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Missouri Compromise, 1820
Thomas Jefferson, upon hearing of this deal, “considered it at once as the knell of the Union. It is hushed indeed for the moment. But this is a reprieve only, not a final sentence. A geographical line, coinciding with a marked principle, moral and political, once conceived and held up to the angry passions of men, will never be obliterated; and every new irritation will mark it deeper and deeper.” -
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The Nullification Crisis
The nullification crisis is a political confrontation between the state of South Carolina and the federal government in 1832–33 over the former’s attempt to declare "null and void" within the state the federal Tariffs of 1828 and 1832. Settled in favor of the Federal government, SC and other Southern states were compelled to pay higher tariffs or import taxes on foreign goods they traded for cotton with Europe. -
Nat Turner's Rebellion- 1831
In August of 1831, an enslaved man named Nat Turner incited an uprising that spread through several plantations in southern Virginia. Turner and approximately seventy others killed around sixty white people. The deployment of militia infantry and artillery suppressed the rebellion after two days of terror. -
The Wilmot Proviso
a piece of legislation proposed by David Wilmot (D- PA) at the close of the Mexican-American War. If passed, the Proviso would have outlawed slavery in territory acquired by the United States as a result of the war, which included most of the Southwest and extended all the way to California. Wilmot spent two years fighting for his plan. He offered it as a rider on existing bills, and even tried to attach it to the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. All attempts failed. -
The Compromise of 1850
With national relations soured by the debate over the Wilmot Proviso, senators Henry Clay and Stephen Douglas managed to broker a shaky accord with the Compromise of 1850. The compromise admitted California as a free state and did not regulate slavery in the remainder of the Mexican cession all while strengthening the Fugitive Slave Act, a law which compelled Northerners to seize and return escaped slaves to the South. -
The New Fugitive Slave Act
The new version of the existing Fugitive Slave Act, included in the Compromise of 1850, went much further than the old law by compelling citizens to assist in capturing escapees, denying the captives the right to a jury trial, and increasing the penalty for anyone aiding their escape. It also put cases in the hands of federal commissioners who got $10 if a fugitive was returned, but only $5 if an alleged slave was determined to be a free Black American. -
Uncle Tom's Cabin, 1852
Harriet Beecher Stowe’s fictional exploration of an enslaved man's life was a cultural sensation. Northerners felt as if their eyes had been opened to the horrors of slavery, while Southerners protested that Stowe’s work was slanderous. -
Kansas-Nebraska Act, 1854
The Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 established Kansas and Nebraska as territories and set the stage for “Bleeding Kansas” by its adoption of popular sovereignty. Under popular sovereignty, it is the residents of the territories who decide by popular referendum if the state is to be a free or enslaved. Settlers from the North and the South poured into Kansas, hoping to swell the numbers on their side of the debate. Passions were enflamed and violence raged. -
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Bleeding Kansas, 1854-59
The Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 established Kansas and Nebraska as territories and set the stage for “Bleeding Kansas” by its adoption of popular sovereignty. Under popular sovereignty, it is the residents of the territories who decide by popular referendum if the state is to be a free or enslaved. Settlers from the North and the South poured into Kansas, hoping to swell the numbers on their side of the debate. Passions were enflamed and violence raged. -
The Pottawatomie Massacre
At a spot near a crossing on Pottawatomie Creek in Franklin, Kansas, abolitionist John Brown, four of his sons, and several others lured five proslavery men out of their houses with a promise that they would not be harmed, and then slashed and stabbed them with a saber and shot them in the head, according to a contemporary account of the attack. Brown’s brutality was denounced by both Northern and Southern newspapers and made both sides suspicious -
Dredd Scott vs Sanford, 1857
Dred Scott was a Virginia slave who tried to sue for his freedom in court. The case eventually rose to the level of the Supreme Court, where the justices found that, as a slave, Dred Scott was a piece of property that had none of the legal rights or recognitions afforded to a human being. The classification of slaves as mere property made the federal government’s authority to regulate the institution much more ambiguous. -
Lincoln-Douglas Debates, 1858
In 1858, Democratic Senator Stephen Douglas faced a challenge for his seat from a relatively unknown one term former congressmen and “prairie lawyer” Abraham Lincoln. In the campaign that followed Lincoln and Douglas engaged in seven public debates across the state of Illinois where they debated the most controversial issue of the antebellum era: slavery. These debates propelled Lincoln to the national spotlight and enabled his nomination for president in 1860. -
John Brown's Raid- 1859
Abolitionist John Brown supported violent action against the South to end slavery and played a major role in starting the Civil War after the Pottawatomie Massacre during Bleeding Kansas. In October 1859, he and 19 supporters, armed with “Beecher’s Bibles,” led a raid on the federal armory and arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia to capture and confiscate the arms and distribute them among local slaves. U.S. Marines, led by Col. Robert E. Lee, put down the uprising. -
The Election of Lincoln- 1860
Abraham Lincoln was elected by a considerable margin in 1860 despite not being included on many Southern ballots. As a Republican, his party’s anti-slavery outlook struck fear into many Southerners. On December 20, 1860, a little over a month after the polls closed, South Carolina seceded from the Union. Six more states followed by the spring of 1861.