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Uncle Tom's Cabin
Uncle Tom's Cabin is a anti-slavery book. The book sold over 300,000 copies. The book showed the horrible reality of slavery and increased attitudes against slavery. The Southern slave owners had to work harder to defend the institution of slavery because many people can now understand the harsh reality of slavery. -
Republican Party
A party formed by anti-slavery Whigs that began meeting in the upper Midwestern states to discuss the formation of a new party. the republicans rapidly gained followers from the North. The Southern slave states had threatened secession if Republicans won presidency. when republican Abraham Lincoln won presidency, South Carolina formally seceded from the Union. -
Kansas Nebraska Act
A act passed to let Kansas and Nebraska decide for themselves whether or not to allow slavery. The act repealed the Missouri Compromise. The act was strongly supported by the South but it angered the North because they thought the Missouri Compromise had been a long standing agreement. -
Bloody Kansas
Kansas-Nebraksa Act used the principle of popular sovereignty, which decreed that the residents would determine whether the area became a free state or a slave state. Pro slavery and free-state settlers flooded into Kansas to try to influence the decision. Violence soon erupted as both factions fought for control. Slavery and Anti-slavery forces fought for slavery or anti-slavery in the Kansas territory. -
Brooks-Sumner Incident
Senator Charles Sumner, an Abolitionist and leader of the Republican Party, gave a speech in the Senate called "The Crime Against Kansas." in which he blasted Senator Andrew P. Butler The speech went on for two days. Several days later, Butler’s cousin, Preston Brooks beats Charles Sumner with a cane in retaliation. Brooks became an instant hero in the South but He was vilified in the North and became a symbol of the stereo-typically representative of the slave power. -
Election of 1856
A three-way election, that took place in the midst of Kansas's civil war, Democrat James Buchanan defeated Republican nominee John C. Frémont and American Party nominee Millard Fillmore. The election was one of the most bitter in American history and the first in which voting divided along rigid sectional lines. -
Dred Scott v. Sandford
Dred Scott was a slave of John Emerson. Scott had been taken to Missouri. The Missouri Compromise of 1820 declared the area free. Scott sued for his freedom because he had lived in a free state.The Supreme Court ruled that Americans of African descent, whether free or slave, were not American citizens and could not sue in federal court and that Congress lacked power to ban slavery in the U.S. The case led to a hardening of antislavery attitudes and a surge in popularity Republican Party. -
House divided speech
A speech made by Abraham Lincoln warning that the nation faces a crisis that could destroy the Union. Lincoln declared that only the federal government had the power to end slavery. After Lincoln’s speech, several of his friends expressed dismay. Leonard Swett, a lawyer and friend of Lincoln’s, later wrote that Lincoln’s talk of using federal power to end slavery was “unfortunate and inappropriate,” although Swett admitted that in retrospect Lincoln was ultimately correct. -
LeCompton Constitution
The Lecompton Constitution was the second of four proposed constitutions for the state of Kansas. The document was written in response to the anti-slavery position of the 1855 Topeka Constitution of James H. Lane and other free-state advocates. The document permitted slavery, excluded free African Americans from living in Kansas, and allowed only male citizens of the United States to vote. -
Lincoln Douglas Debates
A series of seven debates between Stephen A. Douglas and Abraham Lincoln regarding the extension of slavery into the territories. The slavery extension had seemingly been put to rest by the Missouri Compromise but after the Mexican War new land had been acquired. They were debating an issue that had already divided the North and the South and the election was coming up between Douglas and Lincoln. Douglas's position angered the South and Lincoln angered the North. -
Harper's Ferry
Abolitionist John Brown leads a small group on a raid against a federal armory in Harpers Ferry, Virginia (present day West Virginia), in an attempt to start an armed slave revolt and destroy the institution of slavery. Although the raid failed, it inflamed sectional tensions and raised the stakes for the 1860 presidential election. Brown’s raid angered the south because in the south slavery was very important and Brown was trying to destroy the institution of slavery. -
John Brown
John Brown was an abolitionist who led the Harpers Ferry raid.
Despite his contributions to the antislavery cause, Brown did not emerge as a figure of major significance until 1855 after he followed five of his sons to the Kansas territory. There, he became the leader of antislavery guerrillas and fought a pro slavery attack against the antislavery town of Lawrence. The following year, in retribution for another attack. John Brown was hanged on December 2, 1859 -
Election of 1860
Republican nominee Abraham Lincoln against Democratic Party nominee Senator Stephen Douglas. The main issue of the election was slavery and states’ rights. Lincoln emerged victorious and became the 16th President of the United States. Republican party opposed the expansion of slavery, Southerners feared the republican party would lead to their demise so they threatened to leave the Union if Republican won. -
Secession
Series of events that began on December 20, 1860, and extended through June 8 of the next year when eleven states in the Lower and Upper South severed their ties with the Union. The first seven seceding states of the Lower South set up a provisional government at Montgomery, Alabama. After hostilities at Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor on April 12, 1861, the border states of Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina joined the new government. Eleven slave states seceded. -
Lincoln's 1" lnaugural Address
In Lincoln's first inaugural address, as part of his taking of the oath of office for his first term as the sixteenth President, He appealed for the preservation of the Union. To retain his support in the North without further alienating the South, he called for compromise. He promised he would not initiate force to maintain the Union or interfere with slavery in the states in which it already existed.