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Missouri Compromise
Behind the leadership of Henry Clay,Congress passed a series a=of agreements, in 1820-1821 known as the Missouri Compromise. Under these agreements,Maine was adnirtted as a free state and Missouri as a slave state. The rest of Louisiana Territory was split into two parts. James Monroe was President. -
Santa FeTrail
One of the busiest routes was the Santa Fe Trail, which stretched 780 miles from Independence,Missouri,to Sante Fe in the Mexican province of New Mexico. Each spring fro 1821 through the 1860's 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 establisha colony between the Brazos and Colorado rivers but died before he was ableto 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. The main settlement of the colony was named San Felipe de Austin, -
The Liberator
Active in religious reform movements
in Massachusetts, William Lloyd 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
Furthermore, 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. -
Abolition
Abolition, the movement to abolish slavery, became the most important of a series of reform movements in America. -
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
President Santa Ana refused to grant Texas separate status from Coahuila and threw Austin in prison on suspicion of inciting insurrection. -
Texas Revolution
Mexican states, several rebellions broke out, including one that would be known as the Texas Revolution. When Austin returned to Texas in 1835, he was convinced that war was its “only resource.” Determined to force Texas to obey Mexican law, Santa Anna marched his army toward San Antonio. At the same time, Austin and his followers issued a call for Texans to arm themselves. -
Oregon Trail
The Oregon Trail stretched from Indepedence, 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 coud travel on the Oregon Trail. -
Manifest Destiny
The phrase expressed the belief that the United States was obtained to expand to the Pacific Ocean and into Mexican and Native America territory. -
Texas enters the United States
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—and prompt
war with Mexico. -
Kansas-Nebraska Act
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. Congressional debate was bitter. Some Northern congress-men saw the bill as part of a plot to turn the territories into slave states.After months of struggle, the Kansas-Nebraska Act became law in 1854. -
Mexican-American War
Mexican cavalry attacked a group of U.S. soldiers in the disputed zone under the command of General Zachary Taylor, killing about a dozen. They then laid siege to an American fort along the Rio Grande -
The North Star
In 1847, Frederick 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. The United States agreed to pay $15 million for the Mexican cession, which included presentday California, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, most of Arizona, and parts of Colorado and Wyoming -
Harriet Tubman
One of the most famous conductors was 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 succeeded 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 -
Compromise of 1850
As the 31st Congress opened in December 1849, the question of statehood for California topped the agenda. Of equal concern was the border dispute in which the slave state of Texas claimed the eastern half of the New Mexico Territory, where the issue of slavery had not yet been settled. As passions mounted, threats of Southern secession, the formal withdrawal of a state from the Union, became more frequent. Once again, Henry Clay worked to shape a compromise that both the North and the South coul -
Fugitive Slave Act
The harsh terms of the Fugitive Slave Act surprised many people. Under the law, 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. -
Underground Railroad
As time went on, free African Americans and white abolitionists 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 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.” -
Uncle Tom's Cabin
In 1852, 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. -
Dred Scott v. Sandford
Dred Scott’s slave master had brought him from the slave state
of Missouri to live for a time in free territory and in the free state of Illinois. Eventually they returned to Missouri. Scott believed that because he had lived in free territory, he should be free. In 1854 he sued in federal court for his freedom. The court ruled against
him, and he appealed to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court ruled that African Americans were not and could never be
citizens. Dred Scott has no right to sue. -
Abraham Lincoln becomes president
Douglas won the Senate seat, but his response had widened the split in the Democratic Party. As for Lincoln, his attacks on the “vast moral evil” of slavery drew national attention, and some Republicans began thinking of him as an excellent candidate for the presidency in 1860. -
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, or Confederacy. They also drew up a constitution that closely resembled that of the United States, but with a few notable differences. The Confederates then unanimously elected former
senator Jefferson Davis of Mississippi as president. -
Attack on Fort Sumter
By the time of Lincoln’s inauguration on March 4, 1861, only four Southern forts remained in Union hands. The most important was Fort Sumter, on an island in Charleston harbor. Lincoln decided to neither abandon Fort Sumter nor reinforce it. He would merely send in “food for hungry men.” 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 Antietam
McClellan ordered his men to pursue Lee, and the two
sides fought on September 17 near a creek called the Antietam (Bn-tCPtEm). 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. -
Emancipation Proclamation
On January 1, 1863, Lincoln issued his Emancipation Proclamation. The following portion captured national attention.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. -
Income Tax
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 Gettysburg
The Battle of Gettysburg began on July 1 when Confederate soldiers led by A.P. Hill encountered several brigades of Union cavalry under the command of John Buford, an experienced officer from Illinois. Total casualties were more than 30 percent.
Despite the devastation, Northerners were enthusiastic about breaking “the charm of Robert Lee’s invincibility.” -
Gettsyburg address
According to some contemporary historians, Lincoln’s 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
While Meade’s Army of the Potomac was destroying Confederate hopes in Gettysburg, Union general Ulysses S. Grant fought to take Vicksburg, one of the two remaining Confederate strongholds on the Mississippi River. The city fell on July 4. Five days later Port Hudson, Louisiana, the last Confederate holdout on the Mississippi, also fell. The Union had achieved another
of its major military objectives, and the Confederacy was cut in two. -
Battale 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, inspired by General Thomas J. Jackson. “There stands Jackson like a stone wall!” another general shouted, coining the nickname Stonewall Jackson. -
Conscription
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. Sweeping changes occurred in the wartime economies of both sides as well as in the roles played by African Americans and women. -
Sherman's March
In the spring of 1864, 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. After reaching the ocean, Sherman’s forces followed by 25,000 former slaves turned north to help Grant defeat Lee. -
Thirteenth Amendment
Thirteenth Amendment was ratified at the end of 1865. The U.S. Constitution now stated, “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.” -
Assassination of Abraham Lincoln
On April 14, 1865, 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. -
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 (BpQEmBtPEks) 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 sent them home with their possessions and three days’ worth of rations.
