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A set of laws meant to ease tensions between slave and free states. It included the Fugitive Slave Act, which angered abolitionists in the North.
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Harriet Beecher Stowe’s book exposed the cruelty of slavery and helped grow the abolitionist movement.
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Allowed settlers to vote on whether they wanted slavery, leading to violence in “Bleeding Kansas.”
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A new party was formed to oppose the expansion of slavery into the western territories.
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Pro-slavery and anti-slavery settlers fought in Kansas. The town of Lawrence was attacked, showing how violent the debate over slavery had become.
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Senator Charles Sumner was attacked on the Senate floor after speaking out against slavery.
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The Supreme Court ruled that African Americans were not citizens and that Congress couldn’t stop slavery in the territories. This made many Northerners angry.
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Lincoln said the U.S. couldn’t survive half slave and half free. He believed slavery would either spread or end completely.
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Lincoln won the presidency. Southern states saw this as a threat to slavery and began to secede from the Union.