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Admitted Missouri as a slave state and Maine as a on-slave state at the same time -
A slave rebellion that took place in Southampton Country, Virginia -
A war between Mexico and the United States because the continued claims to Texas from both the United States and Mexican governments -
An unsuccessful 1846 proposal in the United States Congress to ban slavery in territory acquired from Mexico in the Mexican-American War. -
A rapid influx of fortune seekers in California that began after gold was found at Sutter's Mill in early 1848 -
She is the Underground Railroad’s best known conductor and before the Civil War repeatedly risked her life to guide 70 enslaved people north to new lives of freedom. -
A series of measures proposed by U.S. Senator Henry Clay and passed by the U.S. Congress to settle several issues connected to slavery and avert the threat of dissolution of the Union. -
The act required that slaves be returned to their owners, even if they were in a free state. -
Published in two volumes in 1852, the novel had a profound effect on attitudes toward African Americans and slavery in the U.S. -
A series of violent civil confrontations in Kansas Territory, and to a lesser extent in western Missouri -
A territorial organic act that created the territories of Kansas and Nebraska. -
The U.S. Supreme Court stated that enslaved people were not citizens of the United States and, therefore, could not expect any protection from the federal government or the courts. -
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. -
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 -
A four way contest where 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. -
South Carolina became the first state to secede from the federal Union on December 20, 1860.