1850-1861

By malloryl0338

  • Uncle toms cabin

    Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel about slave
    life dramatically portrayed the plight of slaves attempting to run to freedom. The book became a best seller in the north and fuel at book burning parties in the South. It weakened Britain’s sympathy for the southern cause,

  • Kansas Nebraska act

    -proposed by Stephen Douglas, a northern Democrat
    from Illinois as a way of gaining southern support for a northern transcontinental railroad to connect Illinois
    and California.
    -act called for the repeal of the Missouri Compromise,
    and the opening of the Kansas and Nebraska territories based on popular sovereignty.

  • Republican party

    -united in opposing the kansas-nebraska act and in keeping slavery out of the territories
    popular in the North
    grew out of response to slavery- Whig Party split
    -protective tariffs
    -free homesteads from public lands
    -moderate view on slavery- wanted to soften view as the party of abolitionists

  • Bleeding Kansas

    with the future of the Kansas territory open to a vote, pro- and anti-slavery settlers began moving to Kansas to be a part of the vote.
    On the day of the vote, pro-slavery "border ruffians" from Missouri crossed the border and illegally voted in the territorial election, resulting in the election of a pro-slavery government with its capital in Lecompton, Kansas.Over the next two years, a miniature civil war broke out in Kansas, and fighting between the two groups resulted in hundreds of deaths

  • Sumner brooks incident

    • just days before Brown's attack on Pottawatomie, Senator Charles Sumner was severely beaten with an 11 ounce cane by Congressman Preston Brooks on the floor of the US Senate. -Congressman Preston Brooks on the floor of the US Senate. Brooks was infuriated by disparaging comments Sumner had made about his uncle (a South Carolina senator), the south, and slavery. -Brooks resigned from the House of Representatives but was reelected overwhelmingly.

  • Election of 1856

    Both of the parties met up again and they Whig party disintegrating over the slavery issue, did not offer a candidate of its own. The three people were John C. Fremont, James Buchanan and Millard Fillmore.

  • John brown

    violent abolitionist who murdered slaveholders in Kansas and Missouri (1856-1858) before his raid at Harpers Ferry (1859), hoping to incite a slave rebellion; he failed and was executed, but his martyrdom by northern abolitionists frightened the South., Fierce opponent of slavery who led a raid that killed five proslavery people

  • Dred Scott

    A black slave, had lived with his master for 5 years in Illinois and Wisconsin Territory. Backed by interested abolitionists, he sued for freedom on the basis of his long residence on free soil. The ruling on the case was that He was a black slave and not a citizen, so he had no rights. He died a free slave.

  • Lecompton constitution

    Kansas had enough people to apply for statehood, and those for slavery devised the Lecompton Constitution, which provided that the people were only allowed to vote for the constitution "with slavery" or "without slavery." If the constitution was passed "without slavery," then those slaveholders already in the state would still be protected. So the slaveholders couldn't lose. Angry free soilers boycotted the polls and Kansas approved the constitution with slavery.

  • Lincoln Douglas debates

    Slavery is the issue debated by both candidates; Douglas wanted slavery determined by popular sovereignty and Lincoln accepted slavery where it currently was but did not want it to expand into the new territories

  • House divided speech

    The House Divided Speech was an address given by Abraham Lincoln (who would later become President of the United States) on June 16, 1858, at what was then the Illinois State Capitol in Springfield, upon accepting the Illinois Republican Party's nomination as that state's United States senator. The speech became the launching point for his unsuccessful campaign for the Senate seat held by Stephen A. Douglas; this campaign would climax with the Lincoln-Douglas debates of 1858.

  • Harpers ferry

    • one of the final events leading to the break up of the Union -Brown's plan was to seize the Federal arsenal, take the weapons, and lead a slave revolt in Virginia
    • plan ill-conceived and Brown and his band of followers was captured
    • convinced many southerners that all northerners were all stark-raving made lunatics bent on destroying the south.

  • Election of 1860

    For southerners, the election confirmed their belief that they had no political voice in the Union
    -Although Lincoln promised not to interfere with slavery, South Carolina seceded from the Union a month after the election
    -by February 1861, the Confederate States of America had formed with seven southern states; 4 states (VA, NC, TN, ARK) were still teetering on the verge of secession, while the Union feared that Kentucky, Missouri, and Maryland might secede as well.

  • Secession

    Southern politicians said the U.S. Constitution was an agreement & since states voluntarily joined the union, they could secede. The northerners said this was illegal. In 1860 SC seceded because they felt threatened by Abraham Lincoln. they thought he would abolish slavery & they didn't want him to.

  • Lincoln’s 1st inaugural speech

    Lincoln's last ditch effort to prevent secession by the South. Promises that he will not abolish slavery where it currently exists and emphasizes the illegality of secession. Stated that "no state can lawfully get out of the Union".