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War with Mexico
War between the United States and Mexico stemming from the United States’ annexation of Texas in 1845 and from a dispute over whether Texas ended at the Nueces River (Mexican claim) or the Rio Grande -
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Underground Railroad
A network of secret routes and safe houses established in the United States, used by African-American slaves to escape into free states and Canada with the aid of abolitionists and allies who were sympathetic to their cause. -
Compromise of 1850
A package of five separate bills passed by the United States Congress, which defused a four-year political confrontation between slave and free states on the status of territories acquired during the Mexican–American War. -
Fugitive Slave Law
An act that was passed by the United States Congress as part of the Compromise of 1850 between Southern slave-holding interests and Northern Free-Soilers. -
Kansas-Nebraska Act
Created the territories of Kansas and Nebraska and was drafted by Democratic Senator Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois and President Franklin Pierce. -
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Bleeding Kansas
A series of violent civil confrontations in the United States which emerged from a political and ideological debate over the legality of slavery in the proposed state of Kansas -
Republican Party Established
Anti-slavery Whigs had begun meeting in the upper midwestern states to discuss the formation of a new party -
Sumner-Brooks Incident
Preston Brooks beats Charles Sumner with a cane. Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts was an avowed Abolitionist and leader of the Republican Party. After the sack of Lawrence, on May 21, 1856, he gave a bitter speech in the Senate called "The Crime Against Kansas." -
Panic of 1857
The Panic of 1857 was a financial panic in the United States caused by the declining international economy and over-expansion of the domestic economy. -
Lecompton Constitution
The second of four proposed constitutions for the state of Kansas. The document was written in response to the anti-slavery position of the 1855 Topeka Constitution of James H. Lane and other free-state advocates. -
Dred Scott v Sandford
Supreme Court ruled that Americans of African descent, whether free or slave, were not American citizens and could not sue in federal court. The Court also ruled that Congress lacked power to ban slavery in the U.S. territories. -
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Lincoln-Douglas Debates
A series of debates between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas in 1858, when both were campaigning for election to the United States Senate from Illinois. Much of the debating concerned slavery and its extension into territories such as Kansas. -
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John Brown’s Raid
An effort by abolitionist John Brown to initiate an armed slave revolt in 1859 by taking over a United States arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia. -
Election of 1860
American presidential election held on Nov. 6, 1860, in which Republican Abraham Lincoln defeated Southern Democrat John C. Breckinridge, Democrat Stephen A. Douglas, and Constitutional Union candidate John Bell.
