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The Missouri Compromise
1818 settlers in MIssouri requested admission to the Union. Behind leadership of Henry Clay, Maine admitted as free state, Missouri as slave state. rest of Lousiana Territory split in 2 parts, north of line slavery was banned, south of line, slavery legal -
San Felipe de Austin
Stephen F. Austin’s father, Moses Austin, had received a land grant from Spain to establish a colony between the Brazos and Colorado rivers but died before he was able
to carry out his plans. Stephen then established a colony that would be called the San Felipe de Austin. -
The Liberator
William Lloyd Garrison wrote the Liberator, to deliver an uncompromising demand: immediate emancipation. Anti-Slavery. -
Nat Turners Rebellion
One of the most prominent rebellions was led by Virginia slave Nat Turner. In August 1831, Turner and more than 50 followers attacked four plantations and killed about 60 whites. Whites eventually captured and executed many members of the group, including Turner. -
Mexico abolishes slavery
Many of the settlers of Mexican lands were Southerners,
who had brought slaves with them to Texas. Mexico, which had abolished slavery in 1829, insisted that the Texans free their slaves. Mexican politics had become increasingly unstable. -
Stephen F. Austin goes to Jail
Austin had traveled to Mexico City late in 1833 to present petitions to Mexican president Antonio López de Santa Anna for greater self-government for Texas. While Austin was on his way home, Santa Anna imprisones Austin for inciting revolution -
Santa Fe Trail
Trek used by settlers and traders. Stretched from Independence, Missouri to Santa Fe in Mexican Province in New Mexico. 780 miles -
Oregon Trail
Independence , Missouri to Oregon City, Oregon. Blazed in 1836 by two Methodist missionaries named Marcus and Narcissa Whitman -
Texas Revolution
1836 rebellion in which Texas gained its
independence from Mexico. -
Manifest Destiny
Believed move to west was predestined by God. Expand to Pacific Ocean and into mexican and native american territories. -
Abolition
The movement to abolish slavery, became the most important of a series of refrom movements in America. -
Mexican-American War
Mexican government angered by Us-Texas neogotiations on annexation.In 1846, Polk ordered Colonel Stephen Kearny and his troops to march from Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, to Santa Fe, New Mexico. New Mexico fell to USA. California soon fell to USA -
Texas enters the United States
Most Texans hoped that the United States would annex their republic, but U.S. opinion divided along sectional lines. Southerners wanted Texas in order to extend slavery, which already had been established there. Northerners feared that the annexation of more slave territory would tip the uneasy balance in the Senate in favor of slave states -
The North Star
Written by Frederick Douglass, a former slave. He became his own antislavery newspaper named The North Star. -
Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo
Mexico agreed to the Rio Grande as the border between Texas and Mexico and seceded the New Mexico and California territories to the United States agreed to pay $15 million for the Mexican cession, which included presentday
California, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah -
Harriet Tubman
Born a slave in Maryland in 1820 or 1821. Tubman resolved to become a conductor on the Underground Railroad. In all, she made 19 trips back to the South and is said to havehelped 300 slaves—including her own parents—flee to freedom. -
Compromise of 1850
California admitted to the Union as a free state. To please the South, the compromise proposed a new and more effective fugitive slave law. -
Fugitive Slave Act
It allowed popular sovereignty, the right to vote for or against slavery, for residents of the New Mexico and Utah territories. -
Underground Railroad
As time went on, free African Americans and whiteabolitionists developed a secret network of people who would, at great risk to themselves, hide fugitive slaves. The system of escape routes they used became known as theUnderground Railroad. “Conductors” on the routes hid fugitives in secret tunnels and false cupboards, provided them with food and clothing, and escorted or directed them to the next “station.” -
Uncle's Tom Cabin
Harriet Beecher Stowe published her novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin, which stressed that slavery was not just a political contest, but also a great moral struggle. As a young girl, Stowe had watched boats filled with people on their way to be sold at slave markets. Uncle Tom’s Cabin expressed her lifetime hatred of slavery -
Kansas-Nebraska Act
Thsi bill repealled the Missouri Compromise
and establish popular sovereignty for
both territories. Congressional debate
was bitter. Some Northern congressmen
saw the bill as part of a plot to turn the territories into slave states. Southerners strongly defended the proposed legislation. After months of struggle, the Kansas-Nebraska Act became law in 1854 -
Dread Scott v. Sandford
Scott was a slave whose owner took him from
the slave state of Missouri to free territory in Illinois and Wisconsin and back to Missouri the Court ruled that being in free territory did not make a slave free. The Fifth Amendment protected property, including slaves. For territories to exclude slavery would be to deprive slaveholders of their property -
Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas Debates
The two men’s positions were simple and consistent.
