SUMMARY
During the first half of the nineteenth century the westward movement of Americans steadily gained
momentum. Some successful entrepreneurs like William Henry Ashley made enormous profits from their
choice to move west. Land speculators and gold-seekers also helped open areas to settlement.
Communities in Texas, Oregon, California, Utah, and elsewhere in the West sprang up like weeds. One outcome was the development of a variety of cultures and economies, which evolved from the interplay of old habits, new ideals, and environmental constraints.
Conflicting expectations about the country’s manifest destiny promoted an air of crisis in the nation at large. Northerners wanted a West that would be free for diversified economic development. Southerners
wanted to sow every suitable acre in cotton. And people from each region chose to try to use expansion to add to their power in Congress.
Slavery began to eclipse all others in symbolizing the differing demands made by North and South. For northerners, the idea of going to war to win Oregon was acceptable because the Missouri Compromise
prohibited slavery there, but the idea of going to war to acquire Texas was quite another matter. The
possibility of many new southern senators and representatives filled northerners with dread. Nevertheless, the nation chose to fight a war with Mexico between 1846 and 1848. It thereby gained California and vast
territories in the Southwest. The discovery of gold in California in 1848 made that region a new bone of
contention in the sectional debate.
Meanwhile, radical abolitionists like William Lloyd Garrison still labored for acceptance. What made
Garrison’s message so hard for many to accept was his insistence on an equal role for women. But severely
discriminatory conditions constrained the many women who participated in abolition and other reform
movements. One outcome was the Seneca Falls conference in 1848, where politically active women called for greater equality with men.