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Missouri Compromise
-The Northerners and Southerners argue on whether Missouri should be admitted as a free state or a slave state
-Behind the leadership of Henry Clay, Congress passed this compromise
-Maine was admitted as a free state and Missouri a slave state
-The rest of the Louisiana territory was split into 2 parts
-South of the line slavery was legal and north of the line (except in Missouri) slavery was banned -
The Liberator
-William Lloyd Garrison, a radical white abolitionist was a young editor who wrote The Liberator
-His purpose in writing this was immediate emancipation -
Nat Turner's Rebellion
-many slaves rebelled against their condition of bondage
-the most prominent rebellion was led by Nat Turner, a slave
-he and more than 50 followers attacked 4 plantations and killed about 60 whites
-whites eventually captured and executed members of this group including Turner -
The North Star
-Frederick Douglass who escaped from bondage to become an eloquent and critic of slavery
-He was then sponsored to speak for various anti-slavery organizations
-He wrote the North Star and named it this because it was after the star that guided runaway slaves to freedom -
Underground Railroad
-It was difficult for slaves to escape from slavery
-free African Americans and white abolitionists developed a secret network of people who would, at great risk to themselves, hide fugitive slaves
-"conductors" on the routes hid fugitives in secret tunnels and false cupboards, provided with food and clothing and escorted them to the next station -
Compromise of 1850
-a set of laws, passed in the midst of fierce wrangling between groups favoring slavery and groups opposing it, that attempted to give something to both sides
-the compromise admitted California to the United States as a "free" (no slavery) state but allowed some newly acquired territories to decide on slavery for themselves
-Part of the Compromise included the Fugitive Slave Act, which proved highly unpopular in the North
-Senator Henry Clay was a force behind the passage of the compromise. -
Fugitive slave act
-alleged fugitive slaves were not entitled to a trial by jury
-anyone convicted of helping a fugitive was liable for a fine of $1000 and imprisonment for up to 6 months
-some northerners resisted safety in Canada
-others resorted to violence to rescue fugitive slaves
-others worked to help slaves escape from slavery -
Uncle Tom's Cabin
-Harriet Beecher Stowe published this novel
-it stressed that slavery was not just a political contest but a great moral struggle
-it expressed her lifetime hatred of slavery
-the book stirred Northern abolitionists to increase their protests against the Fugitive slave act while Southerners criticized the book as an attack on the South -
Kansas Nebraska Act
-The Kansas and Nebraska territory lay north of the Missouri compromise and therefore was legally closed from slavery
-Douglas introduced a bill in Congress that would divide the area into 2 territories: Nebraska in the north and Kansas in the south
-mandated "popular sovereignty"-allowing settlers of a territory to decide whether slavery would be allowed within a new state's borders. -
John Brown's raid/Harpers ferry
-Brown secretly obtained financial backing from the several prominent Northern abolitionists
-one night 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 -
Formation of the Confederacy
- the states farthest south, where slavery and plantations agriculture were dominant, formed the Confederate States of America with Jefferson Davis as President -they established their capital at Montgomery, Alabama and took over federal forts on their territory
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Attack on Fort Sumter
- was the first battle of the American Civil War -The intense Confederate artillery bombardment of Major Robert Anderson's small Union garrison in the unfinished fort in the harbor at Charleston, South Carolina, had been preceded by months of siege-like conditions
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Emancipation Proclamation
-Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation
-The declaration reads, 'all persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free -
Surrender at Appomattox Court House
-near the town of Appomattox Court House, Virginia, Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered his Army of Northern Virginia to Union General Ulysses S. Grant
-But the resulting Battle of Appomattox Court House, which lasted only a few hours, effectively brought the four-year Civil War to an end -
Thirteenth Amendment
-The 13th amendment to the United States Constitution provides that "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, or any place subject to their jurisdiction."
-it was ratified in 1865 in the aftermath of the Civil War, abolished slavery in the United States
