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The Missouri Compromise banned slavery North of a latitude line that ran through the Louisiana Purchase. The legislation admitted Missouri as a slave state and Missouri as a non-slave state around the exact same time. This was to not upset the balance between slave and free states in the nation. The court proclaimed the Missouri Compromise to be unconstitutional. Saying the congress didn't have the authority to abolish slavery in the territories.
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Wilmot Proviso was an unsuccessful proposal in 1846. It was to ban slavery in territory acquired from Mexico in the Mexican-American war. This event fueled North-South tensions around the argument of slavery. It pushed the whole country closer to the Civil War. In the end, the house passed Wilmot's Proviso several times, but it would never become a law.
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The Compromise of 1850 was to settle several issues connected to slavery and turn away the threat of dissolution of the Union. The acts called for California as a free state. The remainder of the Mexican cession was divided into the two territories of New Mexico and Utah and created without mention of slavery. The claims of Texas went to a portion of New Mexico, the Fugitive Slave Act, and buying and selling slaves was abolished in D.C.
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Uncle Tom's Cabin is an anti-slavery novel by Harriet Beecher Stowe. Uncle Tom's Cabin focuses on the struggles of a slave, Tom, who has been sold numerous times and has to endure physical brutality by slave drivers and his masters. Stowe's honesty on the controversial subject of slavery encouraged others to speak out, further destroying the already precarious relations between northern and southern states and advancing the nation's march toward Civil War.
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Settlers flooded into Kansas from the North. It was a series of violent civil confrontations in Kansas Territory, between 1854 and 1859. Three distinct political groups occupied Kansas: pro-slavery, Free-Staters, and abolitionists. Violence broke out until 1861 when Kansas entered the Union as a free state on January 29. Bleeding Kansas foreshadowed the violence that would follow over the future of slavery during the Civil War.
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The Kansas-Nebraska Act was an act that created the territories of Kansas and Nebraska. It was drafted by Democratic Senator Stephen A. Douglas. It was then passed by the 33rd United States Congress and signed into law by President Franklin Pierce. The act revoked the Missouri Compromise and made two new territories. The controversial bill raised the possibility that slavery could be extended into territories where it had once been banned.
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The U.S. Supreme Court stated that enslaved people were not citizens of the United States. As a result, they wouldn't receive any protection from the federal government or court. The Dred Scott decision infuriated abolitionists who viewed the court's ruling as a way to silence debate about slavery in the territories. Scott argued that when a slave stays in a free state, freedom is entitled to them and cannot be revoked if they return to a slave state.
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This event was an attempt made by abolitionist John Brown and his followers from October 16th to October 18th. The attempt was to seize the federal arsenal in Virginia. Their goal was to arm the slaves and create a slave rebellion. Ultimately, the raid was unsuccessful, and John was captured, and later on, he was executed. The event further sparked conflict between the South and North leading up to the Civil War.
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The election of 1860 was the presidential election where Abraham Lincoln, a Republican candidate who disagreed with the expansion of slavery. He eventually won the 4-way contest and he was presumed to be a factor in succession. The South saw Lincoln as a threat to slavery and thought he had too much power since he was viewed as a Northerner who wanted to abolish slavery. It then caused 7 southern states to secede and form the Confederate states of America.
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The Crittenden Compromise was an unsuccessful proposal to permanently put slavery in the United States Constitution, and thereby make it unconstitutional for future congresses to end slavery. This was an unsuccessful effort to avert the Civil War during the winter of 1860-1861. Lincoln opposed the Crittenden Compromise, which would have allowed slavery to expand westward