexico. How “natural” and firm, how
predestined those boundaries seem today! If we are to understand the almost obsessive desire of
earlier Americans to expand their boundaries, we must appreciate how vague and fluid the national
borders were before 1850.
In 1783, only the eastern boundary of the United States was fixed. On the North, the frontier
with Canada was not yet settled, and neither was the boundary with Spanish Florida in the South. One
might think that the Mississippi River formed a definite western boundary, but a glance at the map
shows that the Mississippi begins much west of where it ends, and its headwaters are south of the
Canadian border. Added to these real difficulties, there was the abysmal state of geographical
knowledge. During debates over ratification of the 1783 peace treaty, some congressmen obviously
mistook the Missouri River for the Mississippi.
The Louisiana Purchase allowed the United States to take advantage of the disputed border
between Louisiana and Spanish West Florida to press Spain until it finally gave up the entire peninsula.
The Gulf of Mexico then joined the Atlantic Ocean in defining the coasts of the United States. The
Purchase also made the Mississippi totally irrelevant as a western boundary and substituted for it a
vague and vast domain that reached as far as imagination allowed. For many Americans and for
Napoleon Bonaparte, Louisiana included Texas. Others erroneously believed that Louisiana extended
beyond the Rocky Mountains. In the North, the Purchase petered out somewhere on the plains that
stretch from the Dakotas into Manitoba.
We know now that the annexation of Texas settled the southern boundary of the United States
at the Rio Grande, but we also know how porous a border it is. It is not surprising that in the 1840s many
Americans considered the eastern Sierra Madre mountains a more natural frontier between the United
States and Mexico. At the same time that the Rio Grande became the southern boundary, the fortyninth parallel became the northern border, and, shortly thereafter, the acquisition of California settled
the western border. After generations of living within fluid borders, Americans in 1848 could finally
define their national boundaries as we do today, the Atlantic, the Pacific, Canada, and Mexico.
These boundaries have endured for so long that they now seem fixed forever. But what would
happen if Canada broke up and the people of British Columbia petitioned for annexation? Would the
United States pass up a chance to make Alaska contiguous with the lower states? Would the United
States someday attempt to round out its queer southwestern border with Mexico and finally acquire the
mouth of the Colorado River? Once people realize that boundaries can be altered, it becomes easier for
them to think that those boundaries should advance. Nations commonly expand and contract. Mexico
once included Guatemala and touched Canada. Perhaps the next turn of fortune will see her collecting
tolls on the Great Lakes and dispensing justice in Saskatchewan.
RELIVING THE PAST
As the American people moved west, large numbers of them found themselves living beyond the
political boundaries of the United States. These Americans were children of the nation, and their
“sufferings,” especially those living in Mexico (now Texas), elicited a tremendous emotional response in
the United States. When the Alamo was besieged, its commander, William Travis, issued an appeal for
aid to “All Americans in the World....” Travis’‘ message, which has been called the most heroic ever
written by an American, has been reproduced many times. It is most easily available today in Walter
Lord’s lively account of the siege of the Alamo, A Time to Stand (Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska
Press, 1978 reprint).
Abraham Lincoln made a name for himself on the national political scene during the Mexican
War. Unfortunately for him, his stand on the war nearly finished his political career. Elected to the
House of Representatives in 1846, Lincoln introduced the “spot resolution” in 1847, challenging the
president to prove that the war had really been started by a Mexican invasion of American soil. Lincoln’s
speech against the war, given in the House of Representatives on January 5, 1848, is a good example of
his ability as an orator and his political courage. The best source for this speech, or for anything written
by Lincoln, is The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, edited by Roy P. Basler (New Brunswick, NJ:
Rutgers University Press, 1953-1955), a work that Basler and others keep up to date with supplementary
volumes.
THE SPIRIT OF YOUNG AMERICA
The author begins with Ralph Waldo Emerson’s celebration of a new generation of Americans, who, he
predicted, would lead the nation to greatness. This chapter describes the achievements of this new
generation: The West was seized from Mexico, an industrial revolution took off, and the population
greatly increased through immigration.
