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Harriet Beecher Stove published Uncle Tom's Cabin in 1852. The North (which consisted of abolitionists) favored the book, but the South (which consisted of slave owners) despised the book. It forced the North to unite and do something about slavery to end it, but it also caused the South to defend themselves to uphold the system of slavery. -
The Republican Party was founded in 1854 as a union that disagreed with the extension of slavery into Western territories. They fought for the rights of African Americans after the Civil War. -
The Kansas-Nebraska Act allowed the territories of Kansas and Nebraska to decide if they wanted to allow slavery or not. The Kansas-Nebraska Act sparked the conflict and divide between the Northern states (free) and the Southern states (slavery). It caused an act of violence that would later lead to the Civil War. The Act served to repeal the Missouri Compromise of 1820 which prohibited slavery north of latitude 36°30´. -
In the United States Senate, Brooks attacked Charles Summer with a walking cane, where Summer was beaten up badly, and his recovery lasted about 3 years. -
In a three-way election, Democrat James Buchanan defeated Republican nominee John C. Frémont and Know Nothing nominee Millard Fillmore. The main issue was the expansion of slavery as facilitated by the Kansas–Nebraska Act of 1854. -
The Lecompton Constitution is a pro-slavery document. If approved it would allow slavery in the state of Kansas. Both the proslavery constitutional convention and the free-state legislature claimed to have the authority to call for an election on the Lecompton Constitution. -
Dred Scott v. Sanford Case, 1846-1857. In its 1857 decision that stunned the nation, the United States Supreme Court upheld slavery in United States territories, denied the legality of black citizenship in America, and declared the Missouri Compromise to be unconstitutional. -
Lincoln and Douglas were not simply campaigning for themselves but also for their respective political parties. The main focus of these debates was slavery and its influence on American politics and society specifically the slave power, popular sovereignty, race equality, emancipation, etc. -
In his “house divided” speech, Lincoln countered that the Dred Scott decision the previous year had already opened the doors for slavery to be legal in the north, as well as all territories that the U.S. expanded into. If the U.S. wanted to be a free country, he argued, it had to act now before it was too late. -
For Southerners, John Brown was the embodiment of all their fears a white man willing to die to end slavery and the most potent symbol yet of aggressive Northern antislavery sentiment.
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The election of 1860 was one of the most pivotal presidential elections in American history. It put Abraham Lincoln against Stephen Douglas, John Breckinridge and Constitutional Union Party nominee John Bell. The main issue of the election was slavery and states’ rights. Lincoln emerged victorious and became the 16th President of the United States during a national crisis that would tear states and families apart and test Lincoln’s leadership and resolve: The Civil War. -
The South Carolina Ordinance of Secession was the first signature act that would propel the United States into civil war. -
In his inauguration speech, Lincoln extended an olive branch to the South, but also made it clear that he intended to enforce federal laws in the states that seceded. In his inaugural address, Lincoln promised not to interfere with the institution of slavery where it existed and pledged to suspend the activities of the federal government temporarily in areas of hostility. However, he also took a firm stance against secession and the seizure of federal property.