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William Lloyd Garrison published the liberator
Garrison's most prominent abolitionist activity, he had been involved in the fight to end slavery for years prior to its publication. -
Nat Turner slave revolt
a slave rebellion that took place in Southampton County, Virginia, in August 1831, led by Nat Turner. Rebel slaves killed from 55 to 65 people, at least 51 being white. -
American anti-slavery society begins
an abolitionist society founded by William Lloyd Garrison and Arthur Tappan. -
Sarah Grimke's letters on the equality of the sexes and the condition of women published
Sarah Grimké responded to Catharine Beecher's defense of the subordinate role of women -
Henry Highland Garnet's "Address to the slaves of the united states of america"
he shocked his listeners at the 1843 national convention of free people of color when he called upon slaves to murder their masters. -
Women's Rights Convention at Seneca Falls
This was the first women's rights convention. It advertised itself as "a convention to discuss the social, civil, and religious condition and rights of woman". Held in Seneca Falls, New York, it spanned two days over July 19–20. -
Harriet Tubman escapes from slavery
following a bout of illness and the death of her owner, Harriet Tubman decided to escape slavery in Maryland for Philadelphia -
Compromise of 1850
Senator Henry Clay introduced a series of resolutions on January 29, 1850, in an attempt to seek a compromise and avert a crisis between North and South. -
Fugitive slave act
was passed by the United States Congress on September 18, 1850, as part of the Compromise of 1850 between Southern slave-holding interests and Northern Free-Soilers. -
Sojourner truth delivered her "ain't i a woman" speech
speak out for the rights of African Americans and women during and after the Civil War. -
Harriet Beecher stowe published uncle tom's cabin
an anti-slavery novel by American author Harriet Beecher Stowe. Published in 1852, the novel had a profound effect on attitudes toward African Americans and slavery in the U.S. and is said to have "helped lay the groundwork for the Civil War". -
Republican party founded
anti-slavery Whigs had begun meeting in the upper midwestern states to discuss the formation of a new party. One such meeting, in Wisconsin on March 20, 1854, is generally remembered as the founding meeting of the Republican Party. -
Kansas Nebraska act
It allowed people in the territories of Kansas and Nebraska to decide for themselves whether or not to allow slavery within their borders. -
Bleeding Kansas
a series of violent civil confrontations in the United States between 1854 and 1861 which emerged from a political and ideological debate over the legality of slavery in the proposed state of Kansas. -
Dred scott decision
the United States Supreme Court issues a decision in the Dred Scott case, affirming the right of slave owners to take their slaves into the Western territories, therebynegating the doctrine of popular sovereignty and severely undermining the platform of the newly created Republican Party. -
Lecompton constitution
instrument framed in Lecompton, Kan., by Southern pro-slavery advocates of Kansas statehood. It contained clauses protecting slaveholding and a bill of rights excluding free blacks, and it added to the frictions leading up to the U.S. Civil War. -
Panic of 1857
a financial panic in the United States caused by the declining international economy and over-expansion of the domestic economy. -
Lincoln-Douglas debates
a series of seven debates between Abraham Lincoln, the Republican candidate for the United States Senate from Illinois, and incumbent Senator Stephen Douglas, the Democratic Party candidate -
John Brown's raid on Harper's ferry
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. -
Democratic party splits into northern and southern halves
The Democratic Party became so divided that they ran two candidates in the election of 1860: Northern Democrats nominated Stephen Douglas, while southern Democrats nominated John Breckenridge. This split the Democratic ticket in half, giving the Republicans, who nominated Abraham Lincoln, a huge advantage. -
Abraham Lincoln elected president
16th president of the U.S. -
Firing on fort Sumter
the bombardment of Fort Sumter near Charleston, South Carolina by the Confederate States Army, and the return gunfire and subsequent surrender by the United States Army, that started the American Civil War. -
Confederate states of america founded
representatives from the six seceded states met in Montgomery, Alabama, to formally establish a unified government, which they named the Confederate States of America. -
Battle of Antietam
particularly in the Southern United States, was a battle of the American Civil War -
Emancipation proclamation
