History 103 *** AMERICAN HISTORY TO 1877 *** Nov. 22, 1996

SECTIONAL CONFLICT & THE COMPROMISE OF 1850

I. Another Firebell: Wilmot Proviso (continued)

• Northern concerns
• Southern concerns
• Congressional outcome

II. Presidential Election of 1848

• Democrats nominate Lewis Cass on "popular sovereignty" platform
• Whigs nominate Zachary Taylor on no platform
• Free Soil Party founded
• Free Soilers nominate Van Buren on platform opposing slavery's expansion
• Taylor wins; Second Party System survives

III. California Gold Rush

• Polk's announcement and popular response (1848-49)
• Exploitation of Chinese; extermination of Native Americans
• Implications for American politics

IV. The Compromise of 1850

• Taylor's plan
• Clay's alternative
• Senate debate
• Taylor dies, Fillmore becomes president
• Stephen Douglas engineers passage of Compromise

V. Controversy over the Fugitive Slave Law

• Southern conventions
• Abolitionist outrage
• Harriet Beecher Stowe writes Uncle Tom's Cabin (1851-52)

VI. Presidential Election of 1852

• Democrats nominate Franklin Pierce
• Whigs nominate Winfield Scott
• Pierce wins