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William Lloyd Garrison Publishes The Liberator
For the entire generation of people that grew up in the years that led to the Civil War, WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON was the voice of Abolitionism. Originally a supporter of colonization, Garrison changed his position and became the leader of the emerging anti-slavery movement. His publication, THE LIBERATOR, reached thousands of individuals worldwide. -
Nat Turner Slave Revolt
Nat Turner's Rebellion (also known as the Southampton Insurrection) was a slave rebellion that took place in Southampton County, Virginia, in August 1831, led by Nat Turner. Rebel slaves killed from 55 to 65 people, at least 51 being white. The rebellion was put down within a few days, but Turner survived in hiding for more than two months afterwards. The rebellion was effectively suppressed at Belmont Plantation on the morning of August 23, 1831. -
American Anti-Slavery Society Begins
The American Anti-Slavery Society (AASS; 1833–1870) was an abolitionist society founded by William Lloyd Garrison and Arthur Tappan. Frederick Douglass, an escaped slave, was a key leader of this society who often spoke at its meetings. William Wells Brown was also a freed slave who often spoke at meetings. -
Sarah Grimke's Letters on the Equality of the Sexes and the Condition of Women published
Sarah Grimké began as an advocate for the immediate abolition of slavery. Soon she found herself defending women’s rights as well in order to advance her primary cause. In her Letters on the Equality of the Sexes, and the Condition of Woman of 1838, (initally published as a series of letters in a newspaper) Sarah Grimké responded to Catharine Beecher’s defense of the subordinate role of women. She was particularly concerned to attack two of Beecher’s arguments. -
Henry Highland Garnet's "Address to the Slaves of the United States of America"
In Buffalo, New York, Henry Highland Garnet gave his famous "An Address to the Slaves of the United States." He called for the slaves of the South to refuse to work, to approach their masters and demand their freedom, and to resist their oppressors with force if necessary. -
Women's Rights Convention at Seneca Falls
The Seneca Falls Convention was the first women’s rights convention in the United States. Held in July 1848 in Seneca Falls, New York, the meeting launched the women’s suffrage movement, which more than seven decades later ensured women the right to vote. -
Harriett Tubman Escapes from Slavery
In 1849, following a bout of illness and the death of her owner, Harriet Tubman decided to escape slavery in Maryland for Philadelphia. She feared that her family would be further severed and was concerned for her own fate as a sickly slave of low economic value. -
Compromise of 1850
Senator Henry Clay introduced a series of resolutions on January 29, 1850, in an attempt to seek a compromise and avert a crisis between North and South. As part of the Compromise of 1850, the Fugitive Slave Act was amended and the slave trade in Washington, D.C., was abolished. -
Fugitive Slave Act
The Fugitive Slave Act or Fugitive Slave Law was passed by the United States Congress on September 18, 1850, as part of the Compromise of 1850 between Southern slave-holding interests and Northern Free-Soilers. -
Sojourner Truth Delivered her "Ain't I a Woman" Speech
"Ain't I a Woman?" is the name given to a speech, delivered extemporaneously, by Sojourner Truth, (1797–1883), born into slavery in New York State. Some time after gaining her freedom in 1827, she became a well known anti-slavery speaker. Her speech was delivered at the Women's Convention in Akron, Ohio, on May 29, 1851, and did not originally have a title. -
Bleeding Kansas
Bleeding Kansas, Bloody Kansas or the Border War was a series of violent civil confrontations in the United States between 1854 and 1861 which emerged from a political and ideological debate over the legality of slavery in the proposed state of Kansas. -
Kansas-Nebraska Act
The Kansas-Nebraska Act was passed by the U.S. Congress on May 30, 1854. It allowed people in the territories of Kansas and Nebraska to decide for themselves whether or not to allow slavery within their borders. The Act served to repeal the Missouri Compromise of 1820 which prohibited slavery north of latitude 36°30´. -
Republican Party Founded
By February 1854, anti-slavery Whigs had begun meeting in the upper midwestern states to discuss the formation of a new party. One such meeting, in Wisconsin on March 20, 1854, is generally remembered as the founding meeting of the Republican Party. -
Dred Scott Decision
On this day in 1857, the United States Supreme Court issues a decision in the Dred Scott case, affirming the right of slave owners to take their slaves into the Western territories, therebynegating the doctrine of popular sovereignty and severely undermining the platform of the newly created Republican Party. -
Lecompton Constitution
Lecompton Constitution, (1857), instrument framed in Lecompton, Kan., by Southern pro-slavery advocates of Kansas statehood. It contained clauses protecting slaveholding and a bill of rights excluding free blacks, and it added to the frictions leading up to the U.S. Civil War. -
Panic of 1857
The Panic of 1857 was a financial panic in the United States caused by the declining international economy and over-expansion of the domestic economy. Because of the interconnectedness of the world economy by the 1850s, the financial crisis that began in late 1857 was the first worldwide economic crisis. -
Lincoln-Douglas Debates
