Manifest Destiny and Its Legacy

John Tyler: A President Without a Party • Whigs platform: • It outlined a strongly nationalist program • Financial reform came first: – The Whig Congress passed a law ending the independ

Chapter 17

Manifest Destiny and Its Legacy, 1841–1848

I The Accession of “Tyler Too”

• Whig party:

– Wm H 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 contacted pneumonia and died after

only four months in office

• By far the shortest administration in American history but longest inaugural address

I The Accession of “Tyler Too”

(cont.)

• John Tyler:

• The “Tyler too” party of the Whig ticket, now claimed the spotlight

• He was stubbornly attached to principle

• Resigned early from the Senate, rather than accept distasteful instructions form the Virginia legislature

• Forsook the Jacksonian Democrats for the Whigs

• His enemies accused him of being a Democrat in Whig clothing

• Was at odds with the majority of his adoptive Whigs

I The Accession of “Tyler Too”

(cont.)

• Whig party platform:

– Pro-bank, pro-protective tariff, and pro-internal improvements.

• “Tyler too” rhymed with “Tippecanoe,” but there the harmony ended

• President Harrison, the Whig, served for only

4 weeks, whereas Tyler, the ex-Democrat

who was still largely a Democrat at heart,

served for 204 weeks.

II John Tyler: A President Without a

Party

• Whigs platform:

• It outlined a strongly nationalist program

• Financial reform came first:

– The Whig Congress passed a law ending the independent treasury system

– President Tyler, disarmingly agreeable, signed it – Clay drove though Congress a bill for a “Fiscal Bank” which would create a new Bank of the United States

– Clay—the “Great Compromiser”—would have done well to conciliate Tyler

II John Tyler: A President Without

II John Tyler: A President Without

a Party (cont.)

• Proposed Whig tariff bill:

– Tyler vetoed the bill – Because he saw the Whig scheme for a distribution among the states of revenue from the sale of public lands in the West

– He could see no point of squandering federal money.

• Chastened Clayites redrafted their tariff bill:

– They chopped out the offensive dollar-distribution scheme – Pushed down the rates to about the moderately protective level of 1832—roughly 32% on dutiable goods

– Tyler reluctantly signed the Tariff of 1842

III A War of Words with Britain

• Anti-British passions:

• At the bottom lay the bitter, red-coated memories of the two Anglo-American wars

• The pro-British Federalists had died out

• British travels wrote negatively about American customs in their travel books

• These writings touched off the “Third War with England”

• Fortunately this British-American war was fought on paper broadsides, and only ink was spilled

III A War of Words with Britain

(cont.)

– America a borrowing nation:

• Expensive canals to dig and railroads to build

• Britain, with overflowing coffers, was a lending

nation

• The panic of 1837 and several states defaulted on

their bonds or repudiated them altogether

– 1837—a short-lived insurrection erupted in

III A War of Words with Britain

(cont.)

• Again it could not enforce unpopular laws in the face

of popular opposition

• A provocative incident on the Canadian frontier

brought passions to a boil in 1837:

– An American steamer, Caroline, was carrying supplies to

the insurgents across the Niagara River – It was attacked by the British and set on fire – The craft sank short of the plunge, only one American was killed.

• This unlawful invasion of American soil had alarming aftermaths

III A War of Words with Britain

rebelled and captured the American ship Creole.

– Britain had abolished slavery within the empire in 1833, raising southern fears that its Caribbean possessions would become Canada-like havens for escaped slaves

p362

IV Manipulating the Maine Maps

• The Maine boundary dispute:

– The St Lawrence River 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

IV Manipulating the Maine Maps

(cont.)

– 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 (see Map 17.1)

• 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

Halifax-Quebec route

IV Manipulating the Maine Maps

(cont.)

• The Caroline affair was patched up by an exchange of

diplomatic notes

• Bonus sneaked in small print:

– The British, in adjusting the U.S.-Canadian boundary farther West, surrendered 6,500 square miles

– The area was later found to contain the priceless Mesabi iron ore of Minnesota.

Map 17-1 p363

V The Lone Star of Texas Shines

Alone

• Texas’s precarious existence:

– Mexico:

• refused to recognize Texas’s independence

• regarded the Lone Star Republic as a province in revolt to be reconquered in the future

• Mexican officials threatened war if the American eagle ever gather the fledgling republic under its protective wings

V The Lone Star of Texas Shines

• In 1839 and 1840, the Texans concluded a treaty with France, Holland, and Belgium

– Britain was interested in an independent Texas

• Texas would serve as a check for Americans moving South, possibly into British territory

V The Lone Star of Texas Shines

Alone (cont.)

• Dangers threatened from other foreigners:

– British abolitionists were busily intriguing for a foothold in Texas

– British merchants regarded Texas as a

potentially important free-trade area—an offset

to the tariff-walled United States

– British manufacturers perceived the Texas plains for great cotton-producing in the future relieving Britain of chronic dependence on American

fiber.

p364

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

• The United States can hardly be accused of haste in achieving annexation

VII Oregon Fever Populates 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.

VII Oregon Fever Populates

Oregon (cont.)

– British claims to Oregon were strong:

• Especially the portion north of the Columbia River

• They were based on:

– Prior discovery and exploration – Treaty rights

– Actual occupation – Colonizing agency Hudson’s Bay Company

– American claims to Oregon:

• To exploration and occupation

• Captain Robert Gray (1792) had stumbled on the Columbia River, which he named after his ship

III Oregon Fever Populates

Oregon (cont.)

