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Missouri Compromise
Henry Clay, Congress passed a series of agreements
in 1820–1821 known as the Missouri Compromise. Under these agreements, Maine was admitted as a free state and Missouri as a slave state. The rest of the Louisiana Territory was split into two parts. North of the line, slavery was banned. -
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.” -
Santa Fe Trail
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. After a few days of trading, they loaded their wagons with goods, restocked their animals, and headed back to Missouri. -
San Felipe de Austin
To carry out his father’s project, The main settlement of the colony was named San Felipe de Austin, in
Stephen’s honor. -
The Liberator
William Lloyd Garrison was active in religious reform movements in Massachusetts. He soon became the editor of an antislavery paper. 3 years later he established his own paper "The Liberator" to deliver an uncompromising demand: immediate emancipation. -
Mexico Abolishes Slavery
Many of the Southerners settlers brought slaves with them to Mexico. Mexico which abolished slavery , insisted in vain that the Texans free their slaves. -
Abolition
The movement to abolish slavery, became the most important of a series of reform movements in America. Forten was joined in his opposition to slavery by growing numbers of Americans in the 19th century. -
Nat Turners Rebellion
One of the most prominent rebellions was led by Virginia slave Nat Turner. Turner and more than 50 followers attacked 4 plantations and killed about 60 whites. Whites eventually captured and executed many members of the group, including Turner. -
Stephen F. Austin goes to jail
Mexican president Antontio Lopez de Santa Anna imprisoned Austin for inciting revolution. After Austing got out, he was convinced that war was its "only resource". -
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 percentage of an individual’s income. -
Texas Revolution
After Santa Anna suspended local powers in Texas and other Mexican states, several rebellions broke out, including one that would be known as the Texas Revolution. Determined to force Texas to obey Mexican law, Santa Anna marched his army toward San Antonio. -
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
“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. Many Americans began to believe that their movement westward was predestined by God. -
Texas Enters the United States
Most texans hoped that the U.S. would annextheir republic, but U.S. opinion divided along sectional lines. The U.S.presidential campaign focused on westward expansion. The winner James K. Polk, a slaveholder, firmly favored the annexation of Texas. -
Mexican American War
It was an armed conflict between U.S and Mexico. It followed in the wake of the 1845 U.S annexation of Texasd. For the U.S it was the fourth of the five major wars fought on North American soil. -
The North Star
Fredrick Douglass who escaped from bondagr to become an eloquent and outspoken critic of slavery. In 1847, Douglass began his own antislavery newspaper. He named it the North Star that guided runaway slaves to freedom. -
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 U.S. the U.S. agreed to pay $15 million for the Mexican cession, which included present day California, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah. -
Harriet Tubman
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. -
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 contained provisions to appease Northerners as well as Southerners. -
Fugitive Slave Act
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. Some Northerners resisted it by organizing “vigilance committees” to send endangered African Americans to safety in Canada. -
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. 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
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. Some Northern congressmen
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. -
Dread Scott v Sanford
Scott appealed to the Supreme Court for his freedom on the grounds that living in a free state—Illinois—and a free territory—Wisconsin—had made him a free man. Southern slaveholders, were jubilant. In their interpretation, the
Dred Scott decision not only permitted the extension of slavery but actually guaranteed it. -
Aberham lincoln and Stephen Douglass Debates
To counteract Douglas, Lincoln challenged the man known as the “Little Giant” to a series of debates on the issue of slavery in the territories. Douglas believed deeply in
popular sovereignty. Lincoln, on the other hand, believed that slavery was immoral. -
John Brown’s raid/Harpers Ferry
Brown secretly obtained financial backing from several
prominent Northern abolitionists. 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. -
Abraham Lincoln becomes president
He also tried to reassure Southerners that a Republican administration would not “interfere with their slaves, or with them, about their slaves.” Lincoln emerged as the winner with less than half the popular vote and with no electoral votes from the South. -
Formation of the Confederacy
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 most important
difference was that it “protected and recognized” slavery
in new territories. -
Attack on Fort Sumter
Confederate soldiers in each secessionist state began seizing federal installations—especially forts. . 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. -
Battle at 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 bloodiest
single-day battle in American history, with casualties
totaling more than 26,000. -
Emancipation Proclamation
The proclamation did not free any slaves immediately because it applied only to areas behind Confederate lines, outside Union control. 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 -
Battle at Gettysburg
Confederate soldiers led by A. P. Hill encountered several brigades of Union cavalry under the command of John Buford, an experienced officer from Illinois. both sides called for reinforcements. 90,000 Union troops under the command of General George Meade had taken the field against 75,000 Confederates, led by General Lee. -
Battle of Bull Run
First bloodshed on the battlefield occurred about three months
after Fort Sumter fell. In the morning the Union army
gained the upper hand, but the Confederates held firm, inspired by General Thomas J. Jackson. Fortunately for the Union, the Confederates were too exhausted to follow up their victory with an attack on Washington. -
Battle at Vicksburg
Grant fought to take Vicksburg, one of the two remaining Confederate strongholds on the Mississippi River. Vicksburg itself was particularly important because it rested on bluffs above the river from which guns could control all water traffic. 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. -
Gettysburg Adress
a ceremony was held to dedicate a cemetery in Gettysburg. Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address “remade America.” the speech helped the country to realize that it was not just a collection
of individual states; it was one unified nation. -
Shermans March
Grant in turnappointed William Tecumseh Sherman as commander of the military division of the Mississippi. Sherman was determined to make Southerners “so sick of war that generations would pass away before they would again appeal to it.” After reaching the ocean, Sherman’s forces—followed by 25,000 former slaves—turned north to help Grant “wipe out Lee.” -
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. -
Surrender at 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. Within a month all remaining Confederate resistance collapsed. After four long years, the Civil War was over. -
Assassination of Abraham Lincoln
a man crept up behind Lincoln and shot the president
in the back of his head. , 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. -
Thirteenth Amendment
The president believed that the only solution 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 convicted, shall exist within the United States.”
