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Missouri Compromise
was United States federal legislation that admitted Maine to the United States as a free state, simultaneously with Missouri as a slave state, thus maintaining the balance of power between North and South in the US Senate. -
Nat Turner Slave Rebellion
was a rebellion of black slaves that took place in Southampton County, Virginia, in August 1831, led by Nat Turner -
Wilmot Proviso
proposal in the United States Congress to ban slavery in territory acquired from Mexico in the Mexican–American War. -
War with Mexico
also known in the United States as the Mexican War and in Mexico as the Intervención Estadounidense en México, was an armed conflict between the United States and Mexico from 1846 to 1848 -
Compromise of 1850
was a package of five separate bills passed by the United States Congress in September 1850 that defused a political confrontation between slave and free states on the status of territories acquired in the Mexican–American War. -
Fugitive Slave Act
The act required that slaves be returned to their owners, even if they were in a free state. The act also made the federal government responsible for finding, returning, and trying escaped slaves. -
Publication of Uncle Tom's Cabin
Life Among the Lowly is an anti-slavery novel by American author Harriet Beecher Stowe. Published in 1852, the novel had a profound effect on attitudes toward African Americans and slavery in the U.S. and is said to have "helped lay the groundwork for the Civil War" -
Kansas-Nebraska Act
was passed by the U.S. Congress on May 30, 1854. It allowed people in the territories of Kansas and Nebraska to decide for themselves whether or not to allow slavery within their borders. -
Bleeding Kansas
Bleeding Kansas, Bloody Kansas, or the Border War was a series of violent civil confrontations in Kansas Territory, -
Dred Scott Decision
was an enslaved African-American man in the United States who unsuccessfully sued for his freedom and that of his wife, Harriet Robinson Scott, and their two daughters in the Dred Scott v. Sandford case of 1857, popularly known as the "Dred Scott case". -
John Brown’s Raid on Harpers Ferry
Abolitionist John Brown leads a small group on a raid against a federal armory in Harpers Ferry, Virginia (now West Virginia), in an attempt to start an armed revolt of enslaved people and destroy the institution of slavery -
Abraham Lincoln elected president
voters in the United States went to the polls in an election that ended with Abraham Lincoln as President, in an act that led to the Civil War. He needed a majority of votes in the Electoral College to win the election. -
South Carolina secedes
When the ordinance was adopted on December 20, 1860, South Carolina became the first slave state in the south to declare that it had seceded from the United States. -
Confederate States of America
seven Southern states had seceded of that year, representatives from South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia and Louisiana met in Montgomery, Alabama, -
Fort Sumter
The Battle of Fort Sumter was the bombardment of Fort Sumter near Charleston, South Carolina by the South Carolina militia, and the return gunfire and surrender by the United States Army, that started the American Civil War -
Battle of Antietam
also known as the Battle of Sharpsburg, particularly in the Southern United States, was a battle of the American Civil War, -
Vicksburg
gave the Union control of the Mississippi River in the American Civil War By having control of the river, Union forces would split the Confederacy in two and control an important route to move men and supplies. -
Gettysburg
in and around the town of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, by Union and Confederate forces during the American Civil War. The battle involved the largest number of casualties of the entire war and is often described as the war's turning point -
Appomattox Courthouse
near the town of Appomattox Court House, Virginia, and led to Confederate General Robert E. Lee's surrender of his Army of Northern Virginia to Union General Ulysses S. Grant
