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California was admitted as a free state.
A Stricter Fugitive Slave Act was passed. -
It said that all fugitive slaves must be returned to their masters.
Any person who was caught giving shelter, food, or protection to a runaway slave could be subject to up to six months in prison.
The North felt this was expanding the power and reach of slavery.
Congress made it illegal to even assist a fugitive slave -
Harriet Beecher Stowe writes a book depicting the hard life of slaves, generating sympathy for the abolistionist movement -
This act allowed the people to decide if they wanted their state to be free or a slave state. Kansas with slavery would've violated the Missouri Compromise.
Kansas is torn in half between pro-slave/pro-abolition groups becoming "Bleeding Kansas." -
Supreme Court ruled that Dred Scott was property and not a citizen and had no right to sue.
The ruling declared that the Missouri Compromise prohibiting slavery in the Northern territories was unconstitutional. -
John Brown led a group of abolitionists to attack the weapons arsenal at Harper's Ferry in hopes to lead a slave revolt. It failed and Brown is later hanged, becoming a martyr for the North. -
Lincoln was the only candidate against slavery, when he was elected it ripped the country in two. The south then seceded from the United States. -
Fort Sumter was a federal fort in South Carolina which was attacked by the South. The Union tried to resupply it but eventually the Fort had to surrender. The North then commissioned 75,000 volunteers beginning the war.