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Debates Over Slavery
As the Mexican-American War wound down, some foresaw the debate that the new lands would cause: should slavery be allowed in the new territories? The Wilmot Proviso was an attempt at limiting the expansion of slavery. It suggested that all new territory gained should prohibit slavery, but it was voted down by Southerners in Congress. Once again, the ability of the federal government to restrict slavery was hotly debated. The Missouri Compromise (1820) banned the spread of slavery north of Missouri’s northern border. However, politicians were not sure if the compromise could be applied to the new territories. Veteran politician Lewis Cass came up with a potential solution, popular sovereignty, which held that citizens could vote to decide if theirs would be a free or slave state. This meant that any new territory had the potential to become a free or slave state. Popular sovereignty upended the tenuous balance created by the Missouri Compromise.
The Compromise of 1850
To help alleviate some of this tension, Henry Clay proposed the Compromise of 1850 that gave something to both sides. According to the compromise, California would enter the Union as a free state; however, all of the other territories gained from the war would have popular sovereignty. Additionally, the slave trade would be abolished in Washington D.C. (though not slavery itself), and a new, stricter Fugitive Slave Act would require free states to assist in finding and returning runaway slaves to their owners. This final tenet proved to be the most controversial. Many in the North felt this made them unwilling participants in the promotion of slavery, while Southerners viewed the resistance to help them reclaim the enslaved as a hostile act.
Regional Differences: Northern Immigration and Nativism
Meanwhile in the North, a key social development was a constant influx of immigrants during the mid-1800s. Millions of Europeans, mostly from Ireland and Germany, fled their homes for personal, economic, or religious reasons. Typically, Germans were wealthier and better educated and often had the resources to buy land on the frontier where the climate and terrain were similar to Germany. Conversely, the often-poorer Irish immigrants were forced to accept low-paying factory jobs in Northeastern cities. Additionally, after California was made a state, Chinese immigrants who had crossed the Pacific in search of work in mining towns also followed work on the railroad into the interior of the country.
The resulting discrimination that many immigrants faced was termed nativism—the belief that native-born whites were superior to other groups. The growth of this anti-immigrant sentiment led to the creation of the American Party, commonly called the Know-Nothings. The party entertained a deep distrust of Catholicism or any other form of non-Protestant religion. They favored restrictions on immigration and limitations on voting rights for immigrants.
