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Missouri Compromise
The Missouri Compromise was an effort by Congress to defuse the sectional and political rivalries triggered by the request of Missouri late in 1819 for admission as a state in which slavery would be permitted. At the time, the United States contained twenty-two states, evenly divided between slave and free. -
Wilmot Proviso
The Wilmot Proviso was designed to eliminate slavery within the land acquired as a result of the Mexican War (1846-48). Soon after the war began, President James K. Polk sought the appropriation of $2 million as part of a bill to negotiate the terms of a treaty. Decreased slavery expasion -
California Gold Rush
Miners extracted more than 750,000 pounds of gold during the California Gold Rush. Just days after Marshall's discovery at Sutter's Mill, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was signed, ending the Mexican-American War and leaving California in the hands of the United States. The California Gold Rush was the largest mass migration in American history since it brought about 300,000 people to California. It all started on January 24, 1848, It increased Slavery. -
Mexican War
Texas gained its independence from Mexico in 1836. Initially, the United States declined to incorporate it into the union, largely because northern political interests were against the addition of a new slave state. The Mexican government was also encouraging border raids and warning that any attempt at annexation would lead to war. Free blacks and mulattoes were forbidden from entering Texas, which had once been a safe haven for runaways. It Decreased expansion of slavery. -
Compromise of 1850
Political agreement that allowed California to be admitted as a free state by allowing popular sovereignty in the territories and enacting a stricter fugitive slave law. It increased tensions with slavery. California was admitted to the Union as the 16th free state. In exchange, the south was guaranteed that no federal restrictions on slavery would be placed on Utah or New Mexico. -
Fugitive Slave Law
Fugitive Slave law: that required all citizens to aid in apprehending runaway slaves. The Fugitive Slave Law or Fugitive Slave Act was passed by the United States Congress on September 18, 1850, as part of the Compromise of 1850 between Southern slave-holding interests and Northern Free-Soilers, antislavery political party of the mid 1800s. Signed into law by President Millard Fillmore. This increased slavery tension because they were being stricter and more aggressive than they already were. -
Uncle Tom’s Cabin is published
Harriet Beecher Stowe's best known novel, Uncle Tom's Cabin, changed forever how Americans viewed slavery, the system that treated people as property. Harriet Beecher Stowe's anti-slavery novel, Uncle Tom's Cabin, is published. The novel sold 300,000 copies within three months and was so widely read that when President Abraham Lincoln met Stowe in 1862, he reportedly said, “So this is the little lady who made this big war.” -
Republican Party Forms
By February 1854, anti-slavery Whigs had begun meeting in the upper midwestern states to discuss the formation of a new party. One such meeting, in Wisconsin on March 20, 1854, is generally remembered as the founding meeting of the Republican Party. -
Kansas-Nebraska Act
The Kansas-Nebraska Act was passed by the U.S. Congress on May 30, 1854. It allowed people in the territories of Kansas and Nebraska to decide for themselves whether or not to allow slavery within their borders. The Act served to repeal the Missouri Compromise of 1820 which prohibited slavery north of latitude 36°30´. -
“Bleeding Kansas”
Bleeding Kansas, Bloody Kansas or the Border War was a series of violent political confrontations in the United States involving anti-slavery "Free-Staters" and pro-slavery "Border Ruffian", or "southern yankees" elements in Kansas between 1854 and 1861, including "Bleeding Congress" -
Dred Scott vs. Sandford
In Dred Scott v. Sandford, the Supreme Court ruled that Americans of African descent, whether free or slave, were not American citizens and could not sue in federal court. The Court also ruled that Congress lacked power to ban slavery in the U.S. territories. End date: 1857, The controversy began in 1833, when Dr. John Emerson, a surgeon with the U.S. Army, purchased Dred Scott, a slave, and eventually moved Scott to a base in the Wisconsin Territory. Increased Slavery Expansion -
Charles Sumner caned in the Senate
Caning of Charles Sumner. Representative Preston Brooks brutally beat Senator Charles Sumner after Sumner gave a fiery speech attacking slavery and its practitioners. -
John Brown’s Raid at Harper’s Ferry
On October 1859, the U.S. military arsenal at Harper's Ferry was the target of an assault by an armed band of abolitionists led by John Brown. The raid was intended to be the first stage in an elaborate plan to establish an independent stronghold of freed slaves in the mountains of Maryland and Virginia. Brown was captured during the raid and later convicted of treason and hanged but the raid inflamed white Southern fears of slave rebellions and increased the mounting tension South and North. -
Southern states begin to secede
Southern slave states wanted slavery in the new territories so that those territories would eventually become slave states and send pro-slavery Senators and Representatives to Congress. When Abraham Lincoln won the 1860 presidential election, running on a platform that opposed slavery in the territories, Southern states began seceding from the Union. Lincoln did not call for the immediate abolition of slavery, but Southern states feared that his policies would lead to abolition in the future. -
Abraham Lincoln elected President
On November 6, 1860, Lincoln was elected the 16th president of the United States, beating Democrat Stephen A. Douglas, John C. Breckinridge of the Southern Democrats, and John Bell of the new Constitutional Union Party. He was the first president from the Republican Party. -
Fort Sumter
On April 12, 1861, General P.G.T. Beauregard, in command of the Confederate forces around Charleston Harbor, opened fire on the Union garrison holding Fort Sumter. At 2:30pm on April 13 Major Robert Anderson, garrison commander, surrendered the fort and was evacuated the next day.
