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When Missouri sought admission to the Union in 1819, it proposed a state constitution that would protect slavery. The balance was there already, but if Missouri became a slave state it would trow off the balance between the free and slave states.
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In 1820, the Missouri Compromise was worked out and gained congressional approval, in part because of statesman Henry Clay's support. Missouri was to be admitted as a slave state. Maine would enter the Union as a free state. Preserving the balance between the free states and slave states.
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Nat Turner's violent revolt of 1831in Virginia, together with scores of uprisings, made slaveowners fear there own slaves.
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William Lloyd Garrison helped found the American Antislavery Society. This new group worked to spread the abolition movement across the nation through the mails, lectures, and petitions to Congress.
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Texas was a part of Mexico, although many American settlers lived there. These settlers considered themselves Americans, not Mexicans, and declared their independence in 1836.
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In the 1842 Prigg Decision, the Supreme Court relieved Northern law officals of the responsibility of catching runaway slaves. Southerners were furious. As many as 1000 slaves escaped each year. Slaveholders needed a stronger federal law to regain their "property."
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In 1845, however, Congress bowed to Southern pressure and alowed annexation.
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When Emerson died in 1846, Scott was determined to gain freedom. Some White friends helped Scott find a lawyer, and the slave sued for his freedom in the courts.
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By May 1846, Mexico and the United States were engaged in battle. President James Polk believed wholeheartedly that American settlers should expand westward.
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The South had won a legislative victory. But the voting along rigid geographical lines, told another story, that of a nation where hopes seemed lost.
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The Mexican-American war lasted until 1848, ending in an American victory. During these two years the United States aquired vast territories. The new U.S. land included areas that today make up California, Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, Nevada, and parts of Colorado.
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Should the lands won from Mexico be open to slavery? By 1850, this question paralyzed national politics. Southerners said yes; they wanted more land for cotton cultivation. Northerners said no; their free labor system could not compete with slave labor in the South.
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The Compromise of 1850 offered the admission of California as a free state. It also ended on public sales in Washington D.C.
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The novel that stirred the country was Uncle Tom's Cabin. Within a year, readers had bought over 300000 copies. This helped bring a peaceful end to slavery.
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Frederick Douglass introduced the Nebraska Bill in 1854 to organize a territorial government, which could then open the ways to lay down railroad tracks. Congress passed the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854.
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The Federal Government spent almost $100000 to return just one fugitive slave, Anthony Burns, from Boston.
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By 1855, the majority of settlers in Kansas were from the North. Popular sovereinty, it seemed, would surely make Kansas a free state.
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Seven-hundred proslavery men from Missouri and Kansas attacked Lawrence. They burnt down the hotel and destroyed two newspaper offices.
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The legislature called for a constitutional convention to make Kansas a slave state. The convention meeting held at Lecompton, wrote a proslavery constitution.
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Frederick Douglass had a lot more political experience than Abraham Lincoln, but Republicans still chose Abraham Lincoln as their candidate.
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Southern rebel forces fired on a federal outpost, Fort Sumpter, in the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina.
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Antislavery forces did more than protect and rescue runaway slaves. In fact, they helped many slaves escape. The Underground Railroad guided some 100000 fugitive slaves to freedom between 1780 and 1865.
