This document discusses California's role in the lead up to the American Civil War. It first discusses the "Natural Limits" thesis that claimed slavery would not spread beyond certain regions. However, the discovery of gold in California in 1848 drew thousands of settlers and raised the issue of whether to allow slavery in the new state. A coalition of pro-slavery Southern politicians called the "Chivalry" attempted to establish slavery in California but were ultimately unsuccessful in dividing the state or repealing its ban on slavery.
1. California
Part 2
“California and the Civil War”
BY:
CHANTEL HENDERSON
HISTORY 141
71154
2. The Natural Limits
Historians claim that the Civil War was
unnecessary because of the “Natural Limits”
thesis.
This thesis claims that slavery would never
had spread into the Southwest because it had
reached its “natural limits” of its growth and
would not be able to go further into the arid
and desolate environment of the Southwest.
This claim supported an argument saying
that the Civil War was started by Northern
politicians who scared Northern voters into
the war with false alarms of “slave power”
expanding.
3. The California Gold Rush
In 1848, workers building a saw mill saw flecks of gold
in a river bed.
Word of the gold spread like fire, despite the efforts to
keep it a secret.
In December 1848, President Polk confirmed the
rumor of gold and people from all over the world
rushed to California to dig some up for themselves.
With the large amount of men in the state now, they
needed a form of government with law and order.
The settlers in California proposed a state constitution,
modeled after Iowa’s, that included the prohibition of
slavery, but only because they didn’t want the
competition from slave owners.
The southern states did not like this and insisted that
slaves were meant for gold mining since that’s what
they were originally brought here for by the Spaniards.
4. The Chivalry
The Chivalry was a coalition of Southern-born politicians who
dominated the government in California in the 1850s.
They were pro-slavery and most of them continued to own slaves in
the states they had come from.
A big influence in the “Chiv” was William Gwin who served in state
senate for most of the decade. Between him and another senator,
who was a Northern man with Southern principles, they voted for
any pro-slavery demand from the Southern states. One in particular
was the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 which was to repeal the ban on
slavery on the Louisiana Purchase.
The Chivalry made various attempts to infiltrate slavery into
California, and in 1852 legislature passed a law that allowed a slave
owner to have temporary residence indefinitely with his slaves in
California.
The Chivalry wanted to divide the state into two different states
where southern California would allow slavery to work the land to
grow sugar, cotton and rice. In 1859 the state legislature approved a
bill that would divide the state into two, but once it reached
Congress, the bill ended and California stayed as one whole state.
