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The compromise of 1850
While the agreement succeeded in postponing outright hostilities between the North and South, it did little to address, and in some ways even reinforced, the structural disparity that divided the United States. The new Fugitive Slave Act, by forcing non-slaveholders to participate in the institution, also led to increased polarization among centrist citizens. -
1852 | Uncle Tom’s Cabin
Harriet Beecher Stowe’s fictional exploration of slave life was a cultural sensation. Northerners felt as if their eyes had been opened to the horrors of slavery, while Southerners protested that Stowe’s work was slanderous.
Uncle Tom’s Cabin was the second-best-selling book in America in the 19th century, second only to the Bible. Its popularity brought the issue of slavery to life for those few who remained unmoved after decades of legislative conflict and widened the division between Nor -
1854 - 1861 | Bleeding Kansas
The Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, narrowly passed while Congressmen brandished weapons and uttered death threats in the House chambers, overturned parts of the Missouri Compromise by allowing the settlers in the two territories to determine whether or not to permit slavery by a popular vote. -
1857 | Dred Scott v. Sanford
Dred Scott was a Virginia slave who tried to sue for his freedom in court. The case eventually rose to the level of the Supreme Court, where the justices found that, as a slave, Dred Scott was a piece of property that had none of the legal rights or recognitions afforded to a human being. -
1859 | John Brown’s Raid
John Brown cut his teeth as a killer as an anti-slavery “Jayhawker” during Bleeding Kansas. In mid-October of 1859, the crusading abolitionist organized a small band of white allies and free blacks and raided a government arsenal in Harpers Ferry, Virginia. He hoped to seize weapons and distribute them to Southern slaves in order to spark a wracking series of slave uprisings. -
1860 | Abraham Lincoln’s Election
Abraham Lincoln was elected by a considerable margin in 1860 despite not being included on many Southern ballots. As a Republican, his party’s anti-slavery outlook struck fear into many Southerners.
On December 20, 1860, a little over a month after the polls closed, South Carolina seceded from the Union. Six more states followed by the spring of 1861. -
1854 - 1861 | Bleeding Kansas
Pro- and anti-slavery agitators flocked to Kansas, hoping to shift the decision by sheer weight of numbers. The two factions struggled for five years with sporadic outbreaks of bloodshed that claimed fifty-six lives. Although both territories eventually ratified anti-slavery constitutions, the violence shocked and troubled the nation. -
1857 | Dred Scott v. Sanford
The Dred Scott Decision threatened to entirely recast the political landscape that had thus far managed to prevent civil war. The classification of slaves as mere property made the federal government’s authority to regulate the institution much more ambiguous. -
1859 | John Brown’s Raid
Although Brown captured the arsenal, he was quickly surrounded and forced to surrender by soldiers under the command of Colonel Robert E. Lee. He was tried for treason and, upon his execution, became a martyr for the abolitionist cause. Southerners, on the other hand, began to militarize in preparation for future raids. -
The Compromise of 1850
With national relations soured by the debate over the Wilmot Proviso, senators Henry Clay and Stephen Douglas managed to broker a shaky accord with the Compromise of 1850. The compromise prevented further territorial expansion of slavery while strengthening the Fugitive Slave Act, a law which compelled Northerners to seize and return escaped slaves to the South.
