-
The Missouri Comporise
It prohibited slavery in the former Louisiana Territory except within the boundaries of the proposed state of Missouri. -
Period: to
The Mexican War
Mexican War heightened the slavery debate -
Compromise of 1850
was a package of five separate bills passed in the United States in September 1850, which defused a four-year confrontation between the slave states of the South and the free states of the North -
Fugitive Slave Act of 1850
was passed by the United States Congress on September 18, 1850, as part of the Compromise of 1850 between Southern slave-holding interests and Northern Free-Soilers. -
Kansas-Nebraska Act
stipulated that the issue of slavery would be decided by the residents of each territory, a concept known as popular sovereignty. -
Period: to
Bleeding Kansas
was a series of violent political confrontations in the United States involving anti-slavery Free-Staters and pro-slavery Border Ruffian elements -
‘Bleeding Sumner’ Brooks-Sumner fight
Southern Congressman Preston Brooks savagely beats Northern Senator Charles Sumner in the halls of Congress as tensions rise over the expansion of slavery. -
Dred Scott Decision
He argued that his master, John Emerson, escorted him onto free soil in Illinois and the Wisconsin Territory, and thus had legally—even if inadvertently—granted him freedom. -
John Brown’s Raid on Harper’s Ferry, Virginia
Brown had hopes that the local slave population would join the raid and through the raid’s success weapons would be supplied to slaves and freedom fighters throughout the country -
Election of 1860
Southerners were outraged over a plot by abolitionist John Brown to start a slave rebellion at Harpers Ferry, Virginia. -
South Carolina secedes from Union
was a site of major political and military importance for the Confederacy during the American Civil War. The white population of the state strongly supported the institution of slavery long before the war. -
Battle of Fort Sumter
was the bombardment and surrender of Fort Sumter, near Charleston, South Carolina, that started the American Civil War. -
The Union’s ‘Anaconda Plan’
is the name widely applied to an outline strategy for subduing the seceding states in the American Civil War. -
Battle of Antietam
is the date most Americans identify as the day the Emancipation Proclamation officially took effect, the ideals of the Proclamation had been carefully contemplated by President Lincoln many months before. -
Emancipation Proclamation
The Emancipation Proclamation granted freedom to the slaves in the Confederate States if the States did not return to the Union by January 1, 1863 -
Battle of Gettysburg
in and around the town ofGettysburg, Pennsylvania, by Union and Confederate forces during the American Civil War. -
Sherman’s March to the Sea
The campaign began with Sherman's troops leaving the captured city of Atlanta, Georgia, on November 15 and ended with the capture of the port of Savannah on December 21. -
Confederate Surrender at Appomattox Courthouse
fought on the morning before it surrendered to the Union Army under Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, and one of the last battles of the American Civil War.