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Maine was admitted as a free state and Missouri as a slave state. The rest of the 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. (James Monroe)
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One of the most famous conductors was Harriet Tubman,
born a slave in Maryland in 1820 or 1821.Tubman decided to make a break for freedom and succeeded in reaching Philadelphia. -
One of the busiest routes was the Santa Fe Trail, which stretched 780 miles from Independence, Missouri, to Santa Fe in the Mexican province of New Mexico.
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In 1821 Stephen F. Austin established a colony where “no drunkard, no gambler, no profane swearer, and no idler” would be allowed. Stephen obtained permission, first from Spain and then
from Mexico after it had won its independence, to carry out his father’s project. -
Garrison became the editor of an antislavery paper in 1828, The Liberator, to deliver an uncompromising demand: immediate emancipation.
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Many of the settlers were Southerners, who had brought slaves with them to Texas. Mexico, which had abolished slavery in 1829, insisted in vain that the Texans free their slaves.
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In August 1831, Turner and more than 50 followers attacked four
plantations and killed about 60 whites. -
On Austins way home, Santa Anna had Austin imprisoned for inciting revolution.
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The Oregon Trail stretched from Independence, Missouri, to Oregon City, Oregon. Many pioneers mirgrated west on the Oregon Trail.
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The 1836 rebellion in which Texas gained its independence from Mexico.
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The belief that the United States was ordained to expand to the Pacific Ocean and into Mexican and Native American territory.
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Abolition, the movement to abolish slavery, became the most important of a series of reform movements in America.
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Most Texans hoped that the United States would annex their republic, but U.S. opinion divided along sectional lines. On December 29, 1845, Texas entered the Union.
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It pitted a politically divided and militarily unprepared Mexico against the expansionist-minded administration of U.S. President James K. Polk, who believed the United States had a “manifest destiny” to spread across the continent to the Pacific Ocean.
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In 1847, Douglass began his own antislavery newspaper. He named it The North Star, after the star that guided runaway slaves to freedom.
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On February 2, 1848, 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 States agreed to pay $15 million for the Mexican cession, which included presentday California, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, most of Arizona, and parts of
Colorado and Wyoming. -
Clay’s compromise contained provisions to appease Northerners as well as Southerners. To please the North, the compromise provided that California be admitted to the Union as a free state. To please the South, the compromise proposed a new and more effective fugitive slave law. The Compromise of 1850 had provided for popular sovereignty in New Mexico and Utah.
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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.
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Free African Americans and white abolitionists developed a
secret network of people who would, at great risk to themselves, hide fugitive slaves. The system of escape routes they used became known as the Underground Railroad. -
In 1852, Harriet Beecher Stowe published her novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin, which stressed that slavery was not just a political contest, but also a great moral struggle.
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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—Illinois—and a free territory—Wisconsin—had made him a free man. The case was in court for years. Finally, on March 6, 1857, the Supreme Court ruled against Dred Scott. -
Douglas introduced a bill in Congress on January 23, 1854,
that would divide the area into two territories: Nebraska in the north and Kansas in the south. If passed, the bill
would repeal the Missouri Compromise and establish popular sovereignty for both territories. -
The 1858 race for the U.S. Senate between Democratic incumbent Stephen Douglas and Republican challenger Congressman Abraham Lincoln. Neither wanted slavery in the territories, but they disagreed on how to keep it out. Douglas believed deeply in popular sovereignty. Lincoln, on the other hand, believed that slavery was immoral. Douglas won the Senate seat, but his response had widened the split in the Democratic Party.
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On the night of October 16, 1859, he led a band of 21 men, black and white, into Harpers Ferry, Virginia (now West Virginia). His aim was to seize the federal arsenal there and start a general slave uprising.
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As the 1860 presidential election approached, the Republicans nominated Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln appeared to be moderate in his views. Although he pledged to halt the further spread of slavery, he also tried to reassure Southerners that a Republican administration would not “interfere with their slaves, or with them, about their slaves.”
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Lincoln’s victory convinced Southerners—who had viewed the struggle over slavery partly as a conflict between the states’ right of self-determination and federal government control—that they had lost their political voice in the national government.
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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.
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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. The four remaining slave states— Maryland, Delaware, Kentucky, and Missouri—remained in the Union.
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McClellan ordered his men to pursue Lee, and the two
sides fought on September 17 near a creek called the
Antietam. -
Near the sleepy town of Gettysburg, in southern Pennsylvania, the most decisive battle of the war was fought. The Battle
of Gettysburg began on July 1 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. After the battle, Lee gave up any hopes of invading the North and led his army back to Virginia. -
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. Grant began by weakening the Confederate defenses that protected Vicksburg. the Confederate command of Vicksburg asked Grant for terms of surrender.
The city fell on July 4. -
The first bloodshed on the battlefield occurred about three months after Fort Sumter fell, near the little creek of Bull Run, just 25 miles from Washington, D.C. The battle was a seesaw affair. In the afternoon Confederate reinforcements helped win the first Southern victory.
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As the fighting intensified, heavy casualties and widespread desertions led each side to impose conscription, a draft that forced men to serve in the army.
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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. -
Lincoln did find a way to use his constitutional war powers to end slavery. Therefore, he decided
that, just as he could order the Union army to take Confederate supplies, he could also authorize the army to emancipate slaves. Emancipation was not just a moral issue; it became a weapon of war. On January 1, 1863, Lincoln issued his Emancipation Proclamation. -
In the spring of 1864, 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.
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On April 9, 1865, in a Virgina town called Appomattox Court House, Lee and Grant met in a private home to arrange a Confederate surrender. After four long years, the Civil war was over.
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After some political maneuvering, the
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.” -
On April 14, 1865, five days after
Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox,
Lincoln and his wife went to Ford’s Theatre
in Washington to see a British comedy, Our
American Cousin. During its third act, John Wilkes Booth
crept up behind Lincoln and shot the president
in the back of his head.
Lincoln, who never regained consciousness,
died on April 15.
