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President Taylor dies
President Taylor dies on July 9 and is succeeded by Vice President Millard Fillmore. Although he is a New Yorker, Fillmore is more inclined to compromise with or even support Southern interests -
Henry Clay
Henry Clay proposes the Compromise of 1850 to handle California's petition for admission to the union as a free state and Texas's demand for land in New Mexico -
Sherman Booth Arrested
Abolitionist editor Sherman Booth was arrested for violating the Fugitive Slave Act when he helped incite a mob to rescue an escaped slave -
Eli Thayer
Eli Thayer forms the New England Emigrant Aid Society to encourage settlement of Kansas by persons opposed to slavery -
Anthony Burns
Anthony Burns is a fugitive slave from Virginia and is arrested by federal agents in Boston. Abolitionists attack the court house and kill a deputy marshal in an unsuccessful attempt to free Burns -
John Browns son kills pro slavery men
John Brown, an abolitionist born in Connecticut, and his sons kill five pro-slavery men from Pottawatomie Creek in retaliation for the Sacking of Lawrence. -
Lawerence Kansas Burned down
Missouri Ruffians and local pro-slavery men sack and burn the anti-slavery town of Lawrence, Kansas -
Depression
In August, a short economic depression, the Panic of 1857, arises, mainly in large northern cities, as a result of speculation in and inflated values of railroad stocks and real estate -
Lincoln
Lincoln gives his Cooper Institute speech against the spread of slaver