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Missouri Compromise
In 1818 settlers in Missouri requested admission to the Union. Northerners and Southerners disagreed on whether Missouri should be admitted as a free or slave state. Behind the leadership of Henry Clay, Congress passed a series of agreements in 1820–21. Maine was a free state and Missouri a slave state. Louisiana Territory was split into two parts. The dividing line was set at 36°30´ north latitude. South of the line, slavery was legal. North of the line—except in Missouri—slavery was banned. -
Abolition
Abolition, the movement to abolish slavery, became the most important of a series of reform movements in America -
Santa Fe Trail
The Santa Fe Trail stretched 780 miles from Independence, Missouri, to Santa Fe in the Mexican province of New Mexico. Each spring from 1821 through the 1860s, American traders loaded their covered wagons with goods toward Santa Fe.The first 150 miles, traders traveled individually but fearing attacks by Native Americans, traders banded into organized groups. After a few days of trading, they loaded their wagons with goods, restocked their animals, and headed back to Missouri. -
San Felipe de Austin
In 1821 he established a colony where no drunk gambler profane swearer would be allowed. The main settlement of the colony was named San Felipe de Austin, in his honor. By 1825, Austin had issued 297 land grants to Texas Old 300. Each family received either 177 very inexpensive acres of farmland, or 4,428 acres for stock grazing, as well as a 10-year exemption from paying taxes. I am convinced that I could take on 1500 families as easily as 300 if I could. By 20,000 Americans were in Texas -
The Liberator
The most radical white abolitionist was a young editor named William Lloyd Garrison. Active in religious reform movements
in Massachusetts, Garrison became the editor of an antislavery paper. Three years later he established his own paper, The Liberator, to deliver an uncompromising demand: immediate emancipation Before Garrison’s call for emancipation of slaves, support for that had been limited. Garrison enjoyed black support; 3:4 early subscribers to The Liberator were African Americans. -
Mexico Abolished Slavery
Many settlers were Southerners and they brought slaves into Texas. Mexico, which had abolished slavery in 1829, insisted in vain that the Texans free their slaves. When Austin returned to Texas in 1835, he was convinced that war was its “only resource.” Determined to force Texas to obey Mexican law, Santa Anna marched his army toward San Antonio. At the same time, Austin and his followers issued a call for Texans to arm themselves. -
Nat Turner's Rebellion
Some slaves rebelled against their condition of bondage. One of the most prominent rebellions was led by Virginia slave Nat Turner. In August, Turner and more than 50 followers attacked four
plantations and killed about 60 whites. Whites eventually captured and executed many members of the group, including Turner -
Stephen F. Austin goes to Jail
Meanwhile, Mexican politics had become increasingly unstable. Austin had traveled to Mexico City late to present petitions to Mexican president Antonio López de Santa Anna for greater self-government for Texas. While Austin was on his way home, Santa Anna had Austin imprisoned for inciting revolution. After Santa Anna suspended local powers in Texas and other Mexican states, several rebellions broke out, including one that would be known as the Texas Revolution -
Mexican- American War
Texas gained its independence from Mexico in 1836. Initially, the United States declined to incorporate it into the union, largely because northern political interests were against the addition of a new slave state. It was a conflict between the US and Mexico fought from April 1846 to February 1848, It stemmed from the annexation of the Republic of Texas by the U.S. in 1845 and from a dispute over whether Texas ended at the Nueces River (the Mexican claim) or the Rio Grande (the U.S. claim) -
Texas Revolution
Rebellion in which Texas gained its
independence from Mexico. -
Oregon Trail
From Independence, Missouri, to Oregon City, Oregon, Marcus and Narcissa Whitman. dorve their wagon as far as Fort Boise (present-day Boise, Idaho), they proved wagons could travel on the Oregon Trail. Many pioneers migrated west on the Oregon Trail. Some bought “prairie schooners,” wooden-wheeled wagons covered with sailcloth and pulled by oxen. Most walked, pushing handcarts loaded with a few precious possessions, food, and other supplies. The trip took months, even if all went well. -
Manifest Destiny
After the War of 1812, Americans explored the West. In 1840 many Americans believe that movement westward was predestined by God. The phrase “manifest destiny” expressed belief that US was ordained to expand to Pacific Ocean and into Mexican and Native American territory. Many Americans believed that this destiny was obvious and inevitable. Most had practical reasons for moving west. and some trekked west because of personal economic problems in the East. -
Texas enters the United States
U.S. negotiated the annexation of Texas. On December 29, 1845,
Texas entered the Union. Events moved quickly toward war. -
The North Star
