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Slave Trade Compromise
The Slave Trade Compromise allowed for the "importation" of slaves, a tax to be able to be placed on them, as well as the slaves themselves were considered merchandise of their owners, and prohibited change to any of this for 20 years.
the North was in favor as it would give some regulations on slavery meanwhile the South wasn't so ready to agree, they believed Congress could push their power and restrict or outlaw slavery, possibly ruining their agriculture based economy. -
Eli Whitney & The Cotton Gin
The Cotton Gin was invented by Eli Whitney as a way to try and decrease the demand of slavery by taking the hardest part of the manual work, taking out the seeds in raw cotton, and making it easier to do by machine over slaves.
By accident he made slavery more profitable as one slave could produce more cotton than before causing it to expand across the South, the North still wanted to do away with slavery meanwhile the South wanted more as it was making them rich. -
Missouri Compromise
The Missouri Compromise started as Missouri wished to be admitted to Union as a Slave State, the North was outraged by the idea as it would mean that slave states would now out number free, in order to add Missouri to the Union they added Maine as a free state so that way the two could be equal but tensions still were rising between the two. -
Annexation of Texas
The Annexation of Texas happened after many American settlers moved to Mexico and weren't happy about being forced to become and Mexican citizen, as well as convert to Roman Catholicism. Mexico had abolished slavery but Americans still brought their slaves and after the Battle of San Jacinto Texas was added as the 28th state. Many fought over the expansion of Slavery into Texas which helped lead to the Civil War. -
Fugitive Slave Act
The Fugitive Slave Act said that Slaves were able to be caught trying to flee to Canada by their owners, who were legally allowed to search in already free states up North for the escaped, any one that helped harbor or conceal slaves could face a $500 fine. The North was not pleased at the idea that there free state could be searched for slaves as a free man could be taken by accident, while the South did not see what was so bad. -
Uncle Tom's Cabin
Uncle Toms Cabin was written by Harriet Beecher Stowe as a anti-slavery novel. The book presented the argument that slaves were really humans, and the system had a huge negative impact on them, therefore giving the North evidence to fight to abolish slavery in the South, while the South believed it distorted the truth and was just made as a reason to hate the them, leading to tensions to rise between the North and South, and causing the Civil War. -
Kansas-Nebraska Act
The Kansas-Nebraska Act allowed people within the Kansas, Nebraska territory to decide whether they would allow slavery within their boarders. This lead to people rushing into the territories to vote either anti/pro slavery and violent fights to break out, in the end it caused tensions to rise between the South and North over if the states would be free or not.
