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Missouri Compromise
Henry Clay was the leader of this compromise
Under the MC, Maine was admitted as a free state and Missouri as a slave state. The rest of the Louisiana Territory was split into two parts. -
Abolition
By the 1820s, abolition—the movement to free African Americans from slavery— had taken hold. More than 100 antislavery societies were advocating that African Americans be resettled in Africa. In 1817, the American Colonization Society had been founded to encourage black emigration. Other abolitionists, however, demanded that African Americans remain in the United States as free citizens. -
Santa Fe Trail
The settlers and traders who made the trek
west used a series of old Native American trails as well as new
routes. One of the busiest routes was the Santa Fe Trail,
which stretched 780 miles from Independence, Missouri, to
Santa Fe in the Mexican province of New Mexico. -
San Felipe de Austin
By 1825, Austin had issued 297 land grants to the group that later became known as Texas’s Old Three Hundred. Each family received either 177 very inexpensive acres of farmland, or 4,428 acres for stock grazing, as well as a 10-year exemption from paying taxes. -
The Liberator
The most radical white abolitionist was a young editor named William Lloyd Garrison. Active in religious reform movements
in Massachusetts, Garrison became the editor of an antislavery paper in 1828. Three years later he established his own paper, The Liberator, to deliver an uncompromising demand: immediate emancipation. -
Mexico Abolishes Slavery
Many of the settlers were Southerners, who had brought slaves with them to Texas. Mexico, which had abolished slavery in 1829, insisted in vain that the Texans free their slaves. -
Nat Turner's 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. -
Stephen F. Austin Goes to Jail
While Austin was on his way home, Santa Anna had Austin imprisoned for inciting revolution. -
Texas Revolution
Mexican states, several rebellions broke out, including one that would be known as the Texas Revolution. -
Oregon Trail
The Oregon Trail stretched from Independence, Missouri, to Oregon City, Oregon. It was blazed in 1836 by two Methodist missionaries named Marcus and Narcissa Whitman. By driving their wagon as far as Fort Boise, they proved that wagons could travel on the Oregon Trail. -
Manifest Destiny
Many Americans began that their movement westward was predestined by God. The phrase expressed the belief that the US was ordained to expand to the Pacific Ocean and into the Mexican and Native American territory -
Texas Enters the US
Most Texans hoped that the United States would annex their republic, but U.S. opinion divided along sectional lines. The 1844 U.S. presidential campaign focused on westward expansion. The winner, James K. Polk, a slaveholder, firmly favored the annexation of Texas. -
Mexican - American War
Mexico threatened war with the United States if it annexed Texas. -
The North Star
In 1847, Douglass began his own antislavery newspaper. He named it The North Star, after the star that guided runaway slaves to freedom. -
Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo
On February 2, 1848, the United States and Mexico signed the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. Mexico agreed to the Rio Grande as the border between Texas and Mexico and ceded the New Mexico and California territories to the United States. -
Harriet Tubman
After her owner died, she heard rumors of her being sold. Fearing this possibility, Tubman decided to make a break for freedom and succeeded in reaching Philadelphia. She then became a conductor. -
John Brown's Raid/Harpers Ferry
John Brown was studying the slave uprisings that had occurred in ancient Rome and, more recently, on the French island of Haiti. He led a band of 21 men, black and white, into Harpers Ferry, Virginia. His aim was to seize the federal arsenal there and start a general slave uprising. -
Underground Railroad
Abolitionists started it.
