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Underground Railroad
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underground_Railroad](http:// Underground railroad)The Underground Railroad was a network of secret routesand safe havens used by the 19th century enslaved people of African descent in the United States in order to escape to free states and Canada with the aids of abolitionists and allies who were sympathetic to their cause. -
Missouri Compromise
[Missouri Compromise](www.history.com/topics/missouri-compromise)
The Missouri Compromise was an effort by congress to defuse the sectional and political rivalries triggered by the request of Missouri late in 1819 for admission as a state in which slavery would be permitted. At the time, the United States contained twenty-two states, evenly divided between slave and free. -
Tariff of 1828 & Nullification Crisis
Tariff
The Tariff of 1828 was a tariff that was passed by Congress to protect Industry in the North. In the South Carolina state election of 1832, attention focused on the issue of nullification, the concept that a state could ignore or refuse to apply federal laws. Those in support of nullification were gaining momentum and were well organized by the time of the elections. -
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Wilmot Proviso
Wilmot Proviso
The Wilmot Proviso was designed to eliminate slavery within the land required as a result of the Mexican war. Soon after the war began, President James K. Polk sought the appropriation of $2 million as a part of a bill to negotiate the terms of the treaty. -
Compromise pf 1850
The Compromise of 1850 was a package of five separate bills passed by the United States Congress in September 1850, which defused a four-year political confrontation between slave and free states regarding the status of territories acquired during the Mexican-American War -
Uncle Tom's Cabin is Published
"...the enslaving of the African race is a clear violation of the great law which commands us to love our neighbor as ourselves" Uncle Tom's Cabin changed forever how Americans viewed slavery, the system that treated people as property. It demanded that the United States deliver on the promise of freedom and equality, galvanized the abolition movement and contributed to the outbreak of the Civil War. -
Kansas- Nebraska Act
The Kansas-Nebraska act of 1854 created the trritories of Nebraska and Kansas, opening new lands for settlement, and had the effect of repealing the Missouri Compromise of 1820 by allowing white male settlers in those territories to determine through popular sovereignty whether the would allow slavery within each territory. -
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'Bleeding Kansas'
Bleeding Kansas, Bloody Kansas or the Border War was a series of violent political confrontations in the United States involving anti-slavery Free-Staters and pro-slavery "Border Ruffian" elements, that took place in the Kansas Territory and the neighboring towns of the state of Missouri between 1854 and 1861. -
Dred Scott Decision
Dred Scott v. Sandford, was a landmark decision by the U.S. Supreme Court in which the Court held that African Americans, whether enslaved or free, could not be American citizens and therefore had no standing to sue in federal court,and that the federal government had no power to regulate slavery in the federal territories acquired after the creation of the United States. Dred Scott, an enslaved African American man who had been taken by his owners to free states. -
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Lincoln-Douglas Debate.
The Debates The Lincoln-Douglas debates were a series of formal political debates between Abraham Lincoln, and the incumbent, Stephen A. Douglas, in a campaign for one of Illinois' two United States Senate seats. Although Lincoln lost the election, these debates launched him into national prominence which eventually led to his election as President of the United States. -
John Brown's Raid on Harper's Ferry
John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry was an attempt by the white abolitionist John Brown to start an armed slave revolt in 1859 by seizing a United States arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia -
Secession of the Southern States
Within three months of Lincoln's election, seven states had seceded from the Union. Just as Springfield, Illinois celebrated the election of its favorite son to the Presidency on November 7, so did Charleston, South Carolina, which did not cast a single vote for him. It knew that the election meant the formation of a new nation. The Charleston Mercury said, "The tea has been thrown overboard, the revolution of 1860 has been initiated." -
The Election of 1860
The central issue of the election was slavery. The presidential election was held on November 6, 1860. Lincoln did very well in the northern states, and though he garnered less than 40 percent of the popular vote nationwide, he won a landslide victory in the electoral college. Even if the Democratic Party had not fractured, it is likely Lincoln still would have won due to his strength in states heavy with electoral votes. Lincoln did not carry any southern states.
