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Nat Turner Rebellion
Nat Turner, was a black Virginia slave,who led the only effective, sustained slave rebellion in U.S. history. He led a group of slaves through Southampton Virginia, to fight the whites in order to gain slave freedom. However the outcome of the rebellion had led to the death of 77 blacks and beatings to hundreds of slaves, along with 55 whites killed. This rebellion had frightened those in the south, which had led them to tighten the slave codes, and restrict freedom for all blacks in the South. -
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Slavery in the South
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Congress passes Gag Rule
The United States House of Representatives adopted a series of resolutions and regulations that banned petitions calling for the Abolition of slavery. The Gag Rule was created to suppress discussion of issues involving slavery, because of the outraged number of petitions that were created to abolish slavery. The Southern representatives found the petitions as rude to the Southern slaveholders, which had caused the to create the "Gag Rule". -
Wilmot Proviso
The Wilmot Proviso was proposed by David Wilmot, stating that the territories acquired from Mexico, including California should be open to slavery. David Wilmot and other angry Northerners felt that James Polk and its policies were dominated by pro-slavery supporters of the south and therefore the purpose of the Wilmot proviso was created to voice the views of the North. -
Underground Railroad
The Underground Railroad was a secret network organized by ordinary people, farmers,and business owners who helped women, men, and children escape from slavery to freedom. There were many well-used routes stretching West through Ohio to Indiana, and Iowa. Many of the escaping slaves used these routes to get to Canada, because of the strict Fugitive Slave Acts. -
Fugitive Slave Act
This act guaranteed the right of a owner to recover an escaped slave and required citizens to helping the return of escaped fugitive slaves. Many of the northern states wanted to avoid the act and some states created "personal liberty laws", giving the right of a jury before fugitive slaves could be moved. -
Uncle Toms Cabin Published
Harriet Beecher Stowe is the author of "Uncle Toms Cabin", a novel that illustrates the evil and inhumanity of slavery. The novel not only illustrates not only the suffering and misery of the slaves, but also the way that slavery harms everyone involved in it. The strength of this novel helped readers understand the impacts and causes of slavery along with the fugitive state law. -
Kansas Nebraska Act
A law written by Stephan Douglas ad passed by congress thats divides the territory West of the state of Missouri and Iowa and the territory of Minnesota into two territories, Kansas, and Nebraska. The compromise of 1850 had demanded for popular sovereignty for the Kansas territory, and Nebraska territory. The terms of the Compromise of 1850 was to maintain the balance between the number of free and slave states admitted to the union. -
Dred Scott Case
The Dred Scott case was one of the most controversial events preceding the American Civil War. The case was brought before the court by Dred Scott a slave who had lived with his owner in a free state before returning to the Slave state of Missouri. Scott argued that his time spent in those locations entitled him to freedom of slavery. However the Court found that no black, free or slave could claim U.S. citizenship, and therefore blacks were not able to petition the court for freedom. -
Lincoln-Douglas Debates
During the Illinois senatorial race, Democratic incumbent Stephen Douglas and Republican candidate Abraham Lincoln engaged in a series of debates. Several of those debates were based off, weather slavery ought to be placed "in the course of ultimate extinction", that is, if the Wilmot Proviso should be revived and slavery should forevermore be banned from all U.S. territories. -
New Haven Address
Abraham Lincoln began his run as a possible presidential candidate in New Haven Connecticut, with his first speech that addressed the problems of slavery. In his speech he says, "we can yet afford to let [slavery] alone where it is, because that much is due to the necessity arising from its actual presence in the nation; but can we while our votes will prevent it, allow to spread into the National Territories, and to overrun us here in these free States?"
