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Missouri Compromise
In 1820 Senator Henry Clay persuaded congress to adopt the Missouri compromise. It permitted Maine to be admitted to the Union as a free state and Missouri to be admitted as a slave state. In addition, it provided the Louisiana territory north of the southern border of Missouri would be free of slavery. It gave southern slave owners a clear right to pursue escaped fugitives into free regions. It was a threat to national unity and split the nation in two. -
The Wilmot Proviso
Fearing that the South would gain too much power, in 1846 Representative David Wilmot of PA proposed that Congress ban slavery in all territory that might become part of the US. As a result of the Mexican-American War. This proposal was called the Wilmot Proviso. The provision was passed to the Representatives, but it failed in the Senate. Although it never became law, it aroused great concern in the South. Many supporters of slavery viewed it as an attack on slavery by the North. -
Compromise 1850
In September 1850 congress finally passed five bills based on Clay's proposals. President Zachary Taylor had opposed the compromise. The new president Millard Fillmore supported the compromise and signed it into law. It was designed to end the crisis by giving both sides what they wanted. California was admitted to the Union as a free state. It banned the slave trade in the Nation's capital. Popular sovereignty would be used to decide slavery in the rest of the Mexican Cession . -
Fugitive Slave Act
The Fugitive Slave Act allowed special government officials to arrest a person accused of being a runaway slave. Suspects had no right to a trial to prove that they had been falsely accused. All that was required to deprive them of their freedom was for a slaveholder or any white witness to swear that the suspect was on the slaveholder's property. Northerns were outraged. Cities banned together to resist the Fugitive Slave Law. -
Uncle Toms Cabin
One northern deeply affected by the Fugitive Slave Act was Harriet Beecher Stowe. The daughter of an abolitionist minister. Stowe had met many people who had escaped from slavery. She decided to write Uncle Tom's Cabin to tell the whole nation what being accused of slavery was. It shocked thousands of people in the North, As a result of the reader became more than just a political conflict about slavery. It was a human, moral problem. Southerners were outraged and called it propaganda, -
Kansas Nebraska Act/Bleeding Kansas.
Stephen Douglas suggested forming a Kansa and Nebraska territory which would lay in areas of free territories. To get southern support that he proposed deciding by popular sovereignty. In 1852, the Kansa-Nebraska act passed congress and left the citizens of the territory to decide whether free or slave. Thousands of Missourians entered Kansa to legally vote Kansas only had 3,000 voters but 8,000 voted it led to two governments and growing violence. -
The Derd Scott Decision
In March 1857, the U.S. Supreme Court delivered a shattering blow to antislavery forces. Dred Scott was an enslaved person who had once been owned by the U.S. Army doctor. The doctor and Scott lived for a time in Illinois and in the Wisconsin Territory. Slavery was illegal in both places. After leaving the army, the doctor settled with Scott in Missouri. With the help of antislavery lawyers, Scott sued for his freedom. Chief Justice Roger B, Taney wrote a decision that Scott was not a free man. -
Lincoln Douglas Debate
In 1858, Illinois Republicans chose Lincoln to run for the Senate against Douglas. Accepting the nomination Lincoln made a stirring speech in favor of the union. He said that a house divided can not stand. Lincoln took a stand against the spread of slavery. He challenged Douglas to s series of debates. Douglas was an Illinois Senator who strongly defended public souvereognty. Douglas won the Senate election. Two years later, they were rivals again for the presidency. -
John Brown's Raid
In 1859 Brown and a small band of supporters attacked the town of Harpers Ferry in Virginia. His goal was to seize guns the U.S.Army had stored there. He thought that the enslaved people would support him. So he gave the people weapons and lead them to revolt. Troops commanded by Robert E. Lee surrounded Browns forced before they could escape. Brown was wounded and captured. They hanged Brown for treason on December 2nd. The North praised him for trying to lead a slave revolt. -
Lincoln's Election of 1860
The Republicans chose Abraham Lincoln as their presidential candidate. . Southern Democrats wanted the party to support slavery in the territories. The party was split into two. Northern Democrats chose Steven Douglas as their candidate. Southern Democrats picked Vice President John Breckinridge of Kentucky. Lincoln only won 40 percent of the popular vote but enough electoral votes to win. -
Southerns Secession
When Lincoln was elected, It seemed that the south no longer had a voice in the national government and the president and congress for aginst their interest especially slavery South Carolina called for a special convention and passed a declaration that the union was now subsetting between south Carlina in other states6 more states followed to form a nation called a confederate states of America.