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The Missouri Compromise was a federal legislation of the United States that balanced the desires of northern states to prevent the expansion of slavery in the country with those of southern states to expand it.
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The acts called for the admission of California as a "free state," provided for a territorial government for Utah and New Mexico, established a boundary between Texas and the United States, called for the abolition of the slave trade in Washington, DC, and amended the Fugitive Slave Act.
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, The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 was part of the Compromise of 1850. 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.
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Uncle Tom's Cabin; or, Life Among the Lowly is an anti-slavery novel by American author Harriet Beecher Stowe. Published in two volumes 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 [American] Civil War"
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The Kansas-Nebraska Act repealed the Missouri Compromise, created two new territories, and allowed for popular sovereignty.
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The Dred Scott decision was the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling on March 6, 1857, that having lived in a free state and territory did not entitle an enslaved person, Dred Scott, to his freedom. In essence, the decision argued that, as someone's property, Scott was not a citizen and could not sue in a federal court.
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John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry was an effort by abolitionist John Brown, from October 16 to 18, 1859, to initiate a slave revolt in Southern states by taking over the United States arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia. It has been called the dress rehearsal for, or tragic prelude to, the Civil War.
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Near the end of the American Civil War, President Lincoln, former General George B. McClellan, by a wide margin of 212–21 in the electoral college, with 55% of the popular vote.
A former Whig, Lincoln ran on a political platform opposed to the expansion of slavery in the territories. His election served as the immediate impetus for the outbreak of the Civil War. Lincoln refused to accept any resolution that would result in Southern secession from the Union. -
The attack on Fort Sumter marked the official beginning of the American Civil War—a war that lasted four years, cost the lives of more than 620,000 Americans, and freed 3.9 million enslaved people from bondage.