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Wilmot Proviso is introduced
one of the major events leading to the Civil War, would have banned slavery in any territory to be acquired from Mexico in the Mexican War or in the future, including the area later known as the Mexican Cession, but which some proponents construed to also include the disputed lands in south Texas and New Mexico east of the Rio Grande. -
Free Soil Party founded
opposed the extension of slavery in the Territories not yet admitted to statehood -
Zachary Taylor was elected president
He defeated Lewis Cass and Martin Van Buren. -
California wants to be admitted into the Union
They were recently given back to the United States, and at this time they want to be admitted into the Union as a free state. -
Compromise of 1850
Of all the bills that made up the Compromise of 1850, the Fugitive Slave Act was the most controversial. It required citizens to assist in the recovery of fugitive slaves. -
Uncle Tom's Cabin
an anti-slavery novel by American author Harriet Beecher Stowe. Published in 1852, the novel "helped lay the groundwork for the Civil War" -
Frankilin Pierce elected president
He won by a lot over Winfield Scott -
Kansas-Nebraska Act
The Kansas-Nebraska Act repealed the Missouri Compromise -
Republican Party founded
When this occured, the Whigs pretty much ended. The country transformed into the North as republicans and the South as democrats -
anti-Nebraska coalitions score victories
The north was happy about this because they did not like Nebraska because they had the decision on whether or not the Missouri Compromise should be repealed. The North liked the MIssouri Compromise. -
Know-nothing party
The Know-Nothing Party intended to prevent Catholics and immigrants from being elected to political offices. Its members also hoped to deny these people jobs in the private sector, arguing that the nation's business owners needed to employ true Americans. -
Kansas territory is argued over
The South wants Kansas to be slave, but the North wants it to be free. There are large arguments over this. -
James Buchanan gets elected
The Democrats endorsed the moderate “popular sovereignty” approach to slavery expansion utilized in the Kansas-Nebraska Act. Buchanan was their candidate. -
Preston Brooks assaults Charles Sumner on Senate floor
Brooks attacked Sumner because he was offended by the way Sumner talked about slavery and his state, so he beat him across the head with a walking stick, repeatedly. -
Dred Scott decision
Slaves were not protected by the constitution and could never be seen as US citizens. Slaves could not sue in court and they did not have the right to be taken away by their owners without the process. -
Lecompton constitution
Congress refuses to admit Kansas as a state under this proslavery constitution. -
Lincoln and Douglas debate
The main theme of the debates was slavery, especially the issue of slavery's expansion into the territories. It was Douglas's Kansas-Nebraska Act that repealed the Missouri Compromise's ban on slavery in the territories of Kansas and Nebraska, and replaced it with the doctrine of popular sovereignty, which meant that the people of a territory could decide for themselves whether to allow slavery. -
raid on Harper Ferry
they cut telegraph wires, then made their assault. First they captured the federal armory and arsernal. They then captured Hall's Rifle Works, a supplier of weapons to the government. Brown and his men rounded up 60 prominent citizens of the town and held them as hostages, hoping that their slaves would join the fight. No slaves came forth. -
Lincoln nominated for president
Lincoln was a very strong candidate because he already had popular support. He was a strong believer in antislavery, and people really liked him. -
Democrat party splits in two
There were northern democrats and southern democrats, because not everybody in the north was a republican. Not everybody was antislavery. -
Lincoln wins the election of 1860
Many people liked him, and they knew that their Union needed help. They needed to be preserved.