MOVEMENT TO THE FAR WEST
In the 1830s and 1840s, American settlement pierced the line of Mississippi and reached the Pacific.
Settlement often spilled over the borders of the United States and encroached on lands owned or
claimed by Mexico and England.
A. Borderlands of the 1830s
The dream that Canada might someday belong to the United States came to an end in 1842 when the
Webster-Ashburton Treaty settled the northeast boundary. Americans looked instead to three other
territories: Oregon (an area much larger than the present-day state of the same name), where the
United States and England had a joint right of occupation, New Mexico, then owned by Mexico, and
California, also owned by Mexico, but virtually uninhabited.
B. The Texas Revolution
Americans, including many slaveholders, immigrated into Texas, owned by Mexico in the 1820s. These
“Anglos” never fully accepted Mexican rule, especially after 1829, when the Mexican government tried
to abolish slavery. After a series of incidents, armed rebellion broke out in 1835.
C. The Republic of Texas
In March 1836, a convention of Texans declared independence. After a short brutal war, Texans forced
the defeated Santa Anna to sign a treaty recognizing Texas’‘ claim to territory all the way to the Rio
Grande. Texas was independent, but Mexico refused to recognize the new nation.
Texas opened her lands to even more rapid American settlement, and it was the desire of most Texans
to join the United States. President Andrew Jackson, however, fearing a war with Mexico and domestic
political controversy, delayed annexation.
D. Trails of Trade and Settlement
One of the trails used by Americans in their westward movement, the Sante Fe Trail, was closed by
Mexico as a result of its war with Texas. Along the Oregon Trail, a heavy stream of settlers moved
through the Rocky Mountains and into the Oregon country. These settlers demanded that the United
States end the joint occupation with England and assume full control.
E. The Mormon Trek
Among those moving west were members of the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints.
Founded by Joseph Smith in 1830 in upstate New York, the Mormon church attempted to revive the
pure Christianity believed to have once existed in aboriginal America. Because of their unorthodox
beliefs and practices (polygamy, for example) Mormons suffered persecution that sent them ever
westward. They established their own city, Nauvoo, Illinois, but after Joseph Smith was killed by a mob,
Mormons resettled around the Great Salt Lake in Utah. They established a state called Deseret, and
thanks to a strong central government and the discipline and dedication of the community, they
transformed the desert into farmland.
Mormons at first resisted being governed by the United States after the area was taken from
Mexico, and in 1857 the United States and the Mormons almost went to war. Both sides backed off, and
Brigham Young, the Mormon leader, accepted an appointment as territorial governor of Utah.
MANIFEST DESTINY AND THE MEXICAN-AMERICAN WAR
America’s westward movement created a confrontation with Great Britain and a war with Mexico.
A. Tyler and Texas
John Tyler had been placed on the 1840 Whig ticket as vice president in order to get some southern
votes; Whig leaders never expected him to become president in 1841. By 1844 Tyler had broken with
the Whig party, and his hopes for re-election in 1844 rested almost entirely on finding a new and
popular issue. He began pushing for the annexation of Texas, which was a popular issue in the South,
but the North was indifferent and perhaps even hostile to the idea of adding a new slave state. When
Tyler negotiated a treaty of annexation with Texas, the Senate refused to ratify it.
B. The Triumph of Polk and Annexation
At the Democratic nominating convention in 1844, southern delegates had enough strength to give the
nomination to James K. Polk of Tennessee, who was strongly in favor of annexing Texas. In order to win
northern support, Polk also promised to extend U.S. jurisdiction over all of Oregon. His victory over Whig
candidate Henry Clay was a narrow one, but Polk and the Congress interpreted the results as a mandate
for expansion. Congress annexed Texas even before Polk was inaugurated.
C. The Doctrine of Manifest Destiny
The rationale behind American expansion is summed up in the phrase, “manifest destiny,” first used in
1845. Expansion was defended on three grounds: first, God wanted the United States, His chosen
nation, to become stronger; second, as Americans took over new territories, they made these areas free
and democratic; and third, the American population was growing so rapidly that the nation needed
more land. The only questions were how far America would expand and whether it would use diplomacy
or war to do so.
