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The Missouri Compromise in 1820 allowed Missouri to become the 24th state in the United States. At that time there were 11 free states and 11 slave states in the United States. Henry Clay, a member of Congress from Kentucky, then came up with a compromise. Congress agreed to admit Maine as a free state and Missouri as a slave state. The compromise also banned slavery from any future territories or states north of Missouri’s southern border. -
In the summer of 1846, the government was arguing about a bill that would set aside money for the Mexican-American War. During the debate, a representative named David Wilmot suggested an addition to the bill. This type of addition is called a proviso, so Wilmot's addition was called the Wilmot Proviso. The Wilmot Proviso said that slavery wouldn't be allowed in any territory captured from Mexico. -
Drafted by Henry Clay, based on the ideas of Senator Stephen A. Douglas. It was an attempt to smooth out the confrontation between the slave states of the South and the free states of the North regarding the status of territories acquired during the Mexican-American War. It allowed California to be admitted as a free state and the admission of New Mexico Territory and Utah Territory with slavery was left to to the decision of the people in relation to Popular Sovereignty on Slavery. -
The Fugitive Slave Acts were statutes, passed by US Congress in 1793 and 1850, that provided for the capture and return of escaped enslaved persons to their owners. These laws applied even if an escaped slave was captured in a free state or territory. The second act was so harsh that it became a major issue of contention between the Northern and Southern states prior to the outbreak of the American Civil War. The severity of the 1850 act led to increased interest in the abolitionist movement. -
Uncle Tom's Cabin is an anti-slavery novel by Harriet Beecher Stowe. It greatly influenced many people's thoughts about African Americans and slavery in the United States. It also strengthened the conflict between the Northern and Southern United States. This led to the American Civil War. The book's effect was so powerful that Lincoln said when he met Stowe at the beginning of the Civil War, "So this is the little lady who made this big war." -
The Act created Kansas and Nebraska as territories. The act allowed the people of each territory to decide whether or not to allow slavery. Nebraska stayed calm and Kansas did not. They voted to allow slavery in 1855. Abolitionists did not think the vote in favor of slavery was legal. A proslavery mob attacked the town. Three days later abolitionists led by John Brown struck back and killed five men. Over the next few years both sides made many violent attacks. This was Bleeding Kansas. -
The Supreme Court ruled that Congress had no power to ban slavery in the territories, or areas that were not yet states. Dred Scott was an enslaved Black man in Missouri. In 1834 he was taken to Illinois. Illinois was a free state. Scott later lived in the territory of Wisconsin, where slavery was also illegal. When Scott was taken back to Missouri, he sued for his freedom. He argued that the time he had spent in a free state and a free territory had made him free. The court ruled against him. -
U.S. senator election for the state of Illinois, the candidates were Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas. They met 7 times to debate, important topics. The main topic was whether slavery should be allowed in new states forming to the West. Douglas tried to make Lincoln seem like a dangerous person who wanted the United States to break apart. Lincoln made the point that slavery was wrong and that it had led to much violence. Douglas won the election, but Lincoln won many followers. -
John Brown wanted to end slavery in the United States. Unlike most abolitionists, however, he took the law into his own hands. Brown’s last raid came on October 16, 1859. He and an armed band attacked a federal arsenal, or weapons storehouse, in Harpers Ferry, Virginia. He hoped that thousands of enslaved people would rise in rebellion and follow him to a new mountain stronghold. This did not happen, and after two days he was captured by U.S. troops. Brown was tried and hanged at Charlestown. -
The Secession of the South took place within the borders of the formerly unified nation of the United States of America when eleven Southern states rebelled against the government and withdrew from the United States to form an alliance that was called the Confederate States of America, or simply the Confederacy. The First State to Secede was South Carolina on the December 20th, 1860, the last of the 11 states to secede was Tennessee on June 8, 1861. -
Republican Abraham Lincoln defeated Southern Democrat John C. Breckinridge, Democrat Stephen A. Douglas, and Constitutional Union candidate John Bell. The electoral split between Northern and Southern Democrats was emblematic of the severe sectional split, particularly over slavery, and in the months following Lincoln’s election (and before his inauguration in 1861) 7 Southern states, led by South Carolina on December 20, 1860, seceded, setting the stage for the American Civil War (1861–65).