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Missouri Compromise
Missouri requested to be admitted as a slave state. This upset the balance of free and slave states. To keep the peace, Missouri was admitted as a slave state and Maine was admitted as a free state. -
Wilmot Proviso
Designed to eliminate slavery within the land acquired from the Mexican american war. Blocked in the Senate, it inflamed the growing controversy over slavery and formed the Republican Party in 1854 -
Mexican American War
War waged between the US and Mexico to fulfill America’s manifest destiny and expand US territory. -
Compromise of 1850
Admit CA as a free state, create UT and NM and allow those settled there to decide if they're a slave state or not, Give the land in dispute between TX and NM to new territories in return for fed gov't assuming the TX public debt of $10 mil, Ban slave trade in DC but permit whites to hold slaves, Adopt a new Fugitive Slave Law and enforce it rigorously -
Fugitive Slave Law
Persuaded many southerners to accept the loss of CA. Resisted by antislavery Northerners. Purpose was to track down runaway slaves who had escaped to a Northern state, capture them, and return them to their Southern owners. -
Uncle Tom's Cabin
Novel about the conflict between and enslaved man named Tom and the brutal white slave owner Simon Legree. By Harriet Beecher Stowe -
"Bleeding Kansas"
Charles Sumner Attacked - May 22, 1856
Proslavery forces attacked the free soil town of Lawrence, killing two and destroying homes and businesses. -
Kansas Nebraska Act (Popular Sovereignty)
Lewis Cass proposed that instead of Congress deciding whether to allow slavery in a new western territory or state, the matter should be determined by vote of the people settled in the territory -
Dred Scott v. Sandford
Scott had been held in slavery in MO then taken to WI where he lived for 2 years before returning to MO. He argued that his residence on free soil made him a free man however it was ruled that he was considered property & the MO compromise was unconstitutional. -
LeCompton Constitution
Wanted to admit Kansas as a slave state. Congress rejected it -
Lincoln-Douglas Debates
Lincoln and Douglas competed for Senator of IL. Douglas won -
John Brown's Raid on Harpers Ferry
John Brown led an attack on Harpers Ferry. The plan was to use guns from the arsenal. Fed troops led by Robert E. Lee captured Brown and his band after a 2 day siege -
Election of 1860
Tested if the Union could survive -
Crittenden Compromise
John Crittenden proposed a constitutional amendment that would guarantee the right to hold slaves slaves in all territories south of the 36 30 -
SC Secedes from the Union
SC voted unanimously to secede. GA, FL, AL, MS, LA, TX soon followed six weeks later -
Attack on Ft. Sumter
First shots fired of the Civil War