D. Polk and the Oregon Question
America almost went to war with Great Britain over the ownership of the Oregon country. President
Polk was actually willing to split the area with England, but his public demands for the whole territory
annoyed the English, and they refused to negotiate with him. In 1846 Polk notified Great Britain that the
United States would no longer agree to joint occupation. England prepared for war, but also proposed
division of the area in a treaty that the Senate approved. Although the United States gained ownership
of Puget Sound, a deep-water port on the Pacific, the North condemned Polk for not having persisted in
his demand for all of Oregon.
E. War with Mexico
When the United States annexed Texas, it also acquired a boundary dispute with Mexico. When Polk
ordered U.S. forces to occupy the disputed area, a skirmish ensued, which the president used to justify a
declaration of war on May 13, 1846. Polk saw the war as an opportunity to seize California and New
Mexico, those states that Mexico had refused to sell to the United States.
In the war, General Zachary Taylor defeated the Mexicans in a series of battles in northern
Mexico; New Mexico was taken, and California fell to American forces. The conclusive battles were won
by General Winfield Scott, who took Vera Cruz in an amphibious invasion, routed the Mexicans at Cerro
Gordo, and occupied Mexico City by September, 1847.
F. Settlement of the Mexican-American War
In the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo which ended the Mexican War, the United States gained the Rio
Grande as a southern border and enlarged its size by 20 percent with the addition of California and the
Southwest.
Two powerful forces limited further American expansion, racism and anti-colonialism. The
American people did not want to take in large numbers of Latin Americans, whom they considered
inferior. The annexation of Texas and the war with Mexico had also aroused political contention. Most
Whigs opposed the war, and many Northerners complained that the nation had been dragged into a war
that benefitted only the slave-owners in the South.
INTERNAL EXPANSIONISM
Having pushed to the Pacific, Americans turned inward and developed their vast domain.
A. Triumph of the Railroad
By the 1840s and 1850s, the railroad finally began to displace the canal as the cheapest means of
hauling freight. Railroad construction stimulated the iron industry, but the most dramatic side-effect of
the railroad boom was in the area of finance. Railroads required enormous amounts of capital, which
were raised through new techniques such as bonds and preferred stock, and by large government
subsidies.
B. The Industrial Revolution Takes Off
Mass production and the division of labor transformed traditional crafts and made production more
efficient. More and more work was done in a factory system, the essential features of which were the
gathering of laborers in one place where they could be supervised, cash wages, and a “continuous
process” of manufacturing. Agriculture remained of primary importance in the national economy, but
even farming was becoming mechanized. In the North especially, advances in industry, transportation,
and agriculture interacted to create a strong economy.
C. Mass Immigration Begins
By the 1840s, American industry was capable of providing hundreds of thousands of jobs, which
attracted immigrants. Between 1840 and 1860, over four million Europeans, mostly Irish and Germans,
came to the United States. Although many came to escape poverty-the Irish especially-most immigrants
came for the opportunity to work at higher wages. Ironically, many immigrants stayed in the port cities
and gladly took low-paying jobs. Since most immigrants could only afford substandard housing, urban
slums spread, inspiring efforts to reduce crime, vice, and dirt, but progress was slow.
D. The New Working Class
Traditionally, women and children were factory workers. Men began to enter the factory work-force in
significant numbers only in the 1840s. At that time, working conditions had begun to deteriorate.
Employers were less personally involved with their laborers, and the depression that followed 1837
induced employers to demand more work for less pay. Workers responded by organizing unions.
When immigrants poured into America, they replaced native Americans in the factories. The
budding union movement was badly hurt, but the new working class did not form a docile body of
employees. They resented the discipline and continuous nature of factory work and clung to traditional
work habits, which to the supervisors appeared as careless work habits.
CONCLUSION: THE COSTS OF EXPANSION
The new working class posed a problem for American ideals. It had always been assumed that working
for wages was merely the first step toward becoming your own master. Now, it was obvious that a
permanent wage-earning class had come into existence. Politicians like Stephen Douglas hoped to
create a patriotic consensus based on continued territorial and economic expansion, but expansion
actually created conflicts between classes and sections that the politicians could not control.