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Abolition
Abolition was the movement to abolish slavery. Many Americans began to have opposition towards slavery and this became the most important series of reform movements in America. It was also popularized due to many people wanting to fine salvation and the insistence of improving themself and others. -
The Liberator
The Liberator was written by William Lloyd Garrison, and it sold about only 3,000 copies. The author was a radical white abolitionist who was very active in religious reform movements in Massachusetts. He also became the editor of an antislavery paper, eventually creating his own paper to deliver an uncompromising demand: immediate emancipation. -
Nat Turner's Rebellion
Nat Turner was a Virginia slave who led one of the most prominent rebellions. Turner and more than fifty followers attacked four plantations and killed about sixty whites. Other whites eventually captured and executed many members, including Nat Turner. This rebellion frightened and outraged many slaveholders. -
The North Star
The North Star was an antislavery newspaper written by Frederick Douglass. He named it that because of the star that guided slaves to freedom. Douglass escaped from bondage and became an eloquent and outspoken critic of slavery. -
Harriet Tubman
Harriet Tubman was born a slave in Maryland. Her owner died, she was planned to be sold, so she went to seek freedom and succeeded in reaching Philadelphia. She became a conductor on the Underground Railroad shortly after the Fugitive Slave Act was put into place. In all, she made 19 trips back to the South and is said to have helped 300 slaves, including her own parents, fleeing to freedom. -
Compromise of 1850
This compromise was created to determine the statehood of California, along with the border dispute in which the slave state of Texas claimed the eastern half of the New Mexico Territory. Henry Clay made a compromise containing provisions to appease Northerners and Southerners. California was admitted as a free state and there was a new and more effective fugitive slave law. Popular sovereignty gave the right to vote for or against slavery. -
Fugitive Slave Act
The fugitive slave act was introduced due to the Compromise of 185, and it required the return of runaway slaves. Under the law, alleged fugitive slaves were not entitled to a trial by jury. Anyone convicted of helping a slave escape was liable for a fine of $1,000 and imprisonment for up to six months. It also forced the authorities in free states to return fugitive slaves to their masters. Northerners were angry and created "vigilance committees" to send African Americans to safety in Canada. -
Underground Railroad
The Underground Railroad was started by Harriet Tubman and the purpose of it was to free slaves from the plantations. Conductors hid fugitives in secret tunnels and false cupboards, provided them with food and clothing, and escorted them directly to the next station. Some slaves traveled to the North and stayed there while others traveled all the way to Canada to be completely out of reach from the slave owners. -
Uncle Tom's Cabin
Uncle Tom's Cabin was written by Harriet Beecher Stowe, which explained that slavery was not just a political contest, but a great moral struggle. She expressed her lifelong hatred of slavery and the book stirred Northern abolitionists to increase their protests against the Fugitive Slave Act. -
Kansas-Nebraska
Stephen Douglas introduced the Kansas-Nebraska Act and popular sovereignty seemed right to decide the outcome. This act made Nebraska in the North and Kansas in the South because the Missouri Compromise layed North of the two states, making it illegal. After months of struggle, the act became law. -
Dred Scott v. Sandford
Dred Scott was a slave in Missouri. From 1833 to 1843, he resided in Illinois (a free state) and in the Louisiana Territory, where slavery was forbidden by the Missouri Compromise of 1820. After returning to Missouri, Scott filed suit in Missouri court for his freedom, claiming that his residence in free territory made him a free man. Scott's master maintained that no “negro” or descendant of slaves could be a citizen in the sense of Article III of the Constitution. -
Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas Debates
The two were debating against each other because they both wanted the senatorial seat. They debated about the slavery extension issue in 1858, therefore, they were addressing the problem that had divided the nation into two hostile camps and that threatened the continued existence of the Union. They both didn't want slavery in the territories, just disagreed on how to abolish it. Douglas won the Senate seat, but people began considering Abraham for president. -
John Brown's Raid/Harper's Ferry
John Brown was a radical abolitionist, who led a band of 21 men to seize the federal arsenal and start a slave uprising. The troops put down the rebellion and sentenced John to death. In the North, guns fired salutes, and huge crowds gathered to hear fiery speakers denounce the South. In the South, mobs assaulted Whites who were suspected of holding anti-slavery views. -