Neither wanted slavery in the territories, but they disagreed on how to keep it out. Douglas believed deeply in popular sovereignty. Lincoln, on the other hand, believed that slavery was immoral. However, he did not expect individuals to give up slavery unless Congress abolished slavery with an amendment. -
John Brown’s raid/Harpers Ferry
Brown secretly obtained financial backing from several
prominent Northern abolitionists. On the night of October 16, 1859, he led a band of 21 men, black and white, into Harpers Ferry, Virginia (now West Virginia). His aim was to seize the federal arsenal there and start a general slave uprising. -
Abraham Lincoln becomes president
Three major candidates besides Lincoln vied for
office. The Democratic Party finally split over slavery. Northern Democrats rallied behind Douglas and his doctrine of popular sovereignty. Southern Democrats, who supported the Dred Scott decision, lined up behind Vice-President John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky. Former Know-Nothings and Whigs from the South organized the Constitutional Union Party and nominated John Bell of Tennessee as their candidate. Lincoln emerged as the winner -
Formation of the Confederacy
Mississippi soon followed South Carolina’s lead, as did
Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas. In
February 1861, delegates from the secessionist states met in
Montgomery, Alabama, where they formed the Confederate
States of America. The Confederates then unanimously elected former senator Jefferson Davis of Mississippi as president. -
Attack on Fort Sumter
Confederates won. At 4:30 A.M. on April 12, Confederate batteries began thundering away to the cheers of Charleston’s citizens. The deadly struggle between North and South was under way. -
Battle of Bull Run
The first bloodshed on the battlefield occurred about three months after Fort Sumter fell, near the little creek of Bull Run, just 25 miles from Washington, D.C. The battle was a seesaw affair. In the morning the Union army gained the upper hand, but the Confederates held firm. In the afternoon Confederate
reinforcements helped win the first Southern victory -
Battle at Antietam
The clash proved to be the bloodiest
single-day battle in American history, with casualties
totaling more than 26,000. The next day, instead of pursuing
the battered Confederate army into Virginia and possibly
ending the war, McClellan did nothing. As a result,
Lincoln removed him from command. -
Battle at Gettysburg
The three-day battle produced staggering losses: 23,000 Union men and 28,000 Confederates were killed or wounded. Total casualties were more than 30 percent. Despite the devastation, Northerners were enthusiastic about breaking “the charm of Robert Lee’s invincibility.” -
Emancipation Proclamation
Addressed by Lincoln. The proclamation did not free any slaves immediately because it applied only to areas behind Confederate lines, outside Union control. Nevertheless, for many, the proclamation gave the war a moral purpose by turning the struggle into a fight
to free the slaves. It also ensured that compromise was no longer possible. -
Conscription
A draft that forced men to serve in the army.
In the North, conscription led to draft riots, the most violent of which took place in New York City. -
Income Tax
A tax that takes a specified percentage of an individual’s income. -
Gettysburg address
Gettysburg Address “remade America.” Before Lincoln’s speech, people said, “The United States are . . .” Afterward, they said, “The United States is . . .” In other words, the speech helped the country to realize that it was not just a collection
of individual states; it was one unified nation. -
Battle at Vicksburg
In the last week of May 1863, Grant settled in for a siege. He set up a steady barrage of artillery, shelling the city from both the river and the land for several hours a day, forcing the city’s residents into caves that they dug out of the yellow clay hillsides. After food supplies ran so low that people were reduced to eating dogs and mules, the Confederate command of Vicksburg asked Grant for terms of surrender. -
Sherman’s March
Sherman began his march southeast through Georgia to the sea, creating a wide path of destruction. His
army burned almost every house in its path and destroyed livestock and railroads. Sherman was determined to make Southerners “so sick of war that generations would pass away before they would again appeal to it.” By mid-November he had burned most of Atlanta. -
Surrender at Appomattox Court House
On April 3, 1865, Union troops conquered
Richmond, the Confederate capital. Southerners had abandoned the city the day before, setting it afire to keep the Northerners from taking it. On April 9, 1865, in a Virginia town called Appomattox Court House, Lee and Grant met at a private home to arrange a Confederate surrender. At Lincoln’s
request, the terms were generous -
Thirteenth Amendment
Thirteenth Amendment was ratified at the end of 1865. The U.S. Constitution nowstated, “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude,except as a punishment for crime
where of the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States.” -
Assassination of Abraham Lincoln
A man crept up behind Lincoln and shot the president
in the back of his head. Lincoln, who never regained consciousness, died on April 15. It was the first time a
president of the United States had been assassinated. After the shooting, the assassin, John Wilkes Booth—a 26-year-old actor and Southern sympathizer—then leaped down from the presidential box to the stage and escaped. Twelve days
later, Union cavalry trapped him in a Virginia tobacco shed and shot him dead.
