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California Gold Rush Essay

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How did the California gold rush result in inflaming strong sectional disputes?
The gold rush brought thousands of people to California, including people from the South who wanted to bring slaves. This caused tension between people who came from the North and those who were bringing slaves from the South. Both worried about the addition of California as a state because it would greatly displace the equilibrium of free and slave state representation in the Senate.

What were the main provisions of the Compromise of 1850? Who supported it? Who opposed it? How did it pass? Who benefited the most from it and why?
California was admitted as a free state which benefited the North. For the South, Texas would get $10 million from the government as …show more content…

Freed blacks could also be taken and sold into slavery. Northerners who were found to be helping any slaves were to face heavy fines and jail time. Northerners were outraged that the law was being forced upon them, which drove many people to become anti-slavery. It was also feared that because these rights could be taken from blacks, that it could soon happen to whites as well.

The Pierce administration, as well as private American adventurers, pursued numerous overseas and expansionist ventures primarily designed to expand slavery. What foreign policy agreements were made with regard to Latin America and Asia?
In 1850, the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty was made between the United States and Britain agreeing that neither country could take control of the isthmian waterway. The Ostend Manifesto was a document that urged Spain to let the United States buy Cuba for $120 million, but Spain refused. In Asia the Treaty of Wanghia was the first formal diplomatic agreement made between the United States and China and the Treaty of Kanagawa provided proper treatment of shipwrecked sailors, American coaling rights in Japan and established consular relations.

Describe Americans’ first ventures into China and Japan in the 1850s and their diplomatic, economic, cultural, and religious

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