Causes of the Civil War Timeline

By jclasse

  • Missouri Compromise

    Missouri entered as a slave state.
    Maine entered as a free state.
    Slavery is not allowed in land north of the 36-30 line but is allowed south of the line.

  • Slave rebellion led by Nat Turner

  • Period: to

    Nullification Crisis

    South Carolina passed a law declaring the Tariff of 1828 null and void.
    President Andrew Jackson vowed to send troops to force the state to comply.
    South Carolina threatened to secede but later backed down when a compromise on the tariff was reached.

  • Texas gained independence from Mexico

  • Arkansas entered the Union as a slave state

  • Period: to

    Congress tabled discussion of slavery for 10 years

  • Michigan entered the Union as a free state

  • Texas annexed by the United States and became a slave state

  • Florida entered the Union as a slave state

  • Iowa entered the Union as a free state

  • Wilmot Proviso

    David Wilmot, a representative from Pennsylvania, attempted to add a proviso (a condition) to the war funding bill that banned slavery in any land acquired from Mexico in the war.
    The proviso was rejected by Congress.
  • Period: to

    Mexican-American War

  • The Mexican Cession given to the United States in the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo

  • Wisconsin entered the Union as a free state

  • California Gold Rush

  • Compromise of 1850

    California would enter the the Union as a free state.
    The Utah and New Mexico territories would be open to slavery.
    The slave trade in Washington D.C. would be ended, but D.C. slaveholders could still keep the slaves they already owned.
    Congress would pass a fugitive slaw law to help southerners find and reclaim runaway slaves.

  • Congress passed the Fugitive Slave Law

  • Death of Henry Clay, the Great Compromiser

  • Publication of Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe

  • Kansas-Nebraska Act

    Senator Stephen A. Douglas proposed a bill that would create 2 new territories, Kansas and Nebraska.
    The bill allowed the people in these territories to decide whether slavery would be allowed or banned.
    Douglas believed letting the people decide the slavery issue was popular sovereignty in action.

  • Formation of the Republican Party

  • Period: to

    Bleeding Kansas

    Pro-slavery forces and anti-slavery forces fought each other in Kansas.
    Fiery abolitionist John Brown and his small group of followers brutally killed slavery supporters in Pottawatomie as revenge for the raid on the city of Lawrence.

  • The Caning of Senator Charles Sumner

  • Dred Scott v. Sanford

  • Minnesota entered the Union as a free state

  • Lincoln-Douglas Debates

    Lincoln ran against Senator Stephen A. Douglas from Illinois.
    Douglas believed that the US could be half-slave and half-free and that the Dred Scott case had ended the debate over slavery.
    Lincoln disagreed and stated that slavery was a moral issue, not a legal one; black people are human beings and as such, they deserve the right to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."
    Lincoln lost this election but vowed to continue fighting.

  • John Brown's raid on the arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia

  • Oregon entered the Union as a free state

  • Lincoln Elected President

  • South Carolina Seceded from the Union

    10 other southern states would follow.

  • Kansas adopted a free state constitution and entered the Union

  • Jefferson Davis Elected President of the Confederate States of America

  • Lincoln's First Inaugural Address

  • Confederate Attack on Fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina