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Missouri Compromise
Missouri was admitted as a slave state while Maine was admitted as a free state. James Monroe was president at this time. -
Santa Fe Train
Stretched 780 miles from Independence, Missouri, to Santa Fe in the Mexican province of New Mexico. Each spring from 1821 through the 1860s, American traders loaded their covered wagons with goods and set off toward Santa Fe. -
San Felipe de Austin
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 obtained permission, first from Spain and then from Mexico after it had won its independence, to carry out his father’s project. In 1821 he established a colony where “no drunkard, no gambler, no profane swearer, and no idler” would be allowed. -
Mexico Abolishes Slavery
Many of the settlers were Southerners, who had brought slaves with them to Texas. Mexico, which had abolished slav- ery in 1829, insisted in vain that the Texans free their slaves. -
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 uncom- promising demand: immediate emancipation. -
Nat Turner's Rebellion
Some slaves rebelled against their condition of bondage. 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
He journeyed to Mexico City to present petitions to the government for a self-government. -
Texas Revolution
After Santa Anna suspended local powers in Texas and otherm Mexican states, several rebellions broke out, including one that would be known as the Texas Revolution -
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
Expressed the belief that the United States was ordained to expand to the Pacific Ocean and into Mexican and Native American territory. Many Americans also believed that this destiny was manifest, or obvious and inevitable. -
Texas Enters the United States
Most Texans hoped that the United States would annex their republic, but U.S. opinion divided. Southerners wanted Texas in order to extend slavery, which was already established there. Northerners feared that the annexation of more slave territory would tip the uneasy balance in the Senate in favor of slave states and prompt war with Mexico. In March 1845, angered by U.S.-Texas negotiation, the Mexican government recalled its ambassador from Washington. On December 29, 1845, Texas entered the US -
Mexican-American War
The war between the United States and Mexico had two causes. First, the desire of the U.S. to expand across the North American continent to the Pacific Ocean caused conflict with all of its neighbors. President Polk came to office, an idea called Manifest Destiny had arisen, and Polk was a believer in the idea of expansion. The belief that the U.S. basically had a Godgiven right to occupy and civilize the whole continent gained favor as more Americans settled west. Mexico lost half teritory. -
The North Star
In 1847, Fredrick 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
After about a year of fighting, Mexico conceded defeat. 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. The United States agreed to pay $15 million for the Mexican cession, which included present- day California, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, most of Arizona, and parts of Colorado and Wyoming. -
Compromise of 1850
Henry Clay worked to shape a compromise that both the North and the South could accept. After obtaining support of the powerful Massachusetts senator Daniel Webster, Clay presented to the Senate a series of resolutions later called the Compromise of 1850. Clay’s compromise wanted appease Northerners as well as Southerners. Please the North, the compromise provided that California be admitted to the Union as a free state. South, the compromise proposed a new and more effective fugitive slave law. -
Fugitive Slave Act
Laws passed by the United States Congress in 1793 and 1850 to provide for the return of slaves who escaped from one state into another state or territory. -
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. Uncle Tom’s Cabin expressed her lifetime hatred of slavery. The book stirred Northern abolitionists to increase their protests against the Fugitive Slave Act. The furor over Uncle Tom’s Cabin had barely begun to settle when the issue of slavery in the territories surfaced once again. -
Underground Railroad
Free African Americans and white abolitionists developed a secret network of people who would hide fugitive slaves. The system of escape routes they used became known as the Underground 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. Once fugitives reached the North, many chose to remain there. Others journeyed to Canada to be completely out of reach of their owners. -
Harriet Tubman
Born a slave in Maryland in 1820 or 1821. In 1849, after Tubman’s owner died, she heard rumors that she was about to be sold. Fearing this possibility, Tubman decided to make a break for freedom and suc- ceeded in reaching Philadelphia. Shortly after passage of the Fugitive Slave Act, Tubman resolved to become a conductor on the Underground Railroad. In all, she made 19 trips back to the South and is said to have helped 300 slaves including her own parents—flee to freedom. -
Kansas-Nebraska Act
Kansas and Nebraska territory lay north of the Missouri Compromise line of 36°30’ and therefore was legally closed to slavery. Stephen Douglas introduced a bill in Congress on January 23, 1854, that would divide the area into two territories: Nebraska in the north and Kansas in the south. If passed, the bill would repeal the Missouri Compromise and establish popular sovereignty for both territories. -
Dread Scott v. Sandford
Dred Scott, a slave whose owner took him from the slave state of Missouri to free territory in Illinois and Wisconsin and back to Missouri. Appealed to the Supreme Court for his freedom on the grounds that living in free state Illinois and free territory, Wisconsin, had made him a free man. The case was in court for years. On March 6, 1857, Supreme Court ruled against Dred Scott because he was not, and never could be a citizen. Court ruled that being in free territory did not make a slave free. -
