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Uncle Tom's Cabin was a book written by Harriet Beecher Stowe. She used her abolitionist views and ideology to express her thoughts on slavery. Using dramatic details and images, she used this novel to express the experience of slavery. Although this furthered the growth of tension between the North and South, it was a widely popular novel. -
Bloody Kansas was a series of violent encounters between pro and anti-slavery forces along with abolitionists. These encounters followed the establishment of Kansas as its own territory in 1854 and lasted until 1859. -
The Republican Party was founded in 1854 by former Whigs members. They gathered in order to discuss the founding of the new party. They discussed the stopping of slavery across the US and the preservation of the Union. The Northerners were the ones who supported this party the most while the Southerners viewed them as a threat. -
The Kansas-Nebraska Act was the Act that repealed the Missouri Compromise. It was presented by Senator Stephen Douglas which created two new territories and promoted popular sovereignty. This Act was one of the main causes of Bleeding Kansas with those on each side of slavery attempting to sway the vote in their favor. -
The Brooks-Sumner Incident was a fight that broke out on the Senate floor between Brooks and Sumner. Brooks found Sumner attaching his postal frank to copies of his speech, "Crime Against Kansas." Brooks then proceeded to strike Sumner with his cane over his head. Sumner survived this attack but was left with lifelong conditions from it. This also elevated the tensions even more between the North and the South. -
The Election of 1856 was the election where James Buchanan, a Democrat, won against John C. Fremont, a Republican. Buchanan won with a total of 174 electoral votes. With the newly established Republican party running against the Democrats and doing well, both the North and the South were upset by this election. -
The Lecompton Constitution protected slaveholding and a bill of rights that excluded free blacks. This document was framed in Lecomption which is the capital of Kansas. This was done by pro-slavery Southerners. -
Dred Scott was a slave who traveled with his owner, Peter Blow, into free territory. Scott decided to sue which led to the Dred Scott v. John F.A. case which was taken to the Supreme Court. The Court decided that African Americans were not considered citizens of the US and that slaves who lived in free states were not to be considered free. They also ruled that the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional. This, once again, added to the growing tensions between the North and the South. -
The House Divided Speech was a speech given by Abraham Lincoln in Springfield at the Illinois Republican Convention. Lincoln spoke out about his beliefs on the decision of the Scott case and how he believed it would lead to slavery being legalized in all the states. He wanted more people to take action against slavery in order to abolish it. -
The Lincoln-Douglas Debates were a series of debates between Abraham Lincoln and Senator Stephen Douglas, from opposite parties. These debates were heavily based around the issue of slavery and the extension of it into the territories. These debates lasted until October 15, 1858. -
John Brown, an American abolitionist, led the raid on the armory in Harper's Ferry in hopes that the slave rebellion would come from it. He became a martyr for the anti-slave forces. He was hanged for the raid in Harper's Ferry. -
Harper's Ferry was a raid conducted by John Brown. Guns were seized by Brown and his men in hopes of sparking the slave rebellion. The raid lasted two days and seventeen men were killed. More tensions between the North and the South were raised, feeding into the coming Civil War. The surviving men of Brown's forces, along with himself, were charged with treason and hanged for this. -
In the Election of 1860, President Abraham Lincoln defeated John C. Breckinridge, John Bell, and Stephen Douglas. Lincoln won with the majority of both the electoral and popular votes. However, the South was threatened by Lincoln and his stance on slavery. The Southern states seceded from the Union, leading closer and closer to the Civil War. -
Lincoln's 1st Inaugural Address was his address to the nation after he was sworn in as president. He used this address to give his stance on various issues within the nation at the time. He wanted to avoid war and keep all the states in the Union. He stated he had no grounds to abolish slavery and would not interfere with slavery where it was already legal. -
The secession was when eleven of the Southern states, who were pro-slavery, separated from the Union. They decided they would create their own form of government under the laws they wanted, the Confederacy. This was done mainly for slavery and the Southern states' want to keep slavery legal.