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The Missouri Compromise was federal legislation of the United States that balanced desires of northern states to prevent the expansion of slavery in the country with those of southern states to expand it. -
Nat Turner's Rebellion, historically known as the Southampton Insurrection, was a slave rebellion that took place in Southampton County, Virginia, in August 1831. Nat Turner's rebellion was one of the largest slave rebellions ever to take place in the United States, and it played an important role in the development of antebellum slave society. -
The Mexican–American War, also known in the United States as the Mexican War, and in Mexico as the United States intervention in Mexico, was an invasion of Mexico by the United States Army from 1846 to 1848 -
The Wilmot Proviso was an unsuccessful 1846 proposal in the United States Congress to ban slavery in territory acquired from Mexico in the Mexican–American War. The conflict over the Wilmot Proviso was one of the major events leading to the American Civil War. -
California Gold Rush, rapid influx of fortune seekers in California that began after gold was found at Sutter's Mill in early 1848 and reached its peak in 1852. According to estimates, more than 300,000 people came to the territory during the Gold Rush. -
Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad National Historical Park is a 480-acre National Park Service unit in the U.S. state of Maryland. It commemorates the life of former enslaved Harriet Tubman, who became an activist in the Underground Railroad prior to the American Civil War. -
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 slave trade in Washington, DC, and amended the Fugitive Slave Act. -
The Fugitive Slave Act or Fugitive Slave Law was a law passed by the 31st United States Congress on September 18, 1850, as part of the Compromise of 1850 between Southern interests in slavery and Northern Free-Soilers. -
Begun as a serial in the National Era, edited by Gamaliel Bailey in Washington, D.C, Uncle Tom's Cabin ran from June 5, 1851 to April 1, 1852, gaining an ever-increasing audience as the story progressed. On March 20 of 1852, Uncle Tom's Cabin was officially published. -
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 American Civil War -
South Carolina became the first state to secede from the federal Union on December 20, 1860. The victory of Abraham Lincoln in the 1860 presidential election triggered cries for disunion across the slaveholding South -
Bleeding Kansas, Bloody Kansas, or the Border War was a series of violent civil confrontations in Kansas Territory, and to a lesser extent in western Missouri, between 1854 and 1859. It emerged from a political and ideological debate over the legality of slavery in the proposed state of Kansas. -
The Kansas–Nebraska Act of 1854 was a territorial organic act that created the territories of Kansas and Nebraska. It was drafted by Democratic Senator Stephen A. Douglas, passed by the 33rd United States Congress, and signed into law by President Franklin Pierce. -
Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. 393, was a landmark decision of the United States Supreme Court that held the U.S. Constitution did not extend American citizenship to people of black African descent, and therefore they could not enjoy the rights and privileges the Constitution conferred upon American citizens. -
The Lincoln–Douglas debates were a series of seven debates in 1858 between Abraham Lincoln, the Republican Party candidate for the United States Senate from Illinois, and incumbent Senator Stephen Douglas, the Democratic Party candidate -
In a four-way contest, the Republican Party ticket of Abraham Lincoln and Hannibal Hamlin won a national popular plurality, a popular majority in the North where states had already abolished slavery, and a national electoral majority comprising only Northern electoral votes.