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Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln is regarded as one of America's greatest heroes due to both his incredible impact on the nation and his unique appeal. His is a remarkable story of the rise from humble beginnings to achieve the highest office in the land; then, a sudden and tragic death at a time when his country needed him most to complete the great task remaining before the nation. -
The Missouri Compromise
The Missouri Compromise created an imbalance between the number of pro/anti-slave states until the admission of Maine as an anti-slavery state. After becoming a pro-slavery state, it allowed for an imaginary to be drawn dividing the former Louisiana Territory into pro and anti-slavery divisions. This was ended after the Kansas- Nebraska Act of 1854. -
Fugitive Slave Law
The Fugitive Slave Acts were a pair of federal laws that allowed for the capture and return of runaway slaves within the territory of the United States. Enacted by Congress in 1793, the first Fugitive Slave Act authorized local governments to seize and return escaped slaves to their owners and imposed penalties on anyone who aided in their flight. -
Compromise of 1850
It consisted of laws admitting California as a free state, creating Utah and New Mexico territories with the question of slavery in each to be determined by popular sovereignty, settling a Texas-New Mexico boundary dispute in the former’s favor, ending the slave trade in Washington, D.C., and making it easier for southerners to recover fugitive slaves. -
The Kansas-Nebraska Act
By the early 1850s settlers and entrepreneurs wanted to move into the area now known as Nebraska. However, until the area was organized as a territory, settlers would not move there because they could not legally hold a claim on the land. The southern states' representatives in Congress were in no hurry to permit a Nebraska territory because the land lay north of the 36°30' parallel — where slavery had been outlawed by the Missouri Compromise of 1820. -
Dred Scott Supreme Court decision
At the heart of the case was the most important question of the 1850s: Should slavery be allowed in the West? As part of the Compromise of 1850, residents of newly created territories could decide the issue of slavery by vote, a process known as popular sovereignty. When popular sovereignty was applied in Kansas in 1854, however, violence erupted. Americans hoped that the Supreme Court could settle the issue that had eluded a congressional solution. -
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Raid on Harper’s Ferry
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 between Northern and Southern states before the American Civil War -
The Election of 1860
Abraham Lincoln beat John C. Breckinridge, Democrat Stephen A Douglas, and Constitutional Union John Bell. During Lincoln's election, the Civil War broke out and the North and South fought about Slavery. Long and short of it, Abraham Lincoln ended slavery. -
The Battle of Antietam
Generals Robert E. Lee and George McClellan faced off near Antietam creek in Sharpsburg, Maryland, in the the first battle of the American Civil War to be fought on northern soil.Though McClellan failed toutlilize his numerical superiority to crush Lee’sarmy, he was able to check the Confederate advance intothe north. Aftera string ofUnion defeats, this tacticalvictory provided Abraham Lincoln the political cover he needed to issue his Emancipation Proclamation. Though -
Emancipation Proclamation
Lincoln was convinced that abolition had become a sound military strategy, as well as the morally correct path. On September 22, soon after the Union victory at Antietam, he issued a preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, declaring that as of January 1, 1863, all slaves in the rebellious states “shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free.” -
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Battle of Gettysburg
The Battle of Gettysburg is considered the most important engagement of the Civil War. On July 1, the Confederates clashed with the Union’s Army of the Potomac, commanded by General George G. Meade, at the crossroads town of Gettysburg. Due to many casualties, General Lee was forced to withdraw from the fight.