Abraham Lincoln and Stephan Douglas Debates
Race for the U.S. Senate between Democratic Stephen Douglas and Republican Congressman Abraham Lincoln. Douglas was a two-term senator with a record and a large campaign chest, Lincoln was a selfeducated man who had been elected one term in Congress. Lincoln challenged Douglas to a series of debates on the issue of slavery in the territories. Neither wanted slavery, but disagreed on how to keep it out. Douglas believed deeply in sovereignty. Lincoln believed that slavery was immoral. Douglas won -
John Brown Raid/ Harper's Ferry
Brown secretly obtained financial backing from several Northern abolitionists. On October 16, 1859, he led a band of 21 men, black and white, to Harpers Ferry, Virginia. His aim was seize the federal arsenal there and start a slave uprising. No uprising occurred troops stoped the rebellion. Authorities tried Brown and put him to death. The North, bells tolled, guns fired, and crowds gathered to hear speakers denounce the South. South, mobs assaulted whites who were suspected of antislavery views -
Abraham Lincoln becomes President
Northern Democrats rallied behind Douglas and his doctrine of sovereignty. Southern Democrats, who supported the Dred Scott decision, lined up behind Vice-President John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky. Lincoln emerged as the winner with less than half the popular vote and with no electoral votes from the South. He did not even appear on the ballot in most of the slave states because of Southern hostility toward him. -
Formation of the Confederacy
South Carolina led the way, seceding from the Union. 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 Confederacy. Drew up a constitution w/ few notable differences. The most important difference was that it “protected and recognized” slavery in new territories. Elected former senator Jefferson Davis of Mississippi as president. -
Attack on Fort Sumter
Soon as the Confederacy formed Confederate soldiers in each secessionist state began seizing federal installations especially forts. By the time of Lincoln’s inauguration four Southern forts remained to Union. Lincoln decided neither abandon Fort Sumter nor reinforce it. He would send “food for hungry men.” Fort Sumter’s fall united North. Lincoln called volunteers, the response in Northern states was overwhelming. Virginia, Arkansas, North Carolina, Tennessee brung # of Confederate states to 11 -
Battle of Bull Run
25 miles from Washington, D.C. The battle was a seesaw affair. In morning the Union army gained the upper hand, but the Confederates held firm, inspired by General Thomas J. Jackson. In afternoon Confederate reinforcements helped win first Southern victory. Fortunately for Union, the Confederates were too exhausted to follow up their victory with an attack on Washington. Confederate morale soared. Confederate soldiers, confident that the war was over, left the army and went home. -
Income Tax
The economic boom had a dark side, however. Wages did not keep up with prices, and many people’s standard of living declined.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 percentage of an individual’s income. -
Battle of Antietam
McClellan ordered his men to pursue Lee, and the two sides fought on September 17 near a creek called the Antietam. The clash proved to be the bloodi- est single-day battle in American history, with casualties totaling more than 26,000. The next day, instead of pursu- ing the battered Confederate army into Virginia and possi- bly ending the war, McClellan did nothing. As a result, Lincoln removed him from command. -
Emancipation Proclamation
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
The war led to social upheaval and political unrest in both the North and the South. As the 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, conscription led to draft riots, the most violent of which took place in New York City. -
Battle at Vicksburg
Union general Ulysses S. Grant fought to take Vicksburg, one of two remaining Confederate strongholds on Mississippi River. Vicksburg was particularly important because it rested on bluffs above the river from which guns could control all water traffic. Union forces had sacked Jackson, the capital of the state. 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. the Confederacy was cut in two. -
Battle of Gettysburg
the most decisive battle of the war was The Battle of Gettysburg. Began when Confederate soldiers led by A.P. Hill encountered several brigades of Union cavalry under command of John Buford, an experienced officer from Illinois. Buford's men took defensive positions on hills and ridges surrounding the town.Hill’s troops marched toward the town from the west, Buford’s men were waiting. -
Gettysburg Address
A ceremony held to dedicate a cemetery in Gettysburg. There, President Lincoln spoke for a little more than two minutes.The speech helped the country to realize that it was not just a col- lection of individual states; it was one unified nation. -
Sherman's March
herman 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 live- stock 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. After reaching the ocean, Sherman’s forces—followed by 25,000 former slaves—turned north to help Grant “wipe out Lee.” -
Surrender at Appomattox
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 sent them home with their possessions and three 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
5 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 presi- dent in the back of his head. 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. -
Abolition
The movement to abolish slavery, became the most important of a series of reform movements in America. Passed by Congress on January 31, 1865, and ratified on December 6, 1865, the 13th amendment abolished slavery in the United States. -
Thirteenth Amendment
The president believed that the only solu- tion was a constitutional amendment abolishing slavery. The U.S. Constitution now stated, “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly con- victed, shall exist within the United States.”