Frederick Douglass escaped from bondage and became an outspoken critic of slavery. Garrison heard him speak and was so impressed that he sponsored Douglass to speak for anti-slavery organizations. Hoping that abolition could be achieved without violence, Douglass broke with Garrison, who believed that abolition justified whatever means were necessary to achieve it. Douglass began his own antislavery newspaper. He named it The North Star, after the star that guided runaway slaves to freedom. -
Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo
After about a year of fighting, Mexico conceded defeat. On February 2, the United States and Mexico signed the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. Mexico agreed to the Rio Grande as the border between Texas and Mexico and ceded the New Mexico and California territories to the United States. The United States agreed to pay $15 million for the Mexican cession, which included present day California, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, most of Arizona, and parts of Colorado and Wyoming. -
Harriet Tubman
One of the most famous conductors was born a slave in Maryland. In 1849, after Tubman’s owner died, she heard rumors that she was about to be sold. Fearing this possibility, Tubman decided to make a break for freedom and succeeded in reaching Philadelphia. Shortly after passage of the Fugitive Slave Act, Tubman resolved to become a conductor on the Underground Railroad. In all, she made 19 trips back to the South and is said to have helped 300 slaves—including her own parents—flee to freedom -
Fugitive Slave Act
Under the law, alleged fugitive slaves were not entitled to a trial by jury. In addition, anyone convicted of helping a fugitive was liable for a fine of $1,000 and imprisonment for up to six months. Infuriated by the Fugitive Slave Act, some Northerners resisted
it by organizing “vigilance committees” to send endangered African Americans to safety in Canada. Others resorted to violence to rescue fugitive slaves. Still others worked to help slaves escape from slavery -
Compromise of 1850
Henry Clay worked shaped a compromise North and South accepted. After obtaining support of the powerful Mass. senator Daniel Webster, Clay presented a series of resolutions later called the Compromise of 1850. The compromise had provisions to please Northerners and Southerners. For North, the compromise had CA be a free state. South, the compromise had a more effective fugitive slave law. For both sides, a provision allowed popular sovereignty residents of the New Mexico and Utah territories. -
Underground Railroad
Free blacks and white abolitionists made a secret network of people who would hide fugitive slaves. The system of escape routes they used became known as the Underground Railroad. Conductors on the routes hid fugitives in secret tunnels and false cupboards, provided them with food and clothing, and escorted or directed them to the next station. Once fugitives reached the North, many chose to remain there. Others journeyed to Canada to be completely out of reach of their owners -
Uncle Tom's Cabin
Harriet Beecher Stowe stressed that slavery was not just a political contest, but also a great moral struggle. Stowe had watched boats filled with people on their way to be sold at slave markets. Uncle Tom’s Cabin expressed her lifetime hatred of slavery. The book stirred Northern abolitionists to increase their protests against the Fugitive Slave Act, but Southerners criticized the book as an
attack on the South. -
Kansas- Nebraska Act
The Kansas-Nebraska Act was passed by the U.S. Congress on May 30. The Whigs or know nothings were unable to chose a national platform so they formed this act. It allowed people in the territories of Kansas and Nebraska to decide for themselves whether or not to allow slavery within their borders. The Act served to repeal the Missouri Compromise of 1820 which prohibited slavery north of latitude 36°30´ -
Dread Scott v. Sandford
Dred Scott, a slave whose owner took him from
the slave state of Missouri to free territory in Illinois and Wisconsin
and back to Missouri. Scott appealed to the Supreme Court for his
freedom on the grounds that living in a free state had made him a free man. Supreme ruled against Dred Scott. Court ruled that being in free territory did not make slave free. The 5 Amendment protected property, slaves. For territories to exclude slavery would be to deprive slaveholders of their property. -
Abe Lincoln and Stephen Douglas
Neither wanted slavery in the territories, disagreed on how to keep it out. Douglas believed deeply in popular sovereignty. Lincoln believed that slavery was immoral. However, he did not expect individuals to give up slavery unless Congress abolished slavery with an amendment. Lincoln's attacks on the “vast moral evil” of slavery drew national attention, and some Republicans began thinking of him as an excellent candidate for the presidency in 1860. -
John Brown's Raid /Harpers Ferry
Abolitionist John Brown obtained financial backing from Northern abolitionists. On October 16 he led 21 men, black and white, into Harpers Ferry, Virginia, his aim was to seize the federal arsenal there and start a general slave uprising. But, troops put down the rebellion and authorities tried Brown and put him to death.
