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The Compromise of 1850
The Compromise of 1850 was a package of five bills, passed in September 1850, which defused a four-year confrontation between the slave states of the South and the free states of the North regarding the status of territories acquired during the Mexican-American War (1846–1848). -
Publication of Uncle Tom's Cabin
Uncle Tom's Cabin; or, Life Among the Lowly is an anti-slavery novel by American author Harriet Beecher Stowe. Published in 1852, the novel "helped lay the groundwork for the Civil War", according to Will Kaufman. Uncle Tom's Cabin was the best-selling novel of the 19th century and the second best-selling book of that century, following the Bible. -
Bleeding Kansas
Bleeding Kansas, Bloody Kansas or the Border War, was a series of violent political confrontations involving anti-slavery Free-Staters and pro-slavery "Border Ruffian" elements, that took place in the Kansas Territory and the neighboring towns of Missouri between 1854 and 1861. -
Kansas Nebraska Act
The Kansas–Nebraska Act of 1854 created the territories of Kansas and Nebraska, opening new lands for settlement, and had the effect of repealing the Missouri Compromise of 1820 by allowing settlers in those territories to determine through Popular Sovereignty whether they would allow slavery within each territory. The bill was reported to the main body of the senate on January 4, 1854. The bill had been significantly modified by Douglas, who had also authored the New Mexico and Utah territorial -
The Sumner-Brooks Affair
Without any warning Brooks walked into the senate and brutally attacked Sumner and started to beat him with a cane and stopped only because it broke.
Preston Brooks resigned from the House but was almost immediately returned to office by his South Carolina constituents, who viewed his actions as those of a hero.
All because Sumner opposed slavery. -
Dred Scott Decision
After failing to purchase the freedom of his family and himself, and with the help of abolitionist legal advisers Scott decided to sue his "owner" Emerson for his freedom But, in June 1847, Scott's suit was dismissed on a technicality
At the end of 1847 the judge granted Scott a new trial to no avail. Scortt sued Sandford for his freedom and the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the slave states. -
Election of 1860
The United States presidential election of 1860 was a quadrennial election held on November 6, 1860. This was the election that decided the outcome of how America regarded slavery.