Lincoln-Douglas debates, series of seven debates between the Democratic senator Stephen A. Douglas and Republican challenger Abraham Lincoln during the 1858 Illinois senatorial campaign, largely concerning the issue of slavery extension into the territories. -
John Brown's Raid on Harper's Ferry
John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry (also known as John Brown's raid or The raid on Harpers Ferry) was an effort by abolitionist John Brown to initiate an armed slave revolt in 1859 by taking over a United States arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia. Brown's party of 22 was defeated by a company of U.S. Marines, led by First Lieutenant Israel Greene. Colonel Robert E. Lee was in overall command of the operation to retake the arsenal. -
Democratic Party Splits into Northern and Southern Halves
The Democratic Party became so divided that they ran two candidates in the election of 1860: Northern Democrats nominated Stephen Douglas, while southern Democrats nominated John Breckinridge. This split the Democratic ticket in half, giving the Republicans, who nominated Abraham Lincoln, a huge advantage. -
South Carolina Secedes from the Union
The convention then adjourned to Charleston to draft an ordinance of secession. When the ordinance was adopted on December 20, 1860, South Carolina became the first slave state in the south to declare that it had seceded from the United States. -
Abraham Lincoln Elected President
On November 6, 1860, Lincoln was elected the 16th president of the United States, beating Douglas, Breckinridge, and Bell. He was the first president from the Republican Party. -
Confederate States of America Founded
In February 1861, representatives from the six seceded states met in Montgomery, Alabama, to formally establish a unified government, which they named the Confederate States of America. On February 9, Jefferson Davis of Mississippi was elected the Confederacy's first president. -
Firing on Fort Sumter
Battle of Fort Sumter, (April 12–14, 1861), the opening engagement of the American Civil War, at the entrance to the harbour of Charleston, South Carolina. Although Fort Sumter held no strategic value to the North—it was unfinished and its guns faced the sea rather than Confederate shore batteries—it held enormous value as a symbol of the Union. -
Harriet Beecher Stowe Published Uncle Tom's Cabin
Harriet Beecher Stowe’s anti-slavery novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, is published. The novel sold 300,000 copies within three months and was so widely read that when President Abraham Lincoln met Stowe in 1862, he reportedly said, “So this is the little lady who made this big war.” -
Battle of Antietam
The Battle of Antietam, also called the Battle of Sharpsburg, occurred September 17, 1862, at Antietam Creek near Sharpsburg, Maryland. It pitted Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia against Union General George McClellan’s Army of the Potomac and was the culmination of Lee’s attempt to invade the north. The battle’s outcome would be vital to shaping America’s future, and it remains the deadliest one-day battle in all American military history. -
Emancipation Proclamation
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President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, as the nation approached its third year of bloody civil war. The proclamation declared "that all persons held as slaves" within the rebellious states "are, and henceforward shall be free." -
Battle of Gettysburg
The Battle of Gettysburg, fought from July 1 to July 3, 1863, is considered the most important engagement of the American Civil War. After a great victory over Union forces at Chancellorsville, General Robert E. Lee marched his Army of Northern Virginia into Pennsylvania in late June 1863. -
General U.S. Grant Assumed Command of Union Troops
On this day in 1864, President Abraham Lincoln signs a brief document officially promoting then-Major General Ulysses S. Grant to the rank of lieutenant general of the U.S. Army, tasking the future president with the job of leading all Union troops against the Confederate Army. -
Sherman’s March to the Sea
From November 15 until December 21, 1864, Union General William T. Sherman led some 60,000 soldiers on a 285-mile march from Atlanta to Savannah, Georgia. The purpose of Sherman’s March to the Sea was to frighten Georgia’s civilian population into abandoning the Confederate cause. Sherman’s soldiers did not destroy any of the towns in their path, but they stole food and livestock and burned the houses and barns of people who tried to fight back. -
Abraham Lincoln Reelected
The 1864 election was the first time since 1812 that a presidential election took place during a war. For much of 1864, Lincoln himself believed he had little chance of being re-elected. ... Because of this, McClellan was thought to be a heavy favorite to win the election. -
Freedman’s Bureau Established
The Freedmen’s Bureau, formally known as the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands, was established in 1865 by Congress to help millions of former black slaves and poor whites in the South in the aftermath of the Civil War. The Freedmen’s Bureau provided food, housing and medical aid, established schools and offered legal assistance. -
Lincoln Assassination
Assassination of Abraham Lincoln, murderous attack on Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president of the United States, at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C., on the evening of April 14, 1865. Shot in the head by Confederate sympathizer John Wilkes Booth, Lincoln died the next morning. -
Gettysburg Address
