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Abolition
The movement to abolish slavery, became the most important of a series of reform movements in America. Forten had a effort to resettle free blacks in Africa, opposed slavery. Abolitionists spread the word that slavery and slave owners were evil. They spread the word, caused conflict, and resorted to violence. Their words and actions contributed to the cause of the Civil War. -
The Liberator
The Liberator was a weekly abolitionist newspaper, published in Boston by William Lloyd Garrison to deliver an uncompromising demand: immediate emancipation. -
Nat turner's rebelion
Nat Turner's Rebellion (also known as the Southampton Insurrection) was a slave rebellion that took place in Southampton County, Virginia, in August 1831, led by Nat Turner. Rebel slaves killed from 55 to 65 people, at least 51 being white. -
The North Star
The name of the newspaper paid homage to the fact that escaping slaves used the North Star in the night sky to guide them to freedom. It was published in Rochester, New York, a city known for its opposition to slavery.(Garrison sponsored Douglass at first but they broke because Garrison hoped the abolition could be achieved without violence but Frederick believed that abolition justified whatever means were necessary to achieve it.) -
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 treaty effectively halved the size of Mexico and doubled the territory of the United States. The US agreed to pay $15 million for the Mexico cession which included present day California, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah most of Arizona, and parts of Colorado and Wyoming. -
harriet tubman
Harriet Tubman was an American abolitionist and political activist. Born into slavery, Tubman escaped and subsequently made some 13 missions to rescue approximately 70 enslaved people, including family and friends, using the network of antislavery activists and safe houses known as the Underground Railroad. Harriet Tubman escaped to freedom in the North in 1849 to become the most famous "conductor" on the Underground Railroad. -
underground railroad
Levi Coffin. The Underground Railroad was a network of secret routes and safe houses established in the United States during the early to mid-1800s, and used by enslaved African-Americans to escape into free states and Canada. The scheme was assisted by abolitionists and others sympathetic to the cause of the escapees. -
Compromise of 1850
Divisions over slavery in territory gained in the Mexican-American (1846-48). War were resolved in the Compromise of 1850. It consisted of laws admitting California as a free state, creating Utah and New Mexico territories with the question of slavery in each to be determined by popular sovereignty, settling a Texas-New Mexico boundary dispute in the former’s favor, ending the slave trade in Washington, D.C., and making it easier for southerners to recover fugitive slaves. -
Fugitive slavery act
The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 was part of the Compromise of 1850. The act required that slaves be returned to their owners, even if they were in a free state. The act also made the federal government responsible for finding, returning, and trying escaped slaves. -
Uncle Tom's Cabin
Uncle Tom's Cabin; or, Life Among the Lowly, is an anti-slavery novel by American author Harriet Beecher Stowe. Published in 1852, the novel had a profound effect on attitudes toward African Americans and slavery in the U.S. and is said to have "helped lay the groundwork for the Civil War". -
Kansas-Nebraska Act
The Kansas-Nebraska Act was passed by the U.S. Congress on May 30, 1854. It allowed people in the territories of Kansas and Nebraska to decide for themselves whether or not to allow slavery within their borders. The Act served to repeal the Missouri Compromise of 1820 which prohibited slavery north of latitude 36°30´. It was drafted by Democratic Senator Stephen A. Douglas, passed by the 33rd United States Congress, and signed into law by President Franklin Pierce. -
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. The Court also ruled that Congress lacked power to ban slavery in the U.S. territories. -
Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas debate
Lincoln and Douglas debated the slavery extension issue in 1858. Douglas will willing to allow slavery in new states and territories if the people there wanted it (Popular Sovereignty) even though the Supreme Court had already ruled against it. Lincoln was opposed to the expansion of slavery. Lincoln was not forced to end slavery.In the end, Douglas triumphed over Lincoln with Democrats gaining forty-six seats to the Republican's forty-one. -
john brown's raid on harpers ferry
John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry was an 1859 effort by abolitionist John Brown to initiate an armed slave revolt in Southern states by taking over a United States arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia. It has been called the dress rehearsal for the Civil War. -
abraham lincoln becomes president
Abraham Lincoln became the United States' 16th President in 1861, issuing the Emancipation Proclamation that declared forever free those slaves within the Confederacy in 1863. Lincoln thought secession illegal, and was willing to use force to defend Federal law and the Union. -
income tax
On this day in 1861, Lincoln imposes the first federal income tax by signing the Revenue Act. Strapped for cash with which to pursue the Civil War, Lincoln and Congress agreed to impose a 3 percent tax on annual incomes over $800. -
formation of confederacy
On February 4, 1861, 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. After the American Civil War began in April, four slave states of the Upper South—Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina—also seceded and joined the Confederacy. -
attack on fort sumter
The Battle of Fort Sumter was the bombardment of Fort Sumter near Charleston, South Carolina by the South Carolina militia, and the return gunfire and subsequent surrender by the United States Army, that started the American Civil War. Results were the Confederate victory, Confederacy captures Fort Sumter, Beginning of the American Civil War. -
battle of bull run
On July 21, 1861, Union and Confederate armies clashed near Manassas Junction, Virginia, in the first major land battle of the American Civil War. The Confederate victory gave the South a surge of confidence and shocked many in the North, who realized the war would not be won as easily as they had hoped. -
conscription civil war
During the Civil War, the U.S. Congress passes a conscription act that produces the first wartime draft of U.S. citizens in American history. The act called for registration of all males between the ages of 20 and 45, including aliens with the intention of becoming citizens, by April 1 -
battle at antietam
The Battle of Antietam ended the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia's first invasion into the North and led Abraham Lincoln to issue the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation.The Battle of Antietam ended the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia's first invasion into the North and led Abraham Lincoln to issue the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation. -
Emancipation proclamation
President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, as the nation approached its third year of bloody civil war. The proclamation declared "that all persons held as slaves" within the rebellious states "are, and henceforward shall be free." -
battle at vicksburg
The Siege of Vicksburg was a great victory for the Union. It gave control of the Mississippi River to the Union. Around the same time, the Confederate army under General Robert E. Lee was defeated at the Battle of Gettysburg. These two victories marked the major turning point of the Civil War in favor of the Union. -
battle at Gettysburg
The Battle of Gettysburg was fought July 1–3, 1863, in and around the town of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, by Union and Confederate forces during the American Civil War. The battle involved the largest number of casualties of the entire war and is often described as the war's turning point. It had a Union victory won by George Meade. -
gettysburg address
The Gettysburg Address is a speech that U.S. President Abraham Lincoln delivered during the American Civil War at the dedication of the Soldiers' National Cemetery in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, on the afternoon of Thursday, November 19, 1863, four and a half months after the Union armies defeated those of the Confederacy at the Battle of Gettysburg. -
thirteenth amendment
The Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime. In Congress, it was passed by the Senate on April 8, 1864, and by the House on January 31, 1865. The amendment was ratified by the required number of states on December 6, 1865. -
sherman's march
Sherman's March to the Sea was a military campaign of the American Civil War conducted through Georgia from November 15 until December 21, 1864, by Maj. Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman of the Union Army. It had a union victory. -
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. -
assassination of abraham lincoln
April 15, 1865, Petersen House, Washington, D.C.,Occurring near the end of the American Civil War, the assassination was part of a larger conspiracy intended by Booth to revive the Confederate cause by eliminating the three most important officials of the United States government.John Wilkes Booth shoot him.
