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1850 Fugitive Slave Act
The Fugitive Slave Act was part of the group of laws referred to as the "Compromise of 1850." In this compromise, the antislavery advocates gained the admission of California as a free state, and the prohibition of slave-trading in the District of Columbia. The slavery party received concessions with regard to slaveholding in Texas and the passage of this law. Passage of this law was so hated by abolitionists, however, that its existence played a role in the end of slavery a little more than a d -
Compromise of 1850
The Compromise of 1850 consists of five laws passed in September of 1850 that dealt with the issue of slavery. In 1849 California requested permission to enter the Union as a free state, potentially upsetting the balance between the free and slave states in the U.S. Senate. 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. As part of the Compromise of 1850. -
Kansas-Nebraska Act
The Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 allowed citizens in the Kansas and Nebraska territories to decide locally whether to allow slavery. The act was modeled on the Compromise of 1850 but repealed both that compromise and the Missouri Compromise of 1820. Seen by abolitionists as a capitulation to slave owners because it allowed the potential expansion of slavery into places it had been prohibited, the act led to local civil war, dubbed "Bleeding Kansas," as abolitionists organized large-scale immigrat -
Bleeding Kansas
On one side of the border lay Missouri, a slave state "island" in a sea of Free states. On the other side was the Kansas frontier, an official territory open to settlement. Laws regarding slavery in this new land left its legality up to popular sovereignty. Pro-slavery citizens and abolitionists turn the Kansas Territory into a battleground, wanting to force the issue of slavery's spread beyond the intense debate occurring in the east. This "Border War" became so hostile that New York Tribune ne -
Brooks-Summer Incident
The Brook-Summer Affair was an incident that took place in the senate, where Preston S. Brooks beat Charles Summers with a cane until it broke. -
Dred Scott
Dred Scott was born a slave in 1795 in Southampton County, Virginia. After the death of his original owner, he was sold and spent time as a slave in two free states. Scott attempted to buy his freedom but failed, so in the late 1840s, he filed suit and the case made its way to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1857. He lost the case but Scott was emancipated shortly after the decision. He died 1858. -
Beecher’s Bibles
A short drive south of town on Highway 99, then a job west on K-18, leads to the historic church established in late June 1857 established by Free State sympathizers. When the Kansas-Nebraska Bill passed in May 1854, it allowed Kansans to have a say about whether theirs would be a free or a slave state. Many from outside the state came to Kansas to influence that decision. One group, known as the Connecticut-Kansas Colony, arrived with Sharps rifles and 25 Bibles provided by the congregation -
Freeport Doctrine
The Freeport Doctrine was Stephen Douglas's answer to Lincoln's question, in which he explained that slavery could only exist where there was a slave code. If a state did not pass the necessary laws to protect slavery, then they could not have slavery exist there. -
John Brown’s Raid on Harpers Ferry
On the evening of October 16, 1859 John Brown, a staunch abolitionist, and a group of his supporters left their farmhouse hide-out en route to Harpers Ferry. Descending upon the town in the early hours of October 17th, Brown and his men captured prominent citizens and seized the federal armory and arsenal. Brown had hopes that the local slave population would join the raid and through the raid’s success weapons would be supplied to slaves and freedom fighters throughout the country. -
Abraham Lincoln wins election
Because the Democratic Party split regionally. There were 4 major candidates. Democrat, Southern Democrat, Constitutional Union and Republican