Public reaction to Brown’s execution was intense in both sections of the country. -
Abe Lincoln Becomes President
Republicans nominated Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln appeared to be moderate in his views. He pledged to halt the spread of slavery, he tried to reassure Southerners that Republican administration would not interfere with their slaves. Lincoln was the winner with less than half the popular vote and with no votes from the South. He did not even appear on the ballot in most of the slave states because of Southern hostility toward him -
Formation of the Confederacy
Months earlier, as soon as the Confederacy was formed, Confederate soldiers in each secessionist state began seizing federal installations especially forts. By the time of Lincoln’s inauguration on March 4, only four Southern forts remained in Union hands. The most important was Fort Sumter, on an island
in Charleston harbor. Lincoln decided to neither abandon Fort Sumter. The Confederacy used the labor of slaves to
build fortifications and grow food. -
Attack on Fort Sumter
In Charleston harbor. Lincoln decided to neither abandon Fort Sumter nor reinforce it. He would merely send in “food for hungry men.” At 4:30 A.M. on April 12, Confederate batteries began thundering away to the cheers of Charleston’s citizens. The deadly
struggle between North and South was under way -
Battle of Gettysburg
The most decisive battle of the war was fought. The Battle of Gettysburg began when Confederate soldiers led by A. P. Hill encountered several brigades of Union cavalry under the command of John Buford, an experienced officer from Illinois. Buford ordered men to take defensive positions surrounding the town. When Hill’s troops marched toward the town from the west, Buford’s men were waiting. The shooting attracted more troops and both sides called for reinforcements. -
Battle of Antietam
A Union corporal found Lee’s orders wrapped around cigars! The plan revealed Lee and Stonewall Jackson’s armies were separated. McClellan ordered his men to pursue Lee, and the two sides fought on September 17 near a creek called the
Antietam The clash was the bloodiest day in American history, with casualties more than 26,000. Instead of pursuing the battered Confederate army into Virginia and possibly ending the war, McClellan did nothing. As a result, Lincoln removed him from command -
Battle of Vicksburg
Meade’s Army of the Potomac was destroying Confederate in Gettysburg, Union general Ulysses S. Grant fought to take Vicksburg, one of the two remaining Confederate strongholds on
the Mississippi River. Vicksburg itself was particularly important because it rested on bluffs above the river from which guns could control all water traffic. In the winter of 1862–1863, Grant tried several schemes to reach Vicksburg and take it from the Confederates. Nothing seemed to work—until the spring of 1863 -
Emancipation Proclamation
Lincoln issued his Emancipation Proclamation. The proclamation did not free any slaves immediately because it applied only to areas behind Confederate lines, outside Union control. Nevertheless, for many, the proclamation gave the war a moral purpose by turning the struggle into a fight to free the slaves. It also ensured that compromise was no longer possible -
Income Tax
As the Northern economy grew, Congress decided to help pay for the war by collecting the nation’s first income tax, a tax that takes a specified percentage of an individual’s income -
The Gettysburg Adress
In November, a ceremony was held to dedicate a cemetery in Gettysburg. There, President Lincoln spoke for a little more than two minutes. According to some contemporary historians, Lincoln’s
Gettysburg Address “remade America.” Before Lincoln’s speech, people said, “The United States are . . .” Afterward, they said, “The United States is . . .” In other words, the speech helped the country to realize that it was not just a collection of individual states; it was one unified nation -
Battle of Bull Run
The first bloodshed on the battlefield occurred about three months
after Fort Sumter fell, near the little creek of Bull Run. In the morning the Union army gained the upper hand, but the Confederates held firm, inspired by General Thomas J. Jackson, Stonewall Jackson. Confederate's won first Southern victory but were too exhausted to follow their victory with attack on Washington. Confederate morale soared. Many Confederate soldiers, confident that the war was over, left the army and went home. -
Conscription
As fighting intensified, heavy casualties and widespread desertions led each side to impose conscription, a draft that forced men to serve in the army.
In the North, conscription led to draft riots, the most violent of which took place in New York City. Sweeping changes occurred in the wartime economies of both sides as well as in the roles played by African Americans and women. -
Sherman's March
In the spring, Sherman began his march southeast through
Georgia to the sea, creating a wide path of destruction. His
army burned almost every house in its path and destroyed livestock and railroads. Sherman was “so sick of war that generations would pass away before they would again appeal to it.” By mid-November he had burned most of Atlanta. Sherman’s forces followed by 25,000 former slaves—turned north to help Grant “wipe out Lee.determined to make Southerners -
Thirteenth Amendment
The government had to decide what to do about the border states, where slavery still existed. The president believed that the only solution was a constitutional amendment abolishing slavery.
Thirteenth Amendment was ratified at the end of 1865. The U.S. Constitution now stated, “Neither slavery nor involuntary
servitude, except as a punishment for crime
whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States. -
Assassination of Abraham Lincoln
Whatever plans Lincoln had to reunify the nation after the war, he never got to implement them. Lincoln went to Ford’s Theatre in Washington. A man crept up behind Lincoln and shot the president in the back of his head. After the shooting, the assassin, John Wilkes Booth a 26yo actor and Southern sympathizer leaped down from the presidential box to the stage and escaped. 12 days later, Union cavalry trapped him in a Virginia tobacco shed and shot him dead. -
Surrender at Appomattox
On April 9 in a Virginia town called Appomattox Court House, Lee and Grant met at a private home to arrange a Confederate surrender. At Lincoln’s request, the terms were generous. Grant paroled Lee’s soldiers and sent them home with their possessions and three days’ worth of rations. Officers were permitted to keep their sidearms. Within a month all remaining Confederate
resistance collapsed. After four long years, the Civil War was over.