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Compromise of 1850
The Compromise of 1850 admitted California as a free state, organized New Mexico and Utah as territories with the issue of slavery to be decided by the voters, and instituted a new, stronger Fugitive Slave Law. -
Kansas-Nebraska Act
This act, introduced by Stephen Douglas, extended popular sovereignty (allowing residents of a state to vote on whether to allow slavery) to these territories north of the 36° 30' latitude. It essentially repealed the (Missouri) Compromise of 1820. -
Topeka Constitution
Refusing to recognize the "bogus" legislature elected through voter fraud, 37 "free state" delegates met in Topeka to draft their own constitution. The document was submitted for ratification on December 15 and passed with an overwhelming vote. Although the Topeka Constitution prohibited slavery, a measure approved at the same time prohibited free blacks in Kansas. -
Charles Sumner
On May 19 and 20, Massachusetts Sen. Charles Sumner presented his "Crime against Kansas" speech in the U.S. Senate, using harsh language to attack supporters of slavery, including Sen. Andrew P. Butler of South Carolina. -
Dred Scott
In a landmark decision, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that slaves were not citizens, that the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional, and that Dred Scott, although he had once resided in a free state, would remain a slave. -
John Brown liberates slaves in Missouri
John Brown returned to Kansas in June 1858 after a seven-month trip to the East, where he refined his plans and raised money for his eventual raid on the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia. -
Abraham Lincoln elected president.
0 support from the south. -
South Carolina seceded from the union.
Following Abraham Lincoln’s election, a convention met in Columbia, South Carolina, to consider secession. The members soon moved to Charleston, however, and on the afternoon of December 20, the convention, without debate and by a vote of 169 to 0, declared that “the union now subsisting between South Carolina and other States” was dissolved. -
Attack on Fort Sumter
Following South Carolina’s secession from the Union in December 1860, federal property around Charleston was soon seized by state authorities The Confederate government ordered Gen. P.G.T. Beauregard to secure the surrender of the fort by any means. Beauregard twice demanded the fort’s surrender, to no avail, so at 4:30 a.m. on April 12, Confederate batteries around Charleston Harbor began to bombard the Union garrison. With the surrender of Sumter, the long and costly American Civil War began. -
Siege of Lexington
Following his victory at Wilson's Creek, Maj. Gen. Sterling Price led his State Guard north to the town of Lexington. Price hoped to gather recruits and disrupt Federal traffic along the Missouri River. A 3,500-man Federal garrison of Illinois and Missouri troops under Col. James Mulligan occupied Lexington, however -
USS Carondelet Launched
St. Louis engineer James Eads was awarded a contract on August 7, 1861, to build a fleet of ironclad gunboats for the Union Navy. Eads was contracted to build seven gunboats in three months, each at a cost of $89,600. The first of the fleet, U.S.S. Carondelet, was launched on October 12, 1861 only two days late. -
Siege of Vicksburg
In the fall of 1862, Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant was assigned the difficult task of capturing the Confederate fortress of Vicksburg. After a series of amphibious operations failed, Grant decided to march his army down the Louisiana side of the river, cross the Mississippi south of Vicksburg and strike the city from the south or east. -
"Ten Percent" Plan
In his “Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction,” President Abraham Lincoln proposed the so-called “Ten-percent plan,” applicable to the Confederate states of Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, South Carolina and North Carolina. Lincoln proposed that “a number of persons, not less than one-tenth in number” of the votes cast in the presidential election of 1860. -
KKK in Arkansas Formed
In the spring of 1868, Arkansans approved a progressive new state constitution that gave the right to vote to African-Americans and elected a Republican governor. Republicans won all but one of the seats in the state legislature as well. These events, combined with the disfranchisement of ex-Confederates, led to the formation of the Ku Klux Klan. -
Robert E. Lee Surrenders
On April 9, Confederate commanding Gen. Robert E. Lee surrendered to Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant in Appomattox Court House, Va. Despite Lee’s surrender, the other Confederate armies did not surrender immediately. Gen. Stand Watie, the last Confederate field commander, did not capitulate to Union forces until late June 1865. -
Abraham Lincoln Assassinated
On the night of April 14, 1865, actor John Wilkes Booth assassinated President Abraham Lincoln in Ford’s Theater in Washington, D.C. News of Lincoln’s murder shocked many in the North, while some Southern citizens approved of the act and others fearfully awaited Northern retribution.
