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Missouri Compromise
When Missouri wanted to join the Union as a slave state, threatened the balance between free and slave states. Congress reached anagreement that became known as the Missouri Compromise. Missouri was admitted as a slave state and Maine was admitted as a free state, preserving the Congressional balance. A line was also drawn through the western territories, dividing north and south as free states. They were angry because the north banned slavery from most of the Missouri Territory. -
Treaty Of Guadalupe Hidalgo
The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was an agreement between the United States and Mexico that ended the Mexican-American War. The United States acquired more than 500,000 square miles of territory due to the treaty. This caused conflicts to the United States because they had to decide whether to admit the states that would be formed out of this territory as free states or as slave states. The arguments caused bitter arguments between the North and South. -
Fugitive Slave Act
The Fugitive Slave Act was passed as a part o the Compromise of 1850. This act forced Northerners to seize and return escaped slaves to the South. Any slave that had been captured by an official and claimed to be free was denied the right of a fair trial by jury. This law encouraged the use of the underground railroad and angered Northerners. -
Uncle Tom's Cabin
Uncle Tom's Cabin was written by Harriet Beecher Stowe to show the evils of slavery. The book had a huge impact on the way that northerners viewed slavery. It helped further the cause of abolition, widened the division between North and Sout, and even Abraham Lincoln recognized that this bok was one of the events that led to the outbreak of the Civil War. -
The Kansas-Nebraska Act
The Kansas-Nebraska Act was passed which allowed Kansas and Nebraska to decide whether they wanted to be a free state or a slave state using popular sovereignty. When the bill passed, it got rid of the Missouri Compromise of 1820 and angered opponents of slavery. The pro- and anti-slavery elements caused a very violent and bloody civil war there. -
Bleeding Kansas
The Kansas-Nebraska Act aggravated the topic of slavery with popular sovereignty. With the Kansas-Nebraska Act passing, tensions between ani-slavery and pro-slavery revolutionists rose. The tensions increased between the North and South and it led to small wars and a sucession. -
Dred Scott v. Sanford
Dred Scott was a Virginia slave who tried to sue for his freedom in court. It was found that, as a slave, Dred Scott was a piece of property that had none of the legal rights of a human being. The case went further, to state that even though he had been taken by his 'owner' into a free state, he was still a slave because slaves were to be considered property of their owners. This decision furthered the cause of abolitionists as they increased their efforts to fight against slavery. -
Harper's ferry
John Brown, an abolitionist, organized a small band of white allies and free blacks and raided a government arsenal in Harpers Ferry, Virginia. They were captured by Robert E. Lee and were tried for treason and, upon his execution, became a martyr for the abolitionist cause. This event was one more in the growing abolitionist movement that helped lead to open warfare in 1861. -
Electon of 1860
Abraham Lincoln was elected president November 6, 1860. As a Republican, his party’s anti-slavery outlook struck fear into many Southerners. The South had began to become more powerful and wanted to make sure that slavery would not be extended to other states/territories. On December 20, 1860, a little over a month after the polls closed, South Carolina seceded from the Union. Six more states followed by the spring of 1861. South Carolina's sucession was "the straw that boke the camel's back." -
Battle of Fort Sumter
With North Carolina's secession, several federal forts, including Fort Sumter in South Carolina, suddenly became outposts in a foreign land. Abraham Lincoln made the decision to send fresh supplies to the garrisons. On April 12, 1861, Confederate warships turned back the supply convoy to Fort Sumter and opened a 34-hour bombardment on the stronghold. The garrison surrendered on April 14. The Civil War was now underway. On April 15, Lincoln called for 75,000 volunteers to join the Northern arm
