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compromise of 1850
a package of five separate bills passed by the United States Congress, which defused a four-year political confrontation between slave and free states on the status of territories acquired during the Mexican–American War -
The Kansas Nebraska Act
allowed citizens in the Kansas and Nebraska territories to decide locally whether to allow slavery. -
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Bleeding Kansas
was a series of violent political confrontations in the United States between 1854 and 1861 involving anti-slavery and pro-slavery -
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Lincoln - Douglas Debates
A series of debates between Lincoln and Douglas in 1858, Much of the debating concerned slavery and its extension into territories such as Kansas. -
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Harpers Ferry
Abolitionist John Brown leads a small group on a raid against a federal armory in Harpers Ferry, Virginia, in an attempt to start an armed slave revolt and destroy the institution of slavery. -
Lincoln's Election
elected 16th president of the United States in 1860 as the Republican candidate on a platform opposing the expansion of slavery. -
fort sumpter
location in Charleston, South Carolina where the first battle of the Civil War began on April 12, 1861 and ended April 14, 1861. -
bull run
The first battle of the American Civil War, fought in Virginia near Washington, D.C. The surprising victory of the Confederate army humiliated the North and forced it to prepare for a long war. A year later the Confederacy won another victory near the same place. -
Antietam
A creek of north-central Maryland emptying into the Potomac River. The bloody and inconclusive Civil War Battle of Antietam. -
Emancipation Proclamation
Abraham Lincoln issued the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation on September 22nd, 1862. It stipulated that if the Southern states did not cease their rebellion by January 1st, 1863, then Proclamation would go into effect. -
Gettysburg and Gettysburg address
The Gettysburg Address is a speech delivered by Abraham Lincoln at the November 19, 1863, dedication of Soldier's National Cemetery, a cemetery for Union soldiers killed at the Battle Of Gettysburg during the American Civil War. -
Andersonville Prison
From February 1864 until the end of the American Civil War in April 1865, Andersonville, Georgia, served as the site of a notorious Confederate military prison. -
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reconstruction
has two senses: the first covers the complete history of the entire country from 1865 to 1877 following the American Civil War the second sense focuses on the attempted transformation of the Southern United States from 1863 to 1877, as directed by Congress, with the reconstruction of state and society. With the three Reconstruction Amendments, the era saw the first amendments to the U.S. Constitution in decades. -
surrender at appomattox court house
Battle of Appomattox Court House. A print showing Union Army General-in-Chief Ulysses S. Grant accepting Confederate General-in-Chief Robert E. Lee's surrender on April 9th, 1865. -
assassination of abraham lincoln
Abraham Lincoln, the 16th President of the United States, was assassinated by well-known stage actor John Wilkes Booth -
The Dred Scott Decision
legal case in which the U.S. Supreme Court, ruled that a slave (Dred Scott) who had resided in a free state and territory was not thereby entitled to his freedom.