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Brooks-Sumner lncident
after Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts delivered an anti-slavery speech which insulted Southern senators including Andrew Butler of South Carolina, Butler’s nephew Congressman Preston Brooks assaulted Sumner with a cane in the Senate. -
Lincoln's 1" lnaugural Address
Given when Lincoln took the oath of office, this speech was to be made in response to secession movement and growing tensions between the North and the South. -
John Brown
The raid that was conducted by John Brown caused tensions in the South to run high about the abolitionist movements. Even though the raid had failed John Brown became a symbol of the against slavery in the North. In the South, his actions added paranoia about what the North was going to do. -
Dred Scott
Decided that African Americans could not be US citizens, and thereby overturned the Missouri Compromise by holding that Congress could not prohibit slavery in the territories. -
Secession
In 1860 the president elect was Abraham Lincoln who won the election and within the following months starting from the state of South Carolina in December several formed a separate government known as the Confederate States of America in February of 1861. -
Uncle Tom's Cabin
Written by Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom’s Cabin was an anti-slavery book about the suffering of slaves. To Northern audiences, the novel caused much abolitionist passion by both presenting the slaves as human beings and showing the moral wrongfulness of slavery. The South, however, mainly noticed it as propaganda and a different picture of slavery. -
Republican Party
The Republican Party was formed to oppose the movement of slavery into the territories, as set forth by the Kansas-Nebraska Act. It grew to be a dominant political party in the North. -
Kansas Nebraska
Wriiten by Senator Stephen A. Douglas this act nullified the Missouri Compromise which banned slavery in those territories through Kansas-Nebraska Act leaving the decision of slavery in Kansas and Nebraska upon the people known as popular sovereignty. -
Election 1856
The election also showed how the division of the country was becoming more clear. The newly formed party known as the Republicans, who presented their first presidential candidate, was proof of the growing antislavery in the North. Although Buchanan came out the winner, the increased popularity of the Republican party worried the southern states for this saw its existence as a threat to slavery. -
LeCompton Constitution
Written by slavery supporters from Kansas, it allowed Kansas to join the Union as a slave state. It was canceled by the Kansas vote, it challenged slavery’s extension in other territories. -
Lincoln Douglas Debates
Seven Lincoln–Douglas debates, during the election for an elective post in the United States Senate from Illinois. These debates mainly focused on the question of whether slavery should be allowed for the new United States territories. -
Harper's Ferry
The abolitionist John Brown tried to start a slave uprising by taking the Harpers Ferry federal arsenal, which scared the South and caused many Southerners to believe that Northern abolitionists were prepared to get rid of slavery. -
Election 1860
Southern states succeded from the Union after the election of Lincoln, the Republican who first broke through, as they thought he would abolish slavery under his administration. -
Bleeding Kansas
The conflict known as Bleeding Kansas was a war between those supporting slavery in Kansas Territory, and those who supported non-slavery. It happened after the the Kansas Nebraska acts 1854 after which Kansans were allowed to decide through popular sovereignty on whether to allow slavery. -
House Divided Speech
Abraham Lincoln that he delivered after his nomination to the U.S Senate from Illinois. Lincoln said such a house can not stand before concluding that this nation will continue being half slave and half free, or become totally free.