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With the election of Republican candidate Abraham Lincoln on Nov. 6, 1860, South Carolina followed by six other states seceded from the Union. -
With the end of the Mexican War in 1848 and the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, America was ceded western territories -
The Fugitive Slave Act was passed as part of the Compromise of 1850. This act forced any federal official who did not arrest a freedom seeker to pay a fine. -
"Uncle Tom's Cabin or Life Among the Lowly" was written in 1852 by Harriet Beecher Stowe, an activist who wrote the book to show the evils of enslavement -
In 1854, the Kansas-Nebraska Act was passed, allowing the Kansas and Nebraska territories to decide for themselves using popular sovereignty whether they wanted to be free or practice enslavement -
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Dred Scott lost his case that argued that he should be free because he had been held as an enslaved person while living in a free state. -
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John Brown was a dedicated activist who had been involved in anti-enslavement violence in Kansas. On Oct. 16, 1859, he led a group of 17 -
The federal troops at Fort Sumter had been isolated when South Carolina had seceded from the Union