Toward the Civil War
The 1840's and 1850's were years of growth for the United States.Texas, which had broken away from Mexico, was admitted to the Union in 1845. The Mexican War followed in 1846. It resulted in California being ceded to the United States, along with the area called New Mexico, which included the later states of New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, and Nevada. In 1849 gold was discovered in California, and Oregon was organized as a territory.
Westward movement in America by 1840. By 1840, pioneers had settled most of the land east of the Mississippi. Westward expansion had already carried many settlers across the river into Missouri, Arkansas, and Louisiana.
Captain Robert Gray's ship off the coast of Oregon. Captain Robert Gray visited what is now Oregon in 1792. He sailed into the mouth of a great river that he named after his ship, the Columbia.
The gold rush of 1849. The gold rush of 1849 began after James W. Marshall found gold near Sutter's Mill on the American River. News of his discovery spread rapidly.Territorial expansion was accompanied by heated controversy in Congress over the slavery issue. The Free Soil party, which demanded that slavery be excluded from all the new territories, was formed. Congress adopted the Compromise of 1850, by which California was admitted as a free state, to balance the existence of slavery in Texas. The territories of New Mexico and Utah, however, were permitted to choose their status. In addition, Congress passed the Fugitive Slave Act, making it a federal crime to aid a slave to escape. This law increased antislavery feeling in the North.
1854 Congress adopted the Kansas-Nebraska Bill, which in effect repealed the Missouri Compromise by permitting slavery in the Kansas and Nebraska territories if the settlers voted for it. This legislation, which led to civil war in Kansas, was a death blow to the Whig party.
A new party in the North, the Republican, then emerged. It opposed extension of slavery, but did not advocate its abolition. It also stood for a basically Northern economic program. Many Northern Democrats who opposed extension of slavery joined Northern Whigs in the new party. Its first Presidential candidate, John C. Frémont, was defeated in 1856 by the Democrats' James Buchanan.In 1860 the Democratic party was split between North and South, and each faction ran its own candidate. The Republican party, although confined to the North, won the Presidency with Abraham Lincoln. Southern leaders assumed that the Republican victory meant that the South would be treated as an inferior section of the Union.
