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Missouri Compromise of 1820
There were 11 free states and 10 slave states. Southern congressmen feared the entrance of Missouri as a free state would ruin balance of power btween the North and the South. The Missouri Compromise of 1820 had admitted Missouri to the Union as a slave state and divided the remainder of the Louisiana Purchase into a free and slave territory. -
Mexican Cession
The Mexican Cession was divided into two regions, one banning slavery and the other allowing it. Some northerners wanted to prohibit slavery in all parts of the Mexican Cession. -
The Compromise of 1850
War were resolved in the Compromise of 1850. It consisted of laws admitting California as a free state, creating Utah and New Mexico territories with the question of slavery in each to be determined by popular sovereignty, settling a Texas-New Mexico boundary dispute in the former’s favor, ending the slave trade in Washington, D.C., and making it easier for southerners to recover fugitive slaves. -
California State
President James K. Polk announced that gold had been discovered in California. The rising population of California had question of weather it be admited to the Union as a free state or a slave state. Most Californians did not want slavery. Under Mexican rule, slavery had been illegal in California. -
Uncle Tom's Cabin
Uncle Tom's Cabin was a powerful antislavery novel written by Harriet Beecher Stowe. She moved to Ohio were she meet with fugitive slaves and learned about the cruelty of slavery. Inspired by slave narratives and angered by the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, she decided to write a book that would show northerners what slavery was really like. -
New Political Parties
Political unrest led some Whigs, Democrates, Free-Soilers, and abolitionists to join together and form the Republican Party in 1854. -
The Kansas-Nebraska Act
President Pierce expressed his hope that the slavery issue had been put to rest. Less than a year a proposal to build a railroad to the West Coast helped revive the slavery controversy and opeded a new period of sectional conflict. The Kansas-Nebraska Act was a plan that would divide the remainder of the Louisiana Purchase into two territory-Kansas and Nedraska -
The Election of 1856
The Election of 1856 showed how divided our country was becoming. Some long time Whigs and Democrates joined the Know-Nothing Party, which held the first nominating convention of 1856. The party fell apart quickly over the slavery issue. Many of the Know-Nothing Party joined the Republican Party. Those who remained of the Know-Nothings chose former president Millard Fillmore as their presidential candidate. -
The Dred Scott Decision
Just two days after Buchanan took office he found himself almost immediately in the middle of another sectional dispute, again about slavery. The Supreme Court issued a decision that threw the country back into crisis. -
The Lincoln-Douglas Debates
At the time of the Dred Scoot decision, Lincoln was little know outside of Illinois. A native of Kentucky, he moved to the Midwest in the 1816. A long time Whig he joined the Republican Party in 1856 and supported its efforts to halt the spread of slavery. In 1858 Illinois Rebublicans nominated him for a U.S. Senate seat. His opponent was Democrat Stephen Douglass, who had represented Illinois in the Senate since 1847. -
The Raid on Harpers Ferry
John Brown had several plans for aiding the abolitionist cause in 1858. One of his plan was involved helping more slaves to escape to freedom. Another one was to strike a blow that would rally antislavery Americans to act. Brown proposed raiding a federal arsenal in Virginia and seizing weapons stored there to arm slaves in the surrounding area. -
The Election of 1860
In the climate of distrust, Americans prepared for another presidential election. Politicians and editors across the South, associating the Republican Party with abolitionists and John Brown, warned that a Republican victory in the election would mean disunion. Democrates were the first party to try to nominate a presidentail candidate in 1860. They meet in Charleston South Carolina, but failed to select a candidate who was acceptable to both the northern and southern members of the party. -
The Confederate States of America
Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas had followed South Carolina's lead and secede from the Union. On February 4, delegates from the seceding states met in Montgomery, Alabama, to form a new notion- the Confederate States of America, aslo know as the Confederacy. Jefferson Davis of Mississippi was elected president of the Confederacy.
