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Missouri Compromise
The compromise allowed Missouri to come into the Union as a slave state and Maine would be a free state. Congress drew an imaginary line across the middle of the United States running from the east coast to the Pacific Ocean. This imaginary line separated the states into free and slave states. Any new state entering the Union that was south of the line would be a slave state. Any state north of the line would enter the Union as a free state. -
Wilmot Proviso
The Wilmot Proviso, one of the major events leading to the American Civil War, would have banned slavery in any territory to be acquired from Mexico in the Mexican War or in the future, including the area later known as the Mexican Cession, but which some proponents construed to also include the disputed lands in south Texas and New Mexico east of the Rio Grande. -
California Statehood
In 1849, Californians sought statehood and, after heated debate in the U.S. Congress arising out of the slavery issue, California entered the Union as a free, nonslavery state by the Compromise of 1850. -
Fugitive Slave Law
The Fugitive Slave Law was if a slave ran away to the north, they had to be returned. -
Uncle Tom's Cabin
Uncle Tom's Cabin is an anti-slavery novel that was written by Harriet Beecher Stowe. -
Kansas-Nebraska Act
The Kansas–Nebraska Act of 1854 (10 Stat. 277) 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 -
Ostend Manifesto
The Ostend Manifesto was part of an attempt to add Cuba to the United States. -
Charles Sumner Beating
Charles Sumner gave a speech called his "Crime Against Kansas" speech. Preston Brooks disagreed with Sumner and thought he went too far so he began beating him with his cane. It took 3 years for Sumner to recover from the beating. -
John Brown invades Pottawatomie, Kansas
John Brown gathered some of his followers and invaded farms along Pottawatomie Creek, south of Kansas City, Kansas, murdering five people. -
Dred Scott Decision
In March of 1857, the United States Supreme Court, led by Chief Justice Roger B. Taney, declared that all blacks -- slaves as well as free -- were not and could never become citizens of the United States. The court also declared the 1820 Missouri Compromise unconstitutional, thus permiting slavery in all of the country's territories. -
Lincoln-Douglas Debates
The Lincoln–Douglas Debates of 1858 were a series of seven debates between Abraham Lincoln, the Republican candidate for Senate in Illinois, and the incumbent Senator Stephen Douglas, the Democratic Party candidate. -
Harper's Ferry Raid
Brown, now 59 years old, staged his final and most daring raid, an assault on the federal armory in Harpers Ferry, Virginia. -
Abraham Lincoln elected President of United States
Abraham Lincoln is elected the 16th president of the United States over a deeply divided Democratic Party, becoming the first Republican to win the presidency. -
South Carolina Secedes
Four days after the election, the legislature in South Carolina, the undisputed leading agitator for secession and the home of John C. Calhoun, became the first of the Southern congresses to call for a convention to consider secession. -
Fort Sumner Attack
On April 12, Confederate batteries opened fire on the fort, which was unable to reply effectively.The bombardment of Fort Sumter was the opening engagement of the American Civil War. -
Raid on Lawrence, Kansas
The Rasid on Lawrence, Kansas was a rebel guerrilla attack during the U.S. Civil War by Quantrill's Raiders, led by William Clarke Quantrill, on the pro-Union town of Lawrence, Kansas.
