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The Compromise of 1850
The 31st state of California was admitted without slavery. The Fugitive Slave Act abolished the slave trade in Washington D.C. A provision allowed popular sovereignty, the right to vote for or against slavery, for people of the New Mexico and Utah territories. -
Bleeding Kansas
Kansas had enough people to have an election for a territorial legislature. But people form the slave state Missouri crossed over and voted illegally for proslavery candidates. People were mad and abolitionists a rival government in Topeka, this cause bloody violence in Kansas giving it the name Bleeding Kansas. -
The Dred Scott Decision
A slave named Dred Scott has come to the Supreme Court saying that he should be a free man. His slave owner took him from the slave state of Missouri to free territory in Illinois and Wisconsin back to Missouri, so living in a free state for a period of time must have made him free. The Court went against him and said that he cannot sue because he wasn't and never will be a citizen. -
Lincoln Elected President
Republicans nominated Abraham Lincoln. He wanted to abolish slavery but reassured Southerners that they wouldn't interfere with their slaves. He won the election with less than half the popular vote and no electoral votes from the south. This caused the south to back out of the Union. -
Bull Run
This was the first battle in the Civil War. It occurred three months after Fort Sumter. The Union Army got the upper-hand but the Confederates wouldn't retreat. Thomas J. Jackson wouldn't let that happen and got the nickname Stonewall Jackson. The Confederates got their first victory. -
Fort Sumter
Lincoln decided to only send food for starving men to Fort Sumter instead of helping or going against them. The confederate came at them and destroyed the fort. -
Emancipation Proclamation
Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation. It didn't free any slaves immediately, it only applied to slaves that were behind Confederate lines. It gave the war a moral purpose by fighting to free the slaves. -
Battle of Gettysburg
Buford, commander of the Union, took positions on hills and ridges that are around the town. Both sides needed reinforcements and about 90,000 Union troops went against 75,000 Confederates. Lee ordered an artillery barrage on the center of the Union lines on Cemetery Ridge. The Confederates retreated and lost 28,000 while the Union lost 23,000. -
The Thirteenth Amendment
The Thirteenth Amendment was ratified and the U.S. Constitution said "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States." -
Johnson's Plan for Reconstruction
Johnson's plan wasn't much different from Lincolns, apart from one thing. Johnson tried to break the planters' power by excluding high-ranking Confederates and wealthy Southern landowners from taking the oath needed for voting privileges. -
The Surrender at Appomattox
The Union conquered Richmond. Southerners abandoned and set fire to it so that the Northerners couldn't capture it. Lee and Grant then met at a private home to arrange a Confederate defeat. -
Lincolns Assassinated
The plans Lincoln had for after the war was never used because five days after the end of the war, Lincoln and his wife went to Ford's Theatre to see a British comedy. During the third act John Wilkes Booth shot the president in the back of the head. -
Johnson Impeached
The Radicals though he was blocking Reconstruction so they tried to find ways to impeach him. One of them was when Johnson removed Secretary of War Edwin Stanton from office. His removal of the cabinet member violated the Tenure of Office Act. The House impeached him but remained in office after the Senate voted not to convict. -
U. S. Grant Elected President
The Civil War hero Ulysses S. Grant won by 306,000 votes out of six million ballots cast. More than 500,000 Southern African Americans voted and 9 out of 10 voted for him. -
Ku Klux Klan
The KKK was the most notorious and widespread Southern vigilante groups. Their goals were to destroy the Republican Party, throw out the Reconstruction governments, aide the planter class, and to prevent African Americans from exercising their political rights. They killed about 20,000 men, woman, and children to achieve these goals.
