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Missouri is admitted to the Union as a slave state, Maine as a free state. Slavery is forbidden in any subsequent territories north of latitude 36°30´.
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Nat Turner leads a two-day uprising against whites, killing about 60. Militiamen crush the revolt then spend two months searching for Turner, who is eventually caught and hanged. Enraged Southerners impose harsher restrictions on their slaves.
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Southern states expel abolitionists and forbid the mailing of antislavery propaganda.
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US defeats Mexico. Defeated, Mexico yields an enormous amount of territory to the United States. Americans then wrestle with a controversial topic: Is slavery permitted in the new lands?
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Escaped slave Frederick Douglass begins publishing the North Star in Rochester, New York.
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In exchange for California’s entering the Union as a free state, northern congressmen accept a harsher Fugitive Slave Act.
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Setting aside the Missouri Compromise of 1820, Congress allows these two new territories to choose whether to allow slavery. Violent clashes erupt.
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The United States Supreme Court decides, seven to two, that blacks can never be citizens and that Congress has no authority to outlaw slavery in any territory.
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Abraham Lincoln of Illinois becomes the first Republican to win the United States Presidency.This makes the South nervous
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South Carolina secedes in December. More states follow the next year.
