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Invention of the Cotton Gin
The cotton gin was invented in the year of 1793 when slaveholding was in it's prome. Thousands upon thousands of slaves were contained in the South in order to maintain their agricuktural life style. Out of all the crops that were grown, cotton was the one that produced the most income. So once the cotton gin was invented it made it easier to process the cotton causing a bigger boom in cotton production. -
Missouri Comromise
In an effort to preserve the balance of power in Congress between slave and free states, the Missouri Compromise was passed making Missouri a slave state and Maine as a free state. Also, with the exception of Missouri, this law prohibited slavery in the Louisiana Territory. Later on in 1854, the Missouri Compromise was repealed by the Kansas-Nebraska Act. Three years later the Missouri Compromise was declared unconstitutional. -
Narrative of the Life of Fredrick Douglass, an American slave
Fredrick Douglass was an African American slave who was separted from his mother as child like many others. He grew up with a life of working around plantations and under constant supression, until he gained the ability to read and write. Whcih allowed him to make his own path to freedom and work toward abolishing slavery. -
Free-Soil Party
The Free-Soil Party was a minor political party in the pre-Civil War period that opposed the extension of slavery into the western territories. They were fearful of expanding slave power within the national government, Representative David Wilmot of Pennsylvania in 1846 introduced into Congress his famous Wilmot Proviso, calling for the prohibition of slavery in the vast southwestern lands that had been newly acquired from Mexico. -
The Fugitive Slave Act
The Fugitive Slave Acts were a pair of federal laws that allowed for the capture and return of runaway slaves within the Northen sates. Passed by Congress in 1793, the first Fugitive Slave Act authorized local governments to capture and return escaped slaves to their owners and imposed penalties on anyone who helped in their escape. Resistance led to the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, which added further punishment. -
The compromise of 1850
The Compromis of 1850 basedon California wanting to join the Union as a free state. Which would potentially upset the balance between free and slave states in the U.S Senate. In an attepmpt to avoid a crisis, California was granted it's wish to join the Union as a free state at the cost of Texas and New Mexico being a slave state. -
Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin
Harriet Beecher Stowe's best known novel, Uncle Tom's Cabin changed how Americans viewed slavery. It demanded that the United States deliver on the promise of freedom and equality, pushing the abolition movement and contributed to the outbreak of the Civil War. The book calls onthe people to confront the legacy of race relations in the U.S. as the title itself became a racial slur. -
Bleeding Kansas
Bleeding Kansas was the nickname given to state due to it's violent protests. In 1854the Kansas-Nebraksa Act overturned the Missouri Compromise’s use of boundaries between slave and free territory and instead, using the principle of popular sovereignty, decreed that the residents would choose whether the area became a free state or a slave state. Proslavery and free-state settlers flooded into Kansas to try to influence the decision. Violence soon erupted as both sides fought. -
Kansas-Nebraska act
Senator Stephen Douglas introduced a bill that divided the land west of Missouri into two territories, Kansas and Nebraska. He argued for popular sovereignty, which would allow the settlers of the new territories to decide if slavery would be legal there. Antislavery supporters were outraged because, under the terms of the Missouri Compromise, slavery would have already been outlawed in both territories. -
Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad
Harriet Tubman was a heroic woman in the movement to abolish slavery. Not only was she a great part of the antislavery movement, she helped in a more close hand manner. Such as going back down to the South and leading slaves into the Northern states and Canada. -
Dred Scott v. Sandford
A slave named Dred Scott and his wife, Harriet, sued for their freedom in a St. Louis city court. The odds were in their favor. The majority opinion of the Court stated that slaves were not citizens of the United States and, therefore, could not have ny protection from the Federal Government or the courts. -
The Election of 1860
The candidates of this Presidential election would be Abraham Lincoln and Hannibal Hamlin. In the en Abraham Lincoln would win the election and take the Presidency. As he took office the South took great offence and fright of his election. For they knew that he wished to abolish slavery, and to avoid it the South would seceed to frm the Confedaration. -
The Beginning of the Civil War
Soon after Lincoln took office he had to deal with a nation splitting apart. Due to the fact the South was afraid that slavery would be abolished, they seceeded to create their own governmet. Abraham Lincoln knew he had to keep the Union together at all costs, the only was to forcefully recapture the South back into the Union.
