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Compromise of 1850
The compromise of 1850 was a series of 5 acts that dealt with slavery and territorial expansion issues in the North and South. This act caused a further divide between the North and South. The north did not want the Fugitive Slave Law and the south did. -
Period: to
Antebellum
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Fugitive Slave Act
This act was part of the Compromise of 1850 it increased tensions between the North and South because it made the north return the slave they had been harboring. And the 2 new states had to decide on being a free or slave state. -
Free-Soil Party
The free-soil party was to oppose the expansion of slavery into westward territories. This made southerners believe slavery was under threat by the North because the North demanded that slavery should be restrained to its current borders. -
Kansas-Nebraska Act
The Kansas-Nebraska Act was the remainder of the Louisiana Purchase territories. Voters in each state voted on whether they wanted it to be a free or a slave state. This cased bleeding Kansas. -
Bleeding Kansas
This was a period of violence during the settling of the Kansas territory. Pro slavery and antislavery activists flooded the territories to change the votes on the Kansas-Nebraska Act. -
Dred Scott Decision
Dred Scott was a slave that went to the Supreme Court against Sanford. He claimed that all black men free and enslaved, ha no rights. Scott was a free slave when his master took him to a north state, even though slavery wasn't allowed in north states, his owner could make him work anywhere because her was his property. This angered Abraham Lincoln, bringing the nation to the brink of the Civil War. -
John Brown's raid
John Brown took 20 men over the arsenal in Harper's Ferry, Virginia, to start a slave rebellion. He sent some men to go get slaves to join him, but they didn't come because they feared punishment. Local Southerners attack brown and killed 8 of his men and 3 local men. The next day Federal troops came and captured brown and his men, he received the death sentence for treason and murder. The North felt the south was no longer safe. -
Underground railroad
The underground railroad were secret routs and safe houses that enslaved African-Americans used to escape slave sates and go into free states. -
Secession of the south
Lincoln said slavery could not expand and would eventually die out. This angered many southerners because their economy and way of life would be ruined without slave labor. Many states within a week of Lincoln's election, had already seceded to form the confederate states of America. -
Election of 1860
Abraham Lincoln's victory in the presidential election of 1860 led to the secession of the southern states and the start of the civil war.