Events Leading to the Civil War Timeline

By bhennig

  • The Missouri Crisis

    The Missouri Crisis
    The Missouri Crisis created a division over slavery that profoundly and ominously shaped sectional identities and rivalries as never before.

  • Nat Turner's Slave Revolt

    Nat Turner's Slave Revolt
    Largest and deadliest slave uprising in U.S. history. Rebel slaves killed between 55 and 65 people, in Southampton County, VA.

  • Lincoln Douglass Debates

    Lincoln Douglass Debates
    A series of seven debates between Abraham Lincoln, the Republican candidate for the United States Senate from Illinois, and incumbent Senator Stephen Douglas, the Democratic Party candidate. Focused on slavery.

  • Wilmot Proviso

    Wilmot Proviso
    Proposed an American law to ban slavery in territory by Mexico.

  • Fugitive Slave Law

    Fugitive Slave Law
    One of the most controversial elements of the 1850 compromise and heightened Northern fears of a "slave power conspiracy". It required that all escaped slaves were, upon capture, to be returned to their masters and that officials and citizens of free states had to cooperate in this law.

  • Publication of Uncle Tom's Cabin

    Publication of Uncle Tom's Cabin
    Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote Uncle Tom’s Cabin in reaction to recently tightened fugitive slave laws. The book had a major influence on the way the American public viewed slavery.