should be accomplished by legal and 1836 the House voted to table such
peaceful means . Garrison was joined petitions automatically, thus effec-
by another powerful voice, that of tively killing them . Former President
Frederick Douglass, an escaped slave John Quincy Adams, elected to the
who galvanized Northern audiences . House of Representatives in 1830,
Theodore Dwight Weld and many fought this so-called gag rule as a
other abolitionists crusaded against violation of the First Amendment,
slavery in the states of the old North- finally winning its repeal in 1844 .
west Territory with evangelical zeal .
One activity of the movement in-
TEXAS AND WAR WITH
volved helping slaves escape to safe
MEXICO
refuges in the North or over the bor-
der into Canada . The “Underground Throughout the 1820s, Ameri-
Railroad,” an elaborate network of cans settled in the vast territory of
secret routes, was firmly established Texas, often with land grants from
in the 1830s in all parts of the North . the Mexican government . However,
In Ohio alone, from 1830 to 1860, as their numbers soon alarmed the au-
many as 40,000 fugitive slaves were thorities, who prohibited further im-
helped to freedom . The number of migration in 1830 . In 1834 General
local antislavery societies increased Antonio López de Santa Anna estab-
at such a rate that by 1838 there were lished a dictatorship in Mexico, and
about 1,350 with a membership of the following year Texans revolted .
perhaps 250,000 .
Santa Anna defeated the American
Most Northerners nonetheless ei- rebels at the celebrated siege of the
ther held themselves aloof from the Alamo in early 1836, but Texans
abolitionist movement or actively under Sam Houston destroyed the
opposed it . In 1837, for example, Mexican Army and captured Santa
a mob attacked and killed the an- Anna a month later at the Battle of
tislavery editor Elijah P . Lovejoy in San Jacinto, ensuring Texan inde-
Alton, Illinois . Still, Southern re- pendence .
pression of free speech allowed the
For almost a decade, Texas re-
abolitionists to link the slavery issue mained an independent republic,
with the cause of civil liberties for largely because its annexation as a
whites . In 1835 an angry mob de- huge new slave state would disrupt
stroyed abolitionist literature in the the increasingly precarious balance
Charleston, South Carolina, post of- of political power in the United
fice . When the postmaster-general States . In 1845, President James K .
stated he would not enforce delivery Polk, narrowly elected on a platform
of abolitionist material, bitter de- of westward expansion, brought the
bates ensued in Congress . Abolition- Republic of Texas into the Union .
ists flooded Congress with petitions Polk’s move was the first gambit in
calling for action against slavery . In a larger design . Texas claimed that
134
OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY
its border with Mexico was the Rio forces, mainly among the Whigs, at-
Grande; Mexico argued that the
tacked Polk’s expansion as a proslav-
border stood far to the north along ery plot .
the Nueces River . Meanwhile, set-
With the conclusion of the Mexi-
tlers were flooding into the territo- can War, the United States gained
ries of New Mexico and California . a vast new territory of 1 .36 million
Many Americans claimed that the square kilometers encompassing the
United States had a “manifest des- present-day states of New Mexico,
tiny” to expand westward to the Pa- Nevada, California, Utah, most of
cific Ocean .
Arizona, and portions of Colorado
U .S . attempts to purchase from and Wyoming . The nation also faced
Mexico the New Mexico and Cali- a revival of the most explosive ques-
fornia territories failed . In 1846, tion in American politics of the time:
after a clash of Mexican and U .S . Would the new territories be slave
troops along the Rio Grande, the or free?
United States declared war . Ameri-
can troops occupied the lightly
THE COMPROMISE OF 1850
populated territory of New Mexico,
then supported a revolt of settlers Until 1845, it had seemed likely
in California . A U .S . force under that slavery would be confined to the
Zachary Taylor invaded Mexico, areas where it already existed . It had
winning victories at Monterrey and been given limits by the Missouri
Buena Vista, but failing to bring the Compromise in 1820 and had no op-
Mexicans to the negotiating table . In portunity to overstep them . The new
March 1847, a U .S . Army command- territories made renewed expansion
ed by Winfield Scott landed near of slavery a real likelihood .
Veracruz on Mexico’s east coast,
Many Northerners believed that if
and fought its way to Mexico City . not allowed to spread, slavery would
The United States dictated the Trea- ultimately decline and die . To jus-
ty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in which tify their opposition to adding new
Mexico ceded what would become slave states, they pointed to the state-
the American Southwest region and ments of Washington and Jefferson,
California for $15 million .
and to the Ordinance of 1787, which
The war was a training ground forbade the extension of slavery into
for American officers who would the Northwest . Texas, which already
later fight on both sides in the Civil permitted slavery, naturally entered
War . It was also politically divisive . the Union as a slave state . But the Polk, in a simultaneous facedown California, New Mexico, and Utah
with Great Britain, had achieved territories did not have slavery . From
British recognition of American sov- the beginning, there were strongly
ereignty in the Pacific Northwest to conflicting opinions on whether
the 49th parallel . Still, antislavery they should .
135