Events Leading to the Civil War Timeline

  • Compromise of 1850

    California is admitted as a free state. When United accepted California as a state they could expand its territory./ The territory of New Mexico was organized with no specific prohibition for slavery.
  • Fugitive Slave Law of 1850

    Law that required US citizens to return runaway slaves regardless of the slavery legality of state.
    Some people did not agree with that and still had to do it.
  • Kansas- Nebraska Act

    Created territories of Kansas and Nebraska and allowed settlers to choose to have slaves or not.New Republicans Party formed the “Free Soil” party.
  • Publication of Uncle Tom’s Cabin

    Best seller novel in North. Made more people in north abolitionists and made the south assume there would be a civil war.
  • Dred Scott Case

    Was a fight for freedom by a Black enslaved man named Dred Scott. The Dred Scott Decision made abolitionists mad, because of how the Supreme Court was ruling as a way to stop debate about slavery in the territories.
  • John Brown’s Raid Harpers Ferry

    Abolitionist John Brown leads a small group on a raid against a federal armory in Harpers Ferry, Virginia, to try to take over the Federal Arsenal, but failed. He was executed and that made war even serious.
  • Rise of the Republican Party

    The Republican Party grew out of opposition to the Kansas–Nebraska Act. The Party began as an anti-slavery Conscience Whigs. Later on Republican would be in power of the country during the civil war.
  • Bleeding Kansas

    A name for all the violence that occurred between abolitionists and Pro Slavery forces. Trust between North and South was gone.
  • Lincoln elected president

    Lincoln won with 39.8% of votes. Brought the republican party yo power without support of a single Southern state. As soons as he became president, So. Carolina and other states from the south declared secession.