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Underground Railroad
Underground Railroad The underground railroad was a network of houses and places that abolitionists used to help slaves escape from the northern states or in Canada before the Civil War. -
Invention of Cotton Gin
Eli Whitney, a born inventor, patented the cotton gin, a machine that revolutionized the production of cotton, by speeding up the process of removing the seeds from the cotton fibers. -
Missouri Compromise
Congress passed a bill granting Missouri statehood as a slave state under the condition that slavery was to be forever prohibited in the rest of the Louisiana Purchase. -
The Liberator is Published
It was an American abolitionist newspaper founded by William Lloyd Garrison and Isaac Knapp. -
Compromise of 1850
To avert a crisis between North and South, Senator Henry Clay, introduced a series of resolutions. As part of the Compromise of 1850, the Fugitive Slave Act was amended and the slave trade in Washington, DC., was abolished. -
Uncle Tom's Cabin is Published
A novel by Harriet Beecher Stowe. The book is about life under slavery. -
Kansas-Nebraska Act
Kansas-Nebraska Act
This act allowed people in the territories of Kansas and Nebraska to decide for themselves whether or not to allow slavery within there borders. -
Brooks-Sumner Event
On May 22, 1856, Representative Preston Brooks attacked Senator Charles Sumner, an abolitionist, with a walking cane. -
Dred Scott Decision
A ruling made by the supreme court, Dred Scott, a slave, sought to be declared a free man on the basis that he had lived for a time in a "free" territory with his master. -
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Lincoln-Douglas Debates
This was a series of debates between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A.Douglas, and much of the debating concerned slavery and its extension into territories. -
Election of 1860
Election of 1860
The United States presidential election in which Abraham Lincoln defeated Southern Democrat John C. Breckinridge, Democrat Stephen A. Douglas, and Constitutional Union candidate John Bell. -
Fort Sumter is fired upon
Fort Sumter
A commander named Major Robert Anderson, surrendered the fort after Confederate guns around the harbor opened fire.
