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The Compromise of 1850
Henry Clay and Stephen Douglas managed to broker a shaky accord with the Compromise of 1850. The compromise prevented the expansion of slavers territory while improving the Fugitive Slave Act, a law that made northerners to return escaped slaves to the South. -
Shadrach Minkins is seized in Boston
Shadrach Minkins is seized in Boston by slave hunters operating under the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act. -
Uncle Tom’s Cabin
Northerners felt as if their eyes had been opened to the horrors of slavery, while Southerners protested that Stowe’s work was slanderous. Uncle Tom’s Cabin was the second-best-selling book in America in the 19th century, second only to the Bible. Its popularity brought the issue of slavery to life for those few who remained unmoved after decades of legislative conflict and widened the division between North and South. -
Bleeding Kansas
The Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, passed while Congressmen brandished weapons and uttered death threats in the House chambers, overturned parts of the Missouri Compromise by allowing the settlers in the two territories to determine whether or not to permit slavery by a popular vote. Pro- and anti-slavery agitators flocked to Kansas, hoping to shift the decision by sheer weight of numbers. The two factions struggled for five years with sporadic outbreaks of bloodshed that claimed fifty-six lives.
