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Fugitive Slave Act
The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 was a compromise made between Northern Free-Soilers and Southern slave owners. The law states that any northerner must immediately return a runaway slave to their previous owner among capture; and those who do not abide by the law will face a $1,000 fine and possible jail time. It led to the Civil war in many ways, Northern's resented the idea of hunting down the runaway slaves,and allow abolitionists tell specifics of of slavery. -
Uncle Tom's Cabin
Uncle Tom’s Cabin was a novel written by Harriet Beecher Stowe the told a story about an African-American, Uncle Tom, and the story of being a slave. The text unravelled a tale of the uncomfortable truth of slavery and how love can overpower anything, including the enslavement of others.
This book was a very prominent reason for the secession of the South, and when President Lincoln met her he said “So this is the little lady who started this great war”. -
Bleeding Kansas
Bleeding Kansas refers to the time of when Kansas was granted with popular sovereignty or the ability for the inhabitants of Kansas to decide if it would enter the Union as a free or slave state. The Bleeding part represents how violent the confrontations between anti-slavery supporters and slave owners got. This is just another case of violence exponentially increasing the sectional disagreement among the North and South. -
Kansas-Nebraska Act
The Kansas Nebraska Act settled the land west of Missouri and established two states in Kansas and Nebraska. Now, this act repealed the Missouri Compromise of 1820 by reopening slavery in the western territory.This Act cause much scrutiny among the settlers of both territories and supports of slavery and emancipation. The repealing of the Missouri Compromise caused violent tension between both sides and sectionalism was being presented more and more, for example, Bleeding Kansas. -
Sumner vs Brooks
Sumner vs Brooks was an affair that was an attack by South Carolina’s Preston Brooks on Massachusetts’s representative Charles Sumner. This attack was with a walking stick that nearly ended Sumner’s life. It was due to a speech given two days earlier, by Sumner, he talked about his viewpoint on the expansion of slavery, mentioning Brooks. This showed an immense amount of sectionalism, as the speech was from a Northerner and the assault was from a Southerner. -
Panic of 1857
The Panic of 1857 was a worldwide financial crisis that was caused by the declining international economy and over-expansion of the domestic economy. Although the Panic did not last long, the economy would not recover until after the Civil War. The crash politically and economically separated the North and South because of the two varying economic practices and how they needed to handle the shutdown of over 5,000 businesses, stopping railroad construction and the outraged amount of unemployment. -
Dred Scott vs Sanford
The supreme court ruled in the case of Dred Scott(a slave)vs Sanford that was unable to sue his owner for freedom while being a free state. He was unable due to the fact that blacks were not granted full citizenship; therefore, under the constitution, unable to sue in government. It would be a catalyst in the process of the Civil War because of the major disagreement by the North on the idea that Scott was treated the way he was.
