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Period: to
Leading up to the Civil War
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John Brown
Advocated the use of armed insurrection to overthrow the institution of slavery in the United States. ... He intended to arm slaves with weapons from the arsenal, but only a small number of local slaves joined his revolt. -
Angelina Grimké
An American abolitionist, political activist, women's rights advocate, and supporter of the women's suffrage movement. She and her sister Sarah Moore Grimké are the only white Southern women who became abolitionists. -
William Lloyd Garrison
He started an abolitionist paper, The Liberator. In 1832, he helped form the New England Anti-Slavery Society. When the Civil War broke out, he continued to blast the Constitution as a pro-slavery document. When the civil war ended, he, at last, saw the abolition of slavery. -
Abraham Lincoln
His Emancipation Proclamation freed about 20,000 of slaves in Confederate-held territory, and established emancipation as a Union war goal. In 1865, Lincoln was instrumental in the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment, which made slavery unconstitutional. -
Harriet Beecher Stowe
Best known for her novel Uncle Tom's Cabin, which played a significant role in accelerating the movement to abolish slavery in the United States. The book originally was a serial in the anti-slavery newspaper The National Era in 1851. -
Stephen Douglas
A U.S. politician, leader of the Democratic Party, and orator who espoused the cause of popular sovereignty in relation to the issue of slavery in the territories before the American Civil War. -
Frederick Douglass
Abolitionist leader Frederick Douglass was born into slavery sometime around 1818 in Talbot County, Maryland. He became one of the most famous intellectuals of his time, advising presidents and lecturing to thousands on a range of causes, including women's rights and Irish home rule. -
Missouri Compromise
A settlement of a dispute between slave and free states, contained in several laws passed during 1820 and 1821. ... The Missouri Compromise admitted Missouri as a slave state and Maine as a free state. -
Mexican-American War
The Mexican-American War was a conflict between the United States and Mexico, fought from April 1846 to February 1848. ... It stemmed from the annexation of the Republic of Texas by the U.S. in 1845 and from a dispute over whether Texas ended at the Nueces River (the Mexican claim) or the Rio Grande (the U.S. claim). -
Compromise of 1850
A set of laws, passed in the midst of fierce wrangling between groups favoring slavery and groups opposing it, that attempted to give something to both sides. -
Kansas/Nebraska Act
It allowed people in the territories of Kansas and Nebraska to decide for themselves whether or not to allow slavery within their borders. The Act served to repeal the Missouri Compromise of 1820 which prohibited slavery north of latitude 36°30´. -
Dred Scott Case
A US Supreme Court decision in 1857 that a slave was not a citizen and could not begin a legal case against anyone. Dred Scott was a slave who wanted a court to say he was free because his owner took him to a free state. The Supreme Court also decided that Congress had no power to prevent slavery in new states. -
Raid on Harper's Ferry
Abolitionist John Brown leads a small group on a raid against a federal armory in Harpers Ferry, Virginia (now West Virginia), in an attempt to start an armed slave revolt and destroy the institution of slavery. ... One of Brown's sons was killed in the fighting.