as the nation approached its third year of bloody civil war. The proclamation declared "that all persons held as slaves" within the rebellious states "are, and henceforward shall be free." -
Battle of Gettysburg
considered the most important engagement of the American Civil War. After a great victory over Union forces at Chancellorsville, General Robert E. Lee marched his Army of Northern Virginia into Pennsylvania in late June 1863. -
Gettysburg address
a speech that U.S. President Abraham Lincoln delivered during the American Civil War at the dedication of the Soldiers' National Cemetery in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania -
Sherman's march to the sea
a military campaign of the American Civil War conducted through Georgia -
General U.S. Grant assumed command of union troops
Abraham Lincoln signs a brief document officially promoting then-Major General Ulysses S. Grant to the rank of lieutenant general of the U.S. Army, tasking the future president with the job of leading all Union troops against the Confederate Army. -
Abraham Lincoln reelected
In the United States Presidential election of 1864, Abraham Lincoln was re-elected as president. -
Lee surrendered to grant at Appomattox court house
was one of the last battles of the American Civil War. -
Arrival of scalawags and carpetbaggers in the south
The term “carpetbaggers” refers to Northerners who moved to the South after the Civil War, during Reconstruction. Many carpetbaggers were said to have moved South for their own financial and political gains. Scalawags were white Southerners who cooperated politically with black freedmen and Northern newcomers -
Period of "Redemption" after the civil war
during which the nation tried to resolve the status of the ex-Confederate states, the ex-Confederate leaders, and freedmen (ex-slaves) after the American Civil War. -
Lincoln assassination
murderous attack on Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president of the United States, at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C -
Freedman's bureau established
murderous attack on Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president of the United States, at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C -
Ku Klux Klan formed
Six Confederate veterans from Pulaski, Tennessee created the original Ku Klux Klan -
Andrew Johnson became president
the 17th president of the United States -
Johnson announced plans for presidential reconstruction
implemented a plan of Reconstruction that gave the white South a free hand in regulating the transition from slavery to freedom and offered no role to blacks in the politics of the South. -
Congress passed the 13th amendment
the United States Constitution abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime. -
Freedman's bureau established
The Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, usually referred to as simply the Freedmen's Bureau, was an agency of the United States Department of War -
Civil rights act passed over Johnson's veto
A Republican-dominated Congress enacted a landmark Civil Rights Act on this day in 1866, overriding a veto by President Andrew Johnson. The law's chief thrust was to offer protection to slaves freed in the aftermath of the Civil War. -
First congressional reconstruction act passed
outlined the conditions under which the Southern states would be readmitted to the Union following the American Civil War ( -
Creation of the radical republicans
The leading Radicals in Congress were Thaddeus Stevens in the House and Charles Sumner in the Senate. -
U.S. Grant elected president
In the first election of the Reconstruction Era, Republican nominee Ulysses S. Grant defeated Democrat Horatio Seymour. -
Andrew Johnson impeached
three days after Johnson's dismissal of Stanton, the House of Representatives voted 126 to 47 (with 17 members not voting) in favor of a resolution to impeach the President for high crimes and misdemeanors -
South Carolina secedes from the union
South Carolina became the first slave state in the south to declare that it had seceded from the United States. -
15th amendment ratified
the 15th amendment granted African American men the right to vote. -
Slaughterhouse cases(Supreme court)
was the first United States Supreme Court interpretation of the U.S. Constitution's Fourteenth Amendment which had recently been enacted. -
U.S. v. Cruikshank
an important United States Supreme Court decision in United States constitutional law, one of the earliest to deal with the application of the Bill of Rights to state governments following the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment. -
Compromise of 1877
an informal, unwritten deal, that settled the intensely disputed 1876 U.S. presidential election. It resulted in the United States federal government pulling the last troops out of the South, and formally ended the Reconstruction Era.
