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Mexican American War
April 25, 1846, it was a military intervention by the US initiated by Polk on Mexico over the annexation of Texas into the US as a slave state. -
Compromise of 1850
Henry Clay developed a compromise in September 1850 to appease both Northern and Southern regarding issues of slavery and the balance between free and slave states in the rise of annexation of new territories and the abolition movement. -
Uncle Tom's Cabin
An anti-slavery novel by author Harriet Beecher Stowe in 1852. It depicted the reality of slavery and asserted that Christian love could overcome slavery, due to her religious background. It also helped popularize the negative stereotypes about black people and their realities. -
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Bleeding Kansas
From 1854-1861, it was a series of violent civil confrontations in Kansas territory and to a lesser extent in western Missouri over legality of slavery in a proposed Kansas state. -
Kansas Nebraska Act
May 30, 1854, it was a territorial act which created Kansas and Nebraska. -
The Caning Of Summer
The Caning of Charles Sumner, or the Brooks–Sumner Affair, occurred on May 22, 1856, in the United States Senate chamber, when Representative Preston Brooks, a pro-slavery Democrat from South Carolina, used a walking cane to attack Senator Charles Sumner, an abolitionist Republican from Massachusetts. -
Dred Scott
In 1857, it was a landmark decision of the Supreme Court that held that the United States Constitution did not extend American citizenship to people of black African descent, enslaved or free; thus, they could not enjoy the rights and privileges the Constitution conferred upon American citizens. -
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Lincoln Douglas Debates
Aug 21 -Oct 15 1858 a series of seven debates between Abraham Lincoln, the Republican Party candidate for the United States Senate from Illinois, and incumbent Senator Stephen Douglas, the Democratic Party candidate over the Illinois Senate seat. -
Election of 1860
November 6, 1860, voting occurred, and Lincoln won the election in an electoral college landslide with 180 electoral votes, although he secured less than 40 percent of the popular vote. -
South Carolina Secession
South Carolina's secession was the first of many Southern states' secessions and the ultimate formation of the confederacy leading up to the war before Abraham Lincoln's inauguration in March 1861. It, in a way was a trigger in the outbreak of the war. -
The Underground Railroad
The Underground Railroad was a network of clandestine routes and safe houses established in the United States during the early- to mid-19th century maybe even before then. It was used by enslaved African Americans primarily to escape into free states and Canada. It is seen as a cause because over time more and more enslaved people were fleeing from south to north for refuge and this increased hatred and sectionalism between the northern and southern states leading up to and after the war.
