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The Purchase of the Louisiana Territory
The United States had purchased the Louisiana Territory from the French at a fire-sale price. This massive new territory, which had doubled the size of the United States, had put the question of slavery's expansion at the top of the national agenda. -
"The Star Spangled Banner" was created
Americans gained naval victories on Lake Champlain near Plattsburgh, preventing a British land invasion of the United Staes and in the Chesapeake Bay at Fort McHenry in Baltimore. Fort McHenry repelled the nineteen-ship British fleet, during twenty-seven hours of bombardment virtually unscathed. Watching from aboard a British ship, American Poet Francis Scott Key penned the verses of what would become the national anthem. -
The British Burns down Washington D.C.
The British blockaded American ports so they were able to burn Washington D.C. and open a new theater of operations in the South. -
The Missouri Compromise
It contained three parts. First, Congress would admit Missouri as a slave state. Second, Congress would admit Maine as a free state, maintaining the balance between the number of free and slave states. Third, the rest of the Louisiana Purchase territory would be divided along the southern border of Missouri. Slavery would be prohibited in other new states north of this line, bit it would be permitted in the new states to the South. -
Andrew Jackson wins Presidency
Jackson's broad appeal as a military hero won him the presidency. He was "Old Hickory," the "Hero of the New Orleans," a leader of plan frontier folk. His wartime accomplishments appealed to many voters' pride. -
Texas Independence
Santa Anna was captured and compelled to sign the Treaty of Velasco by which he agreed to withdraw his army from Texas and acknowledge Texas independence. -
The "Trail of Tears"
President Martin van Buren, in 1838, decided to press the issue beyond negotiation and court rulings and used the Ne echo Treaty provisions to order the army to forcibly remove Cherokees that didn't obey the treaty's cession of territory. More than 15,00 Cherokee Indians were forced to march from Georgia to Indian Territory in present-day Oklahoma. About 4,000 died from starvation and disease. -
The Compromise of 1850
Legislators rallied behind the Compromise of 1850, an assemblage of bills passed late in 1850, which managed to keep the promises of the Missouri Compromise alive. For the southerners the compromise offered a new fugitive slave law that empowered the federal government to deputize regular citizens in arresting runaways. The New Mexico Territory and the Utah Territory would be allowed to determine their own fates as a slave or free states based on popular sovereignty. -
The Kansas-Nebraska Bill
The Bill was a measure to overturn the Missouri Compromise and open western lands for slavery. -
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The Civil War
The American Civil War was the bloodiest in the nation's history with 750,00 deaths. The war ultimately transformed into a struggle to eradicate slavery. It was between the Union (the North) and the Confederacy (the South). -
Abraham Lincoln Wins Presidency
Due to William Sherman's capture of Atlanta on September 2, 1864, and overwhelming support from Union troops, Lincoln won the election easily. Lincoln also received support from radical Republican factions and members of the Radical Democracy Party that demanded the end of slavery.
