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Missouri Compromise
In the years leading up to the Missouri Compromise of 1820, tensions began to rise between pro-slavery and anti-slavery factions within the U.S. Congress and across the country. They reached a boiling point after Missouri’s 1819 request for admission to the Union as a slave state, which threatened to upset the delicate balance between slave states and free states. To keep the peace, Congress orchestrated a two-part compromise, granting Missouri’s request but also admitting Maine as a free state. -
“54-40 or Fight”
In 1818, the United States and the United Kingdom (controlling British Canada) established a joint claim over the Oregon Territory - the region west of the Rocky Mountains and between 42° North and 54°40' North (the southern boundary of Russia's Alaska territory). -
Texas Annexation
The Annexation of Texas, the Mexican-American War, and the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo, 1845-1848
During his tenure, U.S. President James K. Polk oversaw the greatest territorial expansion of the United States to date. Polk accomplished this through the annexation of Texas in 1845, the negotiation of the Oregon Treaty with Great Britain in 1846, and the conclusion of the Mexican-American War in 1848, which ended with the signing and ratification of the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo in 1848. -
Wilmot Proviso
1846, amendment to a bill put before the U.S. House of Representatives during the Mexican War; it provided an appropriation of $2 million to enable President Polk to negotiate a territorial settlement with Mexico. David Wilmot introduced an amendment to the bill stipulating that none of the territory acquired in the Mexican War should be open to slavery. The amended bill was passed in the House, but the Senate adjourned without voting on it. In the next session of Congress (1847), a new bill pr -
Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidago
The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ended the U.S.-Mexican War. Signed on 2 February 1848, it is the oldest treaty still in force between the United States and Mexico. As a result of the treaty, the United States acquired more than 500,000 square miles of valuable territory and emerged as a world power in the late nineteenth century. -
Compromise of 1850
The Compromise of 1850 was a series of five bills that were intended to stave off sectional strife. Its goal was to deal with the spread of slavery to territories in order to keep northern and southern interests in balance.
1.California was entered as a free state.
2.New Mexico and Utah were each allowed to use popular sovereignty to decide the issue of slavery. In other words, the people would pick whether the states would be free or slave.
3.The Republic of Texas gave up lands that it claime -
Uncle Toms Cabin
Uncle Tom's Cabin was initially released in serial format in the National Era, a weekly newspaper, from June 5, 1851-April 1, 1852.
Uncle Tom's Cabin Historic Site commemorates the life of Rev. Josiah Henson (1796-1883). Recognized for his contributions to the abolition movement and his work in the Underground Railroad, Henson rose to international fame after Harriet Beecher Stowe acknowledged his memoirs as a source for her anti-slavery novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Henson's dramatic experiences i -
Gadson Purchase
The Gadsden Purchase, or Treaty, was an agreement between the United States and Mexico, finalized in 1854, in which the United States agreed to pay Mexico $10 million for a 29,670 square mile portion of Mexico that later became part of Arizona and New Mexico. Gadsden’s Purchase provided the land necessary for a southern transcontinental railroad and attempted to resolve conflicts that lingered after the Mexican-American War. -
Republican Party founded
In Ripon, Wisconsin, former members of the Whig Party meet to establish a new party to oppose the spread of slavery into the western territories. The Whig Party, which was formed in 1834 to oppose the "tyranny" of President Andrew Jackson, had shown itself incapable of coping with the national crisis over slavery. With the successful introduction of the Kansas-Nebraska Bill of 1854, an act that dissolved the terms of the Missouri Compromise and allowed slave or free status to be decided in the -
Kansas/Nebraska Act
bill that became law on May 30, 1854, by which the U.S. Congress established the territories of Kansas and Nebraska. By 1854 the organization of the vast Platte and Kansas river countries W of Iowa and Missouri was overdue. As an isolated issue territorial organization of this area was no problem. It was, however, irrevocably bound to the bitter sectional controversy over the extension of slavery into the territories and was further complicated by conflict over the location of the projected tra -
