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The Missouri Compromise
Permitted Missouri to enter the union as a slave state and Maine as free. The 36'30' line would now be utilized to determine whether slavery would be permissable in specific territories. This compromise was effective until 1850. -
Compromise of 1850
(Series of laws) Permitted California to enter the union as a free state. Determined the Mexican cession to split into the Utah and New Mexico territories, leaving the issue of slavery to popular sovereignity. Slavery was terminated in Washington D.C. Strict fugitive slave laws were passed. Border problems between New Mexico and Texas were resolved. -
Fugitive Slave Law
This law was part of the compromise of 1850. It was a law that required citizens to catch runaway slaves. If a person did not comply, they could be fined up to $1000 or put in jail for six months. Judges received $10 if they returned a slave and $5 if they freed them. Many blacks who were free were captured and sent back into slavery. Northerners hated this law because it forced them to become a part of the system of slavery. -
Uncle Tom's Cabin
This was a novel written by Harriet Beecher Stowe (The Greatest Book of the Age). It was written to show the evils of slavery by telling the story of an older slave who was whipped to death by his owner. After reading it, many Northerners began to change their view of slavery. Southerners said the book was full of lies. -
Kansas-Nebraska Act
Signed to divide lands into Kansas and Nebraska territories. Thid decided that the slavery issue would be decided by popular sovereignty. This led to violence in the Senate. Pro-slavery and Anti-slavery settlers in one area and causes conflict. Northerners believe this repels the Missouri Compromise. -
Pottawatomie Creek Killings
Also know as the Pottawatomie Massacre, the radical abolitionist John Brown, five of his sons, and three other associates murdered five pro-slavery men at three different cabins along the banks of Pottawatomie Creek, near present-day Lane, Kansas. The Pottawatomie Massacre and the other attacks that marked “Bleeding Kansas” are considered by many historians to have been the opening shots of the Civil War. -
Dred Scott Decision
Dred Scott was a slave. He had lived in a free territory with his owner. His owner moved back into a slave state. While there, the owner died. Scott had abolitionist attorneys file a law suit for him.•It went to the Supreme Court but he lost. The Court ruled he was not a citizen, but rather property and therefore he could not file a lawsuit. -
Lincoln-Douglas Debate
Debate between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas. Douglas believed in deciding slavery by popular sovereignty. Lincoln believed that slavery should NOT be allowed to spread into the territories.
Lincoln ALSO believed the Nation could not survive if the fighting continued to rip the Union apart with the slavery issue. -
Raid on Harpers Ferry
On the evening of October 16, 1859 John Brown, a staunch abolitionist, and a group of his supporters left their farmhouse hide-out en route to Harpers Ferry. Brown and his men captured prominent citizens and seized the federal armory and arsenal. Brown hoped that the local slave population would join in and that weapons would be supplied. US Marines under Colonel Robert E. Lee arrived and stormed the engine house, killing many of the raiders and capturing Brown. -
Election of 1860
United States presidential election was the 19th quadrennial presidential election, held on November 6, 1860
