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Fugitive slave law
Under the law alleged fugitives were not entitled to a trial by jury, despite the Sixth Amendment trial provision calling for a jury. -
Wilmot Proviso
Designed to eliminate slavery as a result of the Mexican war (1846-48) -
The 31st Congress of 1849
After the war with Mexico, it rocked the 31st Congress. Mexico’s massive land cession to the United States made a major sectional crisis over slavery in the new territory (Fugitive slave act). -
The compromise of 1850
Henry Clay introduced resolutions as an attempt to seek a compromise and avert a crisis between North and South. he Fugitive Slave Act was amended and the slave trade in Washington, D.C., was abolished. -
Harriet Tubman
Harriet Tubman escaped slavery to become a leading abolitionist. She led enslaved people to freedom along the route of the Underground Railroad. -
Uncle Tom's Cabin
Harriet Beecher Stowe's best novel, Uncle Tom's Cabin changed forever how Americans viewed slavery, the system that treated people as property. -
The Kansas Nebraska Act
The Kansas-Nebrask Act was an 1854 bill that mandated “popular sovereignty”–allowing settlers of a territory to decide whether slavery would be allowed within a new state’s borders. -
Bleeding Kansas
The Border War or Bleeding Kansas was a series of violent political problems in the U.S. involving anti-slavery Free-Staters and pro-slavery "Border Ruffian" elements, that took place in the Kansas Territory and Missouri. -
The Beating of Senator Charles Sumner
a member of the House of Representatives entered the Senate chamber and savagely beat a senator into unconsciousness. this heppened because charles asked the senate if kansas should be a free state or a dlave state. -
The Dred Scott Decision
A landmark decision by the U.S. Supreme Court in which the Court held that African Americans, whether enslaved or free, could not be American citizens -
Harpers Ferry
An attempt by the white abolitionist John Brown to start an armed slave revolt in 1859 by seizing a United States arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia. -
Election of 1860
Ws the 19th quadrennial presidential election. -
South Carolina Secedes from the Union 1860
a secession convention meeting in Charleston, South Carolina, unanimously adopted an ordinance dissolving the connection between South Carolina and the United States of America.