On June 1, 1865, Senator Charles Sumner referred to the most famous speech ever given by President Abraham Lincoln. In his eulogy on the slain president, he called the Gettysburg Address a "monumental act." He said Lincoln was mistaken that "the world will little note, nor long remember what we say here." Rather, the Bostonian remarked, "The world noted at once what he said, and will never cease to remember it. The battle itself was less important than the speech." -
Congress Passed the 13 th Amendment
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The Thirteenth Amendment (Amendment XIII) to the United States Constitution abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime. In Congress, it was passed by the Senate on April 8, 1864, and by the House on January 31, 1865. -
Andrew Johnson Became President
Andrew Johnson (December 29, 1808 – July 31, 1875) was the 17th president of the United States, serving from 1865 to 1869. Johnson assumed the presidency as he was vice president of the United States at the time of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. -
Johnson Announced Plans for Presidential Reconstruction
In 1865 President Andrew Johnson implemented a plan of Reconstruction that gave the white South a free hand in regulating the transition from slavery to freedom and offered no role to blacks in the politics of the South. -
Ku Klux Klan formed
Six Confederate veterans from Pulaski, Tennessee created the original Ku Klux Klan on December 24, 1865, during the Reconstruction of the South after the Civil War. The name was formed by combining the Greek kyklos (κύκλος, circle) with clan. The group was known for a short time as the "Kuklux Clan". -
Lee Surrendered to Grant at Appomattox Court House
On April 9, 1865, near the town of Appomattox Court House, Virginia, Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered his Army of Northern Virginia to Union General Ulysses S. Grant. Days earlier, Lee had abandoned the Confederate capital of Richmond and the city of Petersburg; his goal was to rally the remnants of his beleaguered troops, meet Confederate reinforcements in North Carolina and resume fighting. -
Arrival of Scalawags and Carpetbaggers in the South
The term “carpetbaggers” refers to Northerners who moved to the South after the Civil War, during Reconstruction. Many carpetbaggers were said to have moved South for their own financial and political gains. Scalawags were white Southerners who cooperated politically with black freedmen and Northern newcomers. -
Civil Rights Act Passed over Johnson’s Veto
Congress overrides veto to enact civil rights bill, April 9, 1866. A Republican-dominated Congress enacted a landmark Civil Rights Act on this day in 1866, overriding a veto by President Andrew Johnson. The law's chief thrust was to offer protection to slaves freed in the aftermath of the Civil War. -
First Congressional Reconstruction Act passed
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Reconstruction Acts, U.S. legislation enacted in 1867–68 that outlined the conditions under which the Southern states would be readmitted to the Union following the American Civil War (1861–65). The bills were largely written by the Radical Republicans in the U.S. Congress. -
Creation of the Radical Republicans
The leading Radicals in Congress were Thaddeus Stevens in the House and Charles Sumner in the Senate. Grant was elected as a Republican in 1868 and after the election he generally sided with the Radicals on Reconstruction policies and signed the Civil Rights Act of 1871 into law. -
14th Amendment Ratified
On July 28, 1868, the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified. The amendment grants citizenship to "all persons born or naturalized in the United States" which included former slaves who had just been freed after the Civil War. -
Andrew Johnson Impeached
On February 24, 1868 three days after Johnson's dismissal of Stanton, the House of Representatives voted 126 to 47 (with 17 members not voting) in favor of a resolution to impeach the President for high crimes and misdemeanors. ... One week later, the House adopted eleven articles of impeachment against the President. -
U.S. Grant Elected President
As an American hero, Grant was later elected the 18th President of the United States (1869–1877), working to implement Congressional Reconstruction and to remove the vestiges of slavery. ... He was, as the symbol of Union victory during the Civil War, their logical candidate for President in 1868. -
15th Amendment Ratified
Passed by Congress February 26, 1869, and ratified February 3, 1870, the 15th amendment granted African American men the right to vote. -
Slaughterhouse Cases (Supreme Court)
The Slaughter-House Cases, 83 U.S. (16 Wall.) 36 (1873), was the first United States Supreme Court interpretation of the U.S. Constitution's Fourteenth Amendment which had recently been enacted. ... In effect, the amendment was interpreted to convey limited protection pertinent to a small minority of rights. -
Period of “Redemption” after the Civil War
White Democratic Southerners saw themselves as redeeming the South by regaining power. They appealed to scalawags (white Southerners who supported the Republican Party after the Civil War and during the Reconstruction Era. -
U.S. v. Cruikshank
United States v. Cruikshank, 92 U.S. 542 (1876), was an important United States Supreme Court decision in United States constitutional law, one of the earliest to deal with the application of the Bill of Rights to state governments following the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment -
Compromise of 1877
The Compromise of 1877 was an informal, unwritten deal, that settled the intensely disputed 1876 U.S. presidential election. It resulted in the United States federal government pulling the last troops out of the South, and formally ended the Reconstruction Era.
