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Driven by Manifest Destiny and the drive for US expansion, The Mexican-American War was a border dispute over Texas and whether the Rio Grande or Nueces River marked the border. The war ends in an American landslide victory, resulting in the U.S. gaining a huge amount of western land. However, this sparks debate over whether or not slavery would be tolerated in these new territories and this conflict helped to begin the growth of the sectionalism that inevitably led to the Civil War.
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In response to the debate over slavery in the new land gained from the Mexican-American War, David Wilmot introduces a proposal, known as the Wilmot Proviso, to ban slavery in any territory gained from Mexico. The proposal passes through the House due to North population advantage, but fails in Senate due to equal Southern representation. This highlights the growing polarization and sectionalism in national politics that will ultimately contribute to the Civil War.
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Gold is discovered at Sutter’s Mill in California, and word of striking rich spreads, sparking mass migration with tens of thousands of people moving to California from all over the world, and massive boom towns develop quickly. The population grows so fast that it allows California to apply for immediate statehood, they do so as a free state. This disrupts the balance of power between slave and free states in Congress and forces lawmakers to confront the issue of slavery in the new territories.
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The compromise of 1850 seeks to ease tensions around new-land slavery following California's statehood application, and the Mexican - American War. The compromise states that Cali. will enter as a free state, Utah New Mexico will decide via popular sovereignty, harsher Fugitive Slave Law's will be added, and slave trade banned in Washington, D.C. Neither side is satisfied, as Northerners protest federal support for slavery while Southerners believe political power still shifts against them.
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Following the compromise of 1850, the Fugitive Slave Act is aggressively enforced, requiring citizens, even of free states, to assist in the capture/ return of runaway slaves. Many Northerners deem the act unconstitutional and thus exercise their personal liberty laws to block enforcement. Southerners view Northern refusal as a betrayal of constitutional rights and a threat to their way of life. This enforcement turned slavery into a national crisis with riots confrontation across the US
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Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin, sought to expose the emotional and moral horror of slavery to a national audience. The novel becomes massively popular, especially in the North, inspiring activism and becoming one of the most sold books of the 19th century. Southerners condemn the book as false propaganda and respond with their own pro-slavery versions, thus deepening the cultural divide. President Lincoln later referred to her as "the little lady that started this great war”
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