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By Rachel_F

  • Missouri Compromise

    By 1819, there were 11 free states and 11 slave states. Missouri applied to join as a slave state. This tilt the balance against free states; the free states opposed admittance. Eventually a compromise had been made: Missouri could be admitted as a slave state if Maine was admitted as a free state; there would be no slavery in lands north of 36 30'-Louisiana Purchase land
    (except for Missouri itself)

  • Wilmot Proviso

    The Wilmot Proviso was designed to eliminate slavery within the land acquired as a result of the Mexican War (1846-48). Soon after the war began, President J.K. Polk sought the appropriation of $2 million as part of a bill to negotiate the terms of a treaty. Fearing the addition of a pro-slave territory, Pennsylvania Congressman David Wilmot proposed the bill. Although the measure was blocked in the southern-dominated Senate, it enflamed the growing controversy over slavery.

  • Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo

    The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, signed on February 2, 1848, ended the Mexican-American War in favor of the United States. The war had begun in May 1846, over a territorial dispute involving Texas. The treaty added an additional 525,000 square miles to United States territory, including the land that makes up all or parts of present-day Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming. Mexico also gave up all claims to Texas and recognized Rio Grande as US Southern boundary

  • 1850 Compromise

    Although the Wilmot Proviso failed, it aroused anxieties in both the N and the S and raised national issues concerning slavery. Many debates were over the nature(F/S) of the land gained in Mexican war: Daniel Webster, leading N Whig, wanted it free; J.C.Calhoun, S Senator wanted it slave and Henry Clay offered a compromise. California-F, Utah&New Mexico-S, no S trade in DC, stringent FSA, Texas gave up the disputed land to New Mexico and in return govt took over the $10m public debt Texas had.

  • Fugitive Slave Act

    Part of the 1850 compromise; included following elements:
    1.any federal marshal or other official who didnt arrest a fugitive slave would pay a fine and those who did would be entitled to a bonus
    2. a slave owner's claim that a slave was a fugitive is sufficient to arrest the slave
    3.if arrested, could not claim trial by jury nor legally represent themselves.(many free blacks were arrested and became slaves)

  • Uncle Tom's Cabin

    Harriet Beecher Stowe’s anti-slavery novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, was published. The novel sold 300,000 copies within three months and was so widely read that when President Abraham Lincoln met Stowe in 1862, he said, “So this is the little lady who made this big war.”. The central character was slave uncle Tom and the book exposed the crul realities of slavery; it was also turned into a play for those who did not read and this sentimental story fueled the abolitionist cause

  • Kansas-Nebraska Act

    A bill that mandated “popular sovereignty”. Proposed by Stephen A. Douglas was Lincoln’s opponent in the influential Lincoln-Douglas debates–the bill overturned the Missouri Compromise’s use of latitude as the boundary between slave and free territory. Douglas wanted railway across USA and organise new territory. Supported by President Pierce, the Act splited two political parties by the power of sectional line and led to a period of violence aka Bleeding Kansas

  • Formation of the Republican Party

    With the successful introduction of the Kansas-Nebraska Bill of 1854, an act that dissolved the terms of the Missouri Compromise and allowed slave or free status to be decided in the territories by popular sovereignty, the Whigs disintegrated. By February 1854, anti-slavery Whigs had begun meeting in the upper midwestern states to discuss the formation of a new party. One such meeting, in Wisconsin on March 20, 1854, is generally remembered as the founding meeting of the Republican Party.

  • Bleeding Kansas

    After the Kansas-Nebraska Act, proslavery and free-state settlers, a flooded into Kansas to try to influence the decision(popular sovereignty). 5724pro S votes against 791 proF votes. People with different beliefs formed their own govt(S/F). Violence soon erupted as both factions fought for control; leading to a local civil war between two govts, 200ppl died. Abolitionist John Brown led anti-slavery fighters in Kansas before his famed raid on Harpers Ferry.

  • Bleeding Sumner

    In the US Congress, Representative Preston Brooks attacked Senator Charles Sumner with a walking cane in retaliation for the speech "Crime against Kanas" given by Sumner two days earlier. The speech argued for the immediate admission of Kansa as a free state and went on to denounce the slave power. The beating drew a sharply polarized response from the American public on the subject of the expension of slavery. It has been consedered symbolic of the "break down of reasoned discourse".

  • Dred Scott Judgement

    The US Supreme Court issued a decision in the Dred Scott case, affirming the right of slave owners to take their slaves into the Western territories, thereby negating the doctrine of popular sovereignty. Dred Scott was a slave whose owner had spent time in Illinois(F), and Wisconsin, a free territory. He went to court to gain citizenship but the court decided: he was not a citizen, the original slave owners property right should be respected, and Congress had no authority to limit slavery
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    Lincoln-Douglas debates

    Historians have traditionally regarded the series of seven debates between Stephen A. Douglas and Abraham Lincoln during the 1858 Illinois state election campaign in each congressional district as among the most significant statements in American political history. At that time Lincoln was running for Senator of Illinois while Douglas was incumbent. The most important issue they discussed was slavery.

  • John Brown and Raid on Harpers Ferry

    A goup consisted of 17whites and 5blacks attacked the US army'smunitions depot in Harpers Ferry. The leader JB fighted in K-N conflict and he hoped the seizure of weapons would encourage slaves to uprise, they didnt. Brown was captured during the raid and later convicted of treason and hanged, but the raid inflamed white Southern fears of slave rebellions and increased the mounting tension between Northern and Southern states before the American Civil War

  • 1860 election

    Lincoln was the Republican candidate and received only 39 percent of the popular vote which means he had gained almost no support from the south . Lincoln was known for his debates with Douglas and he insisted on limiting the extension of slavery. Southern states threatened to secede if Republicans won the election.

  • Lincoln's inauguration

    Seven states had already seceded, and the Confederate States of America had been formally established, with Jefferson Davis as its elected president. One month later, the American Civil War began when Confederate forces under General P.G.T.