Lincoln is Elected President
The Republicans nominated Abraham Lincoln to run for president. He was moderate, wanting to halt the spread of slavery,but also reassured Southerners a Republican administration would not "interfere with their slaves, or with them, about their slaves". Southerners still viewed him as an enemy. Lincoln emerged as winner even though he didn't appear on the ballot in most slave states because of the Southern hostility toward him. -
Formation of the Confederacy
Lincoln's victory made Southerners believe they had lost their political voice in the national government. South Carolina was the first to secede from the Union. The Confederate Union was formed as more states seceded as well. They created a constitution similar to the United States and elected former Senator Jefferson Davis of Mississippi as president. -
Attack on Fort Sumter
As soon as the Confederacy formed, Confederate soldiers in each secessionist state began seizing federal installations, especially forts. By Lincoln's inauguration, only four Southern forts remained in Union hands. Fort Sumter was the most important, which was an island in Charleston Harbor. Lincoln did not abandon it, only "sending hungry men food". -
Battle of Bull Run
Bull Run was the first bloodshed on the battlefield, occurring about 3 months after Fort Sumter fell. The Union army gained the upper hand, but the Confederacy held firm. Fortunately for the Union, the Confederates were too tired to follow up their victory with an attack on Washington. But still, many Confederate soldiers had believed they won the war and prepared to go home. -
Income Tax
Income tax was a tax that takes a specified percentage of an individual's income. Due to the war's economy, Congress decided to help pay for the expenses with this process. -
Battle at Antietam
The Battle at Antietam was 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. Lincoln removed him from command. -
Emancipation Proclamation
The Emancipation Proclamation was a document written by Abraham Lincoln. It did not free any slaves immediately because it applied only to areas behind Confederate lines, outside of Union control. The proclamation gave people a moral purpose for the war by creating it as a fight to free the slaves. -
Conscription
Conscription was a draft that forced men to serve in the army. In the North it led to riots, and the wartime economies of both sides changed sweptly, affecting the roles played by African Americans and women. -
Battle of Gettysburg
The Battle of Gettysburg was the most decisive battle of the war. The Confederates wanted to invade the North under command of Robert E Lee, which failed in doing so. The Union men shot at them as the Confederates charged the line. The North won this battle, 23,000 Union men and 28,000 Confederates were killed or injured. -
Gettysburg Address.
The Gettysburg Address was given at a ceremony dedicated to a cemetery in Gettysburg. He spoke a little more than 2 minutes, but people believe it "remade America". The speech helped the country to realize that it was not just a collection of states, but a unified nation. -
Battle at Vicksburg
Battle of Vicksburg was fought because General Ulysses S. Grant wanted to take Vicksburg, one of the two remaining Confederate strongholds on the Mississippi River. Grant had a few failed attempts but was eventually able to capture Vicksburg on July 4. Five days later Port Hudson, Louisiana, the last Confederate holdout on the Mississippi also fell. The Union achieved their major military objectives, cutting the Confederacy in half. -
Sherman's March
Sherman's March was a march 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. He burned Atlanta and then went to help Grant wipe out Lee. He wanted Southerners "so sick of war that generations would pass away before they would again appeal to it." -
Thirteenth Amendment
There were issues trying to figure out what to do with the border states, where slavery still exists. Abraham Lincoln believed that the only solution was a constitutional amendment abolishing slavery. The US 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." -
Surrender at Appomattox Court House
Union troops conquered Richmond, the Confederate capital. In the city Appomattox Court House, Lee and Grant met at a private home to arrange a Confederate surrender. 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. And after four long years, the civil war was over. -
Assassination of Abraham Lincoln
Lincoln and his wife went to Ford's Theatre in Washington to see a British comedy, and during the act a man crept up behind and shot the president in the back of his head. It was the first time in American history that a president was assassinated. The assassin was John Wilkes Booth who as an actor and Southern sympathizer. Twelve days later the Union cavalry killed him.
