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Antebellum Timeline
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Fugitive Slave Act
Stricter laws on escaped slaves and those who helped them. This law was created due to the compromise of 1850. The North countered this law by creating personal liberty laws. -
Publishing of Uncle Toms Cabin
Harriet Beecher Stowe writes and publishes Uncle Toms Cabin.This is a controversial anti-slavery novel. This book got people in the North even more riled up about putting an end to slavery. -
Anthony Burns Uproar
Abolitionist Wendell Phillips and other antislavery advocates attack a federal courthouse in Boston, Massachusetts where Anthony Burns, a fugitive slave, is held. Local residents make several unsuccessful attempts to rescue Burns, who is ultimately returned to his Virginia master. President Pierce orders Burns's return as an example to others that he will enforce the Fugitive Slave Act. -
Kansas Nebraska Act
Law that split Nebraska into the territories of Nebraska and Kansas and allowed for popular sovereignty. North wanted it as a free state. The South wanted it as a slave state. -
Bleeding Kansas
Nickname given to the Kansas territory because of the bloody violence there. 55 people were killed in the act. -
Formation of Republican Party
The Republican Party is formed. They wanted to stop slavery from spreading into the existing territories. The south did not favor this party -
Sumner on Crime Against Kansas
Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner delivers his antislavery speech, "The Crime Against Kansas" and verbally attacks South Carolina Senator Andrew Pickens Butler. -
John Brown Kills
During an antislavery uprising in Kansas, abolitionist John Brown kills five proslavery activists. He escapes capture. The event is one in a series of bloody attacks and counterattacks between free soil and pro slavery vigilantes throughout the territory. It will inspire some to deem the region "Bleeding Kansas." -
Dred Scott Case
Dred Scott was a slave who was briefly taken by his owner into free territory where he escaped. The U.S. Supreme Court rules (7 to 2) in Dred Scott v. Sandford that slavery is protected by the Constitution, and that a ban on slavery in the territories is unconstitutional. Chief Justice Roger B. Taney writes the majority opinion; every Justice who sides with Taney (who is from Maryland) is a southerner. -
John Bown Raid on Harpers Fairy
Under the cover of darkness, radical abolitionist John Brown crosses the Potomac River with twenty-one men, including five blacks. They plan to incite a massive insurrection by arming local slaves with weapons from the federal arsenal. The plan backfires and ten of Brown's men are ultimately killed; his forces kill four, including a Marine. Brown and six others are apprehended. -
New Haven Address
Republican Abraham Lincoln delivers a speech in New Haven, Connecticut. "Wrong as we think Slavery is," he says, "we can yet afford to let it alone where it is, because that much is due to the necessity arising from its actual presence in the nation; but can we, while our votes will prevent it, allow it to spread into the National Territories, and to overrun us here in these Free States?" -
Lincoln Elected President
Abraham Lincoln is elected president of the United States, defeating both Democratic candidates, Stephen Douglass and John Breckinridge, and the Constitutional Union Party candidate, John Bell. Slavery is now on its last legs. -
Crittenden Compromise
The Crittenden Compromise is offered in Congress as one of several last-ditch efforts to resolve the secession crisis. -
South Carolina Secedes
The South Carolina legislature votes to secede from the Union. Many other southern states will follow.
