-
Free-Soil Party
The party was largely focused on the single issue of opposing the expansion of slavery into the western territories of the United States. -
California Gold Rush
Gold was found by James W. Marshall. The news of gold brought approximately 300,000 people to California from the rest of the United States and abroad. -
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. The Act served to repeal the Missouri Compromise of 1820 which prohibited slavery north of latitude 36°30´. -
Republican Party is found
The Republican Party itself is also known as the GOP, which stands for "Grand Old Party." The symbol of the Republican party is the elephant. -
Pottawatomie Massacre
In reaction to the sacking of Lawrence, Kansas by pro-slavery forces, John Brown and a band of abolitionist settlers—some of them members of the Pottawatomie Rifles—killed five pro-slavery settlers north of Pottawatomie Creek in Franklin County, Kansas. -
Dred Scott Decision
was a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in which the Court held that the Constitution of the United States was not meant to include American citizenship for black people, regardless of whether they were enslaved or free, and therefore the rights and privileges it confers upon American citizens could not apply to them. -
Lincoln-Douglas Debates
series of seven debates between the Democratic senator Stephen A. Douglas and Republican challenger Abraham Lincoln during the 1858 Illinois senatorial campaign, largely concerning the issue of slavery extension into the territories. -
Raid at Harpes Ferry
John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry was an 1859 effort by abolitionist John Brown to initiate an armed slave revolt in Southern states by taking over a United States arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia. It has been called the dress rehearsal for the Civil War. -
South Carolina Secedes the Union
South Carolina was the first state to secede from the Union in December 1860, and was one of the founding member states of the Confederacy in February 1861. -
Fall of Fort Sumter
was the bombardment of Fort Sumter near Charleston, South Carolina by the South Carolina militia, and the return gunfire and subsequent surrender by the United States Army, that started the American Civil War. -
Abraham Lincoln Inauguration
The first inauguration of Abraham Lincoln as the 16th President of the United States was held on Monday, March 4, 1861, on the East Portico of the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C
