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Mexican American War
The United States and Mexico could not agree on the borderbetween them. The U.S claimed that the Mexican soldiers crossed over the border line, and they attacked some of the American soldiers. -
Compromise of 1850
The compromise of 1850 was 5 bills, passed in September of 1850, which started a confrontation between slave states of the South and free states of the North about the status of territories gained during the Mexican-American war. -
Publication of uncle Tom's cabin
A novel made by Harriet Beecher Stowe. Written to change the way Americans thought about slavery. It demanded that all people should be free and equal in America -
Kansas-Nebraska Act
The Kansas-Nebraska Act took back the missouri compromise and let slavery North of the 36"30' line -
Bleeding Kansas
Kansas territory was the site of much violence over whether the territory would be free or slave. The Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 set the scene by allowing the territory of Kansas to decide for itself whether it would be free or slave state. -
Brooks/Sumner Affair (violence in congress)
ardent abolitionist Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts delivered a two-day speech entitled The Crime Against Kansas. He described excesses that occurred there and the South’s complicity in them -
Dred Scott Desicion
Scott, sued his new owner, John Sanford of New York, for damages, alleging physical abuse. A federal court ruled that Scott was a citizen. But the Supreme Court ruled otherwise. Chief Justice Roger Taney, in an 1857 plurality opinion, said that African-Americans could never become United States citizens and that the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional. -
John Brown's Raid
John Brown dedicated his life to the abolishment of slavery. He was convicted of treason and hung after an attempt to take over an arsenal in Virginia in order to arm slaves with weapons -
Election of 1860
The presidential election of 1860 was one of the most pivotal in U.S. history. The nation was in the grips of a national schism over the issue of slavery, and the results of this election accelerated that schism