• 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

III Oregon Fever Populates

• 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”

III Oregon Fever Populates

Oregon (cont.)

• Over the 2,000 mile Oregon Trail (1846) five

thousand Americans had settled south of the

election of 1844, where it became overshadowed by the question of annexing Texas.

p365

VIII A Mandate (?) for Manifest

Destiny

• 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”

– The campaign was an expression of Manifest

Destiny:

– A sense of mission, believing that Almighty God had

“manifestly” destined the American people for a hemisphere career…(see page 366)

VIII A Mandate (?) for Manifest

Destiny (cont.)

– Expansionist Democrats:

• Strongly swayed by Manifest Destiny

• Their platform: “Reannexation of Texas” and

“Reoccupation of Oregon”-all the way to 54-40

• “All of Oregon or None” (The slogan “Fifty-four forty

or fight” was not coined until two years later)

• They condemned Clay as a “corrupt bargainer,” a

dissolute character, and a slaveowner

VIII A Mandate (?) for Manifest

Destiny (cont.)

– The Whigs:

• They countered with their own slogans

• They spread the lie:

– that a gang of Tennessee slaves had been on their way to a southern market branded with the initials J.K.P (James K Polk)

• Clay “straddled” the crucial issue of Texas:

– He personally favored annexing slaveholding Texas (an appeal to the South); he also favored postponement (an appeal to the North).

VIII A Mandate (?) for Manifest

Destiny (cont.)

• 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.

• The Democrats proclaimed they received a mandate from the voters to take Texas

p366

IX Polk the Purposeful

• President James K Polk:

• Was not an impressive figure

• His burden increased by his unwillingness to delegate authority

• Methodical and hard-working but not brilliant

• He was shrewd, narrow-minded, conscientious, and persistent

• He developed a four-point program and with remarkable success achieved it completely in less than four years

IX Polk the Purposeful

(cont.)

• Polk’s four-point program:

– 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%

• With strong support of low-tariff southerners, the

Walker Tariff bill made it through Congress

• Complaints came from the middle states and New England (see Table 17.1)

• The Bill proved to be an excellent revenue producer

IX Polk the Purposeful

(cont.)

– The restoration of the independent treasury:

• Unceremoniously dropped by the Whigs in 1841

• Pro-bank Whigs in Congress raised a storm of

opposition, but victory at last rewarded the

IX Polk the Purposeful

(cont.)

• Settlement of the Oregon dispute:

• “Reoccupation” of the “whole” had been promised to northern Democrats in 1844 campaign

• 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

• British anti-expansionists were now persuaded that the Columbia River was not the St Lawrence

• Britain in 1846 proposed the line of 49

IX Polk the Purposeful

(cont.)

• Polk threw the decision to the Senate

• They speedily accepted the offer and approved the subsequent treaty

• Satisfaction with the Oregon settlement among

Americans was not unanimous

• So, Polk, despite all the campaign bluster, got neither

“fifty-four forty” nor a fight

• But he did get something that in the long run was

better: a reasonable compromise without a rifle

being raised

Table 17-1 p368

Map 17-2 p368

X Misunderstandings with

Mexico

– Faraway California was another worry for Polk:

• Diverse population: Spanish Mexicans, Indians, “some foreigners” and Americans

• Given time these transplant Americans might bring California into the Union

• Polk was eager to buy from Mexico

• But the United States had some $3 million claim to American citizens and their property

• A more serious contention was Texas

• Deadlock with Mexico over Texas’s boundaries

X Misunderstandings with

Mexico (cont.)

• Texas wanted the Rio Grande River boundary but Mexico only wanted the Nueces River boundary

• Polk was careful to keep American troops out of the no-man’s-land

– California continued to cause Polk anxiety:

• Rumors—British wanted to buy or seize California

• A grab the Americans could not tolerate under the Monroe Doctrine

• Polk dispatched John Slidell to Mexico City (1845):

– To offer $25 million for California and territory to the east – Mexico would not even permit Slidell to present his case

p369

XI American Blood on American (?)

Soil

• Polk was ready to take action:

– January 13, 1846 he ordered 4000 men:

• Under General Zachary Taylor to march from Nueces River to the Rio Grande hoping for a clash

• When nothing happened he informed his cabinet (May 9, 1846) that he proposed to declare war

– Unpaid claims – Slidell’s rejection

• New of bloodshed arrived on the same night

• Mexican troops crossed the Rio Grande and met Taylor

XI American Blood on American

(?) Soil (cont.)

– Polk sent a vigorous war message to Congress:

• Congress overwhelmingly voted for war

• In his message to Congress, Polk was making history

—not writing it

• Spot resolution—by Abraham Lincoln demanding

information as to the precise “spot” on American soil where American blood had been shed

– Did Polk provoke war?

• California was imperative in his program

• Mexico would not see it at any price

XI American Blood on American

(?) Soil (cont.)

• Polk wanted California by any means, so he pushed the quarrel to a bloody showdown

• Both sides were spoiling for a fight

• Both sides were fired by moral indignation

• The Mexican people could fight with the flaming

sword of righteousness

• Many earnest Americans sincerely believed that

Mexico was the aggressor

XII The Mastering of Mexico

• Polk wanted Mexico—not war:

– When war came:

• he wanted to fight on a limit scale and then pull out when he captured the prize

• Santa Anna convinced Polk that he would sell out his country, then drove his countrymen to a desperate defense of their soil