System of escape routes used became known as underground railroads. "Conductors" on the routes hid fugitives in secret tunnels and flase cupboards, providing them with food and clothing, and escorted or directed them to the next "station." Once they reached the North, they stayed. -
Fugitive Slave Act
The Fugitive Slave Act alleged fugitive slaves were not entitled to a trial by jury. In addition, anyone convicted of helping a fugitive was liable for a fine of $1,000 and imprisonment for up to six months. -
Compromise of 1850
To please the North, the compromise provided that California be admitted to the Union as a free state. To please the South, the compromise proposed a new a more effective fugitive slave law. To placate both sides, a provision allowed popular sovereignty, the right to vote for or against slavery, for residents of New Mexico and Utah terreitories. Henry Clay -
Uncle Tom's 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. -
Kansas-Nebraska Act
Senator Stephen Douglas wrote it. It was about if Nebraska Territory would be slave territory or not. -
Dread Scott v. Sandford
Dread Scott was a slave whose owner took him from the slave state of Missouri to a free territory in Illinois and Wisconsin and back to Missouri. Scott appealed to the Supreme Court for his freedom on the grounds that living a free state, made him free. He lost the trial -
Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas Debates
Both did not want slavery in the territories, but they disagreed on how to keep it out. Douglas believed deeply in popular sovereignty. Lincoln, believed that slavery was immoral. Douglas won the senate seat, but his reponse had widened the split in the Democratic Party. People were thinking of Lincoln as a president in 1860. -
Abraham Lincoln Becomes President
Abraham was elected in 1860. He pledged to halt the further spread of slavery, he also tried to reassure Southerners that a Republican administration would not "interfere with their slaves, or with them, about their slaves." -
Formation of the Confederacy
Delegates from the secessionist states met in Alabama where they formed the Confederate States of America. They also drew up a constitution that closely resembled that of the United States, but with a few notable differences. The most important difference was that it "protected and recognized" slavery in new territories. Jefferson Davis was president. Mississippi, South Caroline, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas. -
Attack on Fort Sumter
Confederate soldiers started to seize federal installations, especially forts. Lincoln decided to neither abandon Fort Sumter nor reinforce it. North and South struggle was under way. -
Battle of Bull Run
Confederate and Union army fought. Morale in Confederates soared. Many Confederate soldiers, confident that the war was over, left the army and went home. -
Battle at Antietam
McClellan ordered his men to pursue Lee, and the two sides fought. The clash proved to be the bloodiest single day in American History, with casualties totaling more than 26,000. Lincoln removed McClellan from command. -
Emancipation Proclamation
Lincoln issued his Emancipation Proclamation. The proclamation did not free any slaves immediately because it applied only to areas behind Confederate lines, outside Union control. It turned the struggle into a fight to free the slaves -
Conscription
As fighting intensified, heavy casualties and widespread desertions led each side to impose conscription, a draft that forced men to serve in the army. In the North, this led to draft riots. -
Income Tax
As the Northern economy grew, Congress decided to help pay for the war by collecting the nation's first income tax, a tax that takes a specified percntage of an individual's income. -
Battle at Gettysburg
After a great victory over Union forces at Chancellorsville, General Robert E. Lee marched his Army of Northern Virginia into Pennsylvania in late June 1863. Lee gavbe up any hopes of invading the North and led his army back to Virginia. -
Battle at Vicksburg
While Meade's Army of the Potomac was destroying Confederate hopes in Gettysburg, Union general Ulysses S. Grant fought to take Vicksburg. Grant weakened the Confederate defenses that protected Vicksburg. The Union had achieved another of its major military objectives, and the Confederacy was cut in two. -
Sherman's March
William Tecumseh Sherman led it. He 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. After reaching the ocean, Sherman's forces turned north to help Grant "wipe out lee." -
Surrender at Appomattox Court House
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. Grant paroled Lee's soldiers and set them home with their possessions and tree days worth of rations. Officers were permitted to keep their side arms. Within a month all remaining Confederate resistance collapsed. After four long years, the Civil War was over. -
Assassination of Abraham Lincoln
Five days after Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox, Lincoln and his wife went to Ford's Theatre in Washington to see a British comedy, Our American Cousin. During its third act, a man crept up behind Lincoln and shot the president in the back of his head.John Wilkes Booth was a Southern sympathizer. -
Thirteenth Amendment
After some political maneurvering, the Thirteenth Amendment was ratified at the end of 1865. "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the aprty shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States."
