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Period: to
War with Mexico
1846 was the first year of war, which led to the debate over the expansion of slavery and the Wilmot Proviso was the first round that led to the civil war. The of Guadalupe Hidalgo was negotiated by the American diplomat Nicholas Trist. -
Compromise of 1850
California was admitted as a free state which added to the North's political power, but it also caused controversy over the New Fugitive slave law and provision for popular sovereignty. -
Fugitive Slave Law
Enforcement of the new law in the North was sometimes forcibly resisted by antislavery Northerners. The enforcement of the Fugitive slave law drove a wedge between the North and the South. -
Underground Railroad
This was a loose network of free blacks and some abolitionists who helped escaped slaved reach freedom in the North or in Canada. It reached its height between 1850-1860 -
Pro and Con Literature
Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beeder Stowe was published in 1852 about an enslaved man named Tom and his brutal white owner Simon Legree. Southerners condemned the "untruths" in the novel. The Impending Crisis of the South by Hinton R. Helper, published in 1857, used statistics to demonstrate to fellow Southerners that slavery weakened the economy. -
Kansas - Nebraska Act
The senator of Illinois, Stephen A. Douglas, introduced a bill to divide the Nebraska territory into two parts ( Kansas and Nebraska territory) and allow settlers to decide whether to allow slavery or not. -
Republican Party Established
The Republican party was founded in 1854 in Wisconsin as the direct reaction to the Kansas-Nebraska Act. The party was made up of free-soil and anti-slavery Whigs and Democrats who were opposed to the spread of slavery. -
Bleeding Kansas
Pro-slavery forces attacked the free-soil town of Lawrence and killed 2 people. Days later, abolitionist John Brown killed 5 settlers at Pottawatomie Creek. -
Sumner-Brooks Incident
Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner made intemperate remarks about South Carolina senator Andrew Butler. As a result of this, Butler's nephew, Congressman Preston Brooks, walked into the Senate chamber and beat Sumner over the head with a cane. -
Panic of 1857
Economic boom ended in 1857 which led to an increase in unemployment in the North. This led Southerners to believe plantation economy was superior and the Northern economy was not needed. -
Lecompton Consitution
Was a document that Buchanan asked congress to accept and admit Kansas as a slave state. They didn't because Democrats like Stephen Douglas, joined Republicans in rejecting the Lecompton Constitution. -
Dred Scott v Sanford
Supreme Court reached its decision in March of 1857 which decided against Scott because they claimed he didn't have the right to sue in Federal Court because he was an African American. -
Lincoln-Douglas Debates
In a debate in Illinois, Lincoln challenged Stephen Douglas to reconcile popular sovereignty with the Dred-Scott decision. Douglas responded that slavery could not exist in community if local citizens didn't pass laws maintaining it. -
John Browns Raid
In October of 1859 John Brown led a small band of followers in an attack on a federal arsenal at the Harpers Ferry with the goal to arm Virginia's slaves. This confirmed the Souths worst fears of radical abolitionism. -
Election of 1860
Democratic Part represented the last hope for coaltion and compromise. Republicans drafted a platform that appealed to the economic self interest of North and Westerners. Lincoln ( Republican) won 180 electoral votes.