Brooks-Sumner incident
Massachusetts was an avowed Abolitionist and leader of the Republican Party. After the sack of Lawrence, on May 21, 1856, he gave a bitter speech in the Senate called "The Crime Against Kansas." He blasted the "murderous robbers from Missouri," calling them "hirelings, picked from the drunken spew and vomit of an uneasy civilization." Part of this oratory was a bitter, personal tirade against South Carolina's Senator Andrew Butler. Sumner declared Butler an imbecile and said, "Senator Butler has -
Harper’s Ferry Raid
John Brown was a driven man, an abolitionist who was relentless in his opposition to slavery. Ultimately, he justified violence as a means to realize what he considered the most noble of goals – the destruction of slavery. Like his Calvinist father before him, Brown considered slavery a moral blight. But unlike many other white abolitionists, Brown mixed easily with African Americans, prompting Frederick Douglass, the most famous 19th century black abolitionist, to write that: -
Election of 1860
The central issue of the presidential election of 1860 was bound to be slavery. Battles over the spread of slavery to new territories and states had gripped the United States throughout the 1850s, and were especially intensified by the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854. -
Firing on Fort Sumter
On April 10, 1861, Brig. Gen. Beauregard, in command of the provisional Confederate forces at Charleston, South Carolina, demanded the surrender of the Union garrison of Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor. Garrison commander Anderson refused. On April 12, Confederate batteries opened fire on the fort, which was unable to reply effectively. At 2:30 p.m., April 13, Major Anderson surrendered Fort Sumter, evacuating the garrison on the following day. The bombardment of Fort Sumter was the opening en -
First Battle of Bull Run
On July 21, 1861 the First Battle of Bull Run occurred. It was the first real major conflict of the American Civil War. A Union army, consisting of 28,000 men, commanded by General McDowell, fought 33,000 Confederates under General Beauregard. The Union army, under pressure to crush the rebellion in the South, marched towards Richmond, but met the Confederate forces coming north from Manassas, a Southern base. -
Monitor v. Merrimac
On March 8, 1862, from her berth at Norfolk, the Confederate ironclad Virginia steamed into Hampton Roads where she sank Cumberland and ran Congress aground. Fortunately for the Union, on March 9, the ironclad Monitor arrived to do battle, initiated the first engagement of ironclads in history. The two ships fought each other to a standstill, but Virginia retired. -
Battle of Antietam
SHARPSBURG, MARYLAND—September 17, 1862 dawned with two armies poised for battle near the small Maryland town of Sharpsburg, near Antietam Creek. The combatants, Americans all, would fight and die en masse. Before the sun set more American soldiers would die there than on any other day in any other place in the nation’s history. Such are the consequences when neighbors, friends, and relatives divide in a great civil war. -
Battle of Gettysburg
Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee concentrated his army around Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, upon the approach of Union Gen. George G. Meade’s forces. On July 1, Confederates drove Union defenders through Gettysburg to Cemetery Hill. The next day Lee struck the flanks of the Union line resulting in severe fighting at Devil's Den, Little Round Top, the Wheatfield, Peach Orchard, Culp’s Hill and East Cemetery Hill. Southerners gained ground but failed to dislodge the Union host. On the morning of July 3r -
Sherman’s March
Sherman's March to the Sea is the name commonly given to the Savannah Campaign conducted through Georgia from November 15, 1864 to December 21, 1864 by Maj. Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman of the Union Army in the American Civil War -
Appomattox Court House
Early on April 9, the remnants of John Brown Gordon’s corps and Fitzhugh Lee’s cavalry formed line of battle at Appomattox Court House. Gen. Robert E. Lee determined to make one last attempt to escape the closing Union pincers and reach his supplies at Lynchburg. At dawn the Confederates advanced, initially gaining ground against Sheridan’s cavalry. The arrival of Union infantry, however, stopped the advance in its tracks. Lee’s army was now surrounded on three sides. Lee surrendered to Grant on
