-
Texas votes to join the US
Texas votes to join the union of the United States of American on July, 4 1845. This created tensions and conflicts with Mexico because they wanted Texas to remain a part of Mexico. This vote inevitably led to Texas joining the union, which would affect the balance of slave states to nonslave states, and this would initiate a rift in the harmony of the north and south. -
Texas joins the union
On December 29, 1845 Texas officially joined the union of the United States of America which threw the union into a debate over slavery, now that the balance between slave and free states had been upset. The direct result of Texas joining the union was the Mexican war, which used a great deal of resources, but an indirect result was the Civil War, because the admittance increased tensions over slavery. -
Period: to
Mexican War
The war between Mexico and the United States was the last major conflict the US was involved in before the Civil War broke out. It pushed the union to further divide because there was controvery over whether the new territory gained should be admitted as free or slave states, and slavery inevitably was the leading cause of the Civil War. -
California Admitted To the Union
In November of 1849 California was officially admitted to the United States, and it was admitted as a free state. This created a huge uproar in the south because it tipped the balance of free to slave states in favor of the north. The south was so angered that tensions rose to the point where they began threatening secession if something was not done to protect the slave states. This was the first secession threat of the Civil War prelude, and it created major conflicts among politicians. -
John C. Calhoun Stated Congress Couldn't Regulate Slavery
John C. Calhoun in the last leg of his life made the bold statement that Congress didn't have the right to legislate slavery. This created an uproar of debate and conflicting opinions among people, because in a sense Calhoun was claiming that all the laws passed in relation to slavery were illegitimate. This statement furthered the emergenge into light the conflicting opinions present between the north and south on the issue of slavery. -
Period: to
Fugitive Slave Act And Repercussions
The Fugitive Slave Act was passed as part of a plan to pacify the south, and it stated that southern slaveholders not only could chase runaway slaves into the north, but that northerners had to help the slaveholders. This act brought an enourmous emount of resentment from northerners who had no desire to assist in the facilitation of slavery. Throughout the 1850s there was a huge amount of tension between northerners and southerners, and this tension frequently caused physical confrontations. -
Period: to
Bleeding Kansas
The Kansas Nebraska Act determined that whether those two states entered as free or slave states would be determined by popular sovereignty. This resulted in both northerners and southerners flooding into Kansas to vote, and with the two groups who disliked each other sharing the same region battles broke out. All throughout the month of May northerners and southerners fought each other in small skirmishes, and this became know as Bleeding Kansas. -
Harper's Ferry
In October of 1859 abolitionist John Brown led a group of 18 men on a raid to the federal arsenal at Harper's Ferry. The point of this raid was to obtain weapons, but also it was to demonstrate the conflict between slavery and freedom. In order to best demonstrate this the raiding party was comprised not just of whites, but of blacks and whites alike. -
First Shots Fired
President Buchanan refused to use the military to stop secession, but when the Confederacy demanded Fort Sumter Buchanan tried to find out how serious they were by sending an unarmed merchant ship bearing supplies to the fort. The ship was fired on by Confederates, and these became the first shots fired by a seceding state. These shots gave a small idea of what was to come, and Fort Sumter would later be the first fort laid seige to in the Civil War. -
South Carolina Secedes From the Union
On December 20, 1860 South Carolina became the first state to secede from the union. This secession represented a direct challenge to the government of the United States. This challenge was not immediately acted upon, but it did ignite other states to secede as well, which pushed president Abraham Lincoln to the point where he used military power to keep the states in the union. The use of this military power became the Civil War.
