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Missouri Compromise
A decision that allowed Missouri to enter the Union as a slave state and Maine to enter free, keeping the balance in the Senate as 50/50 on the issue of slavery. It also established a new line of slavery. Below Missouri's southern border slavery was legal, above it was not. This took away the previous border at the Mason-Dixon line. -
Wilmot Proviso
An act passed in 1846 that stipulated no slavery or indentured servitude in the new territory received from Mexico at the end of the Mex-Am war. Passed by Pennsylvania Democrat David Wilmot. -
California and Utah seek admission to the Union as free states
Both Utah and California wanted to be admitted as free states. This action would, however, throw off the balance of the Senate and make it controlled by more Free/Northern states than by the Pro-Slave/Southern states. -
Compromise of 1850
Four-step compromise which admitted California as a free state, allowed the residents of the New Mexico and Utah territories to decide on the slavery issue for themselves, ended the slave trade in the District of Columbia and passes the Fugitive Slave Law to enforce the constitutional provision stating that a slave escaping to a free state shall be delivered back to the owner. -
American (Know Nothing) Party Formed
Party that attracted Nothern and Southern Whigs. Millard Filmore won the election for this party. Called 'know-nothings' because when they were asked about political ideas or beliefs they would state "I don't know". -
North reacts to fugitive slave law
The northern reaction to the Fugitive Slave Law was absolute and utter shock. No one realized how serious the South was about protecting their slavery and their way of life. -
Harriet Beecher Stowe's "Uncle Tom's Cabin" is published
Stowe's book outlined the trials of slave life and how the slaves' lives went each and every day. This reception of this book was incredible, and unseen up until this point. Northern activists used this book as a basis for their principles of abolition. -
Kansas-Nebraska Act
An act proposed by Stephen Douglas that allowed all the areas west of Kansas and Nebraska to be turned into territories that could each chose whether it wanted slavery or not. This plan allowed for both sides, abolitionists, and southerners, to get an equal say in the way of life in these new areas. -
Burning and looting of Lawrence, Kansas
After people from neighboring Missouri, a slave state entered Kansas and began to make land claims, politicians knew something had to be done. Before government action could be taken, civilians began firing on private homes and this all became known as "Bleeding Kansas". -
Lincoln-Douglas Debates
Series of debates in the 1858 Illinois senatorial campaign during which Douglas and Lincoln staked out their differing opinions on the issue of slavery