The Nation Breaking Apart

By Shara Lapides

  • Wilmot Proviso

    This bill aimed to outlaw slavery in territories taken from Mexico. The bill passed the House of Representatives but was defeated in the Senate thus causing a division in Congress. Although, not a success it led to the formation of the Free Soil Party.
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    The Nation Breaking Apart

  • Compromise of 1850

    A series of Congressional laws intended to settle the major disagreements between free and slave states. To please the North, California would be admitted as a free state, and the slave trade would be abolished in Washington, D.C. To please the South, Congress would not pass laws regarding slavery for the rest of the terriotories won from Mexico, and Congress would pass stronger laws to help slaveholders recapture runaway slaves.

  • Kansas-Nebraska Act

    A law that established the territories of Kansas and Nebraska. It also gave their residents the right to decide whether to allow slavery. Later, it turned Kansas into a battleground over slavery.

  • "Bleeding Kansas"

    Proslavery and antislavery settlers rushinginto Kansas Territroy to vote for territorial legislature. Proslavery mob attacked Lawrence, Kansas. Civil war broke out in Kansas for three years.

  • Caning of Sumner

    Senator Charles Sumner madefun of A.P. Butler in his speech attacking the proslavery forces in Kanas. Preston Brooks defended Butler by attacing Sumner with a cane. Sumner got hit on the head morethan 30 times, while he was sitting at his desk.

  • Dred Scott v. Sandford

    A Supreme Court case in which a slave, Dred Scott, sued for his freedom. He had been taken to live in territories where slavery was illegal. The court ruled against him, because as a slave he couldn't sue the court.

  • Attack on Harpers Ferry

    John Brown attacked Harpers Ferry, Virginia to inspire slaves to fight for their freedom. Then, the U.S. Marines attacked Brown at Harpers Ferry. Brown was captured, tried, and hanged.

  • Election of 1860

    Lincoln and Douglas competed in the North. Breckenridge and Bell competed in the South. Lincoln and Breckenridge won, but Lincoln won with more votes.