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John Brown
John Brown (May 9, 1800 – December 2, 1859) was an American abolitionist. Brown advocated the use of armed insurrection to overthrow the institution of slavery in the United States. He first gained national attention when he led small groups of volunteers during the Bleeding Kansas crisis of 1856. -
Angelina Emily Grimké Weld
Angelina Emily Grimké Weld (February 20, 1805 – October 26, 1879) was 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. -
Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln, byname Honest Abe, the Rail-Splitter, or the Great Emancipator, (born February 12, 1809, near Hodgenville, Kentucky, U.S.—died April 15, 1865, Washington, D.C.), 16th president of the United States (1861–65), who preserved the Union during the American Civil War and brought about the emancipation of the slaves. -
Harriet Elisabeth Beecher Stowe
Harriet Elisabeth Beecher Stowe (/stoʊ/; June 14, 1811 – July 1, 1896) was an American abolitionist and author. She came from the Beecher family, a famous religious family, and is best known for her novel Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852), which depicts the harsh conditions for enslaved African Americans. -
Stephen Douglas
Stephen A. Douglas (1813-1861) was 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 (1861-1865). -
Frederick Douglas
Frederick Douglass, original name Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey, (born February? 1818, Tuckahoe, Maryland, U.S.—died February 20, 1895, Washington, D.C.), African American who was one of the most eminent human rights leaders of the 19th century. -
Missouri Compromise
The Missouri Compromise was United States federal legislation that admitted Maine to the United States as a free state, simultaneously with Missouri as a slave state—thus maintaining the balance of power between North and South in the United States Senate. -
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Mexican-American War
Mexican-American War, was a war between the United States and Mexico stemming from the United States’ annexation of Texas in 1845 and from a dispute over whether Texas ended at the Nueces River or the Rio Grande. The war—in which U.S. forces were consistently victorious—resulted in the United States’ acquisition of more than 500,000 square miles of Mexican territory extending westward from the Rio Grande to the Pacific Ocean. -
Compromise of 1850
The Compromise of 1850 was a package of five separate bills passed by the United States Congress in September 1850 that defused a political confrontation between slave and free states on the status of territories acquired in the Mexican–American War. -
kKansas/nNebraska Act
The Kansas-Nebraska Act was passed by the U.S. Congress on May 30, 1854. 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
The Dred Scott decision was the Supreme Court's ruling on March 6, 1857, that having lived in a free state and territory did not entitle a slave, Dred Scott, to his freedom. In essence, the decision argued that as a slave Scott was not a citizen and could not sue in a federal court. -
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Raid on Harpers Ferry
John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry (also known as John Brown's raid or The raid on Harpers Ferry) was an effort by white abolitionist John Brown to start an armed slave revolt in 1859. He attacked and captured the United States arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia. -
William Lloyd Garrison
William Lloyd Garrison, (born December 10, 1805, Newburyport, Massachusetts, U.S.—died May 24, 1879, New York, New York), American journalistic crusader who published a newspaper, The Liberator (1831–65), and helped lead the successful abolitionist campaign against slavery in the United States.