Events leading up to the Civil War

By JaiC

  • Charles Sumner

    Part of the Free-Soil Party, a political group who believed in the freedom of slaves in any newly acquired territory. He fought before, through and after the Civil war for the rights of slaves.

  • Compromise of 1850

    Five separate bills passed by the United States Congress in 1850, which ended a four-year political confrontation between slave and free states about the territories given during the Mexican–American War.

  • Fugitive slave act

    A law passed as part of the Compromise of 1850, which provided southern slaveholders with legal weapons to capture slaves who had escaped to the free states.

  • Uncle Tom's Cabin

    An anti-slavery novel by American author Harriet Beecher Stowe.

  • Underground Railroad

    a network of secret routes and safe houses established in the United States and used by African-American slaves to escape into free states.

  • Kansas- Nebraska Act

    Allowed people in the territories of Kansas and Nebraska to decide for themselves whether or not to allow slavery within their borders.
  • Period: to

    Bleeding Kansas

    a series of violent political confrontations in the United States involving anti-slavery in Kansas

  • Dred Scott

    A controversial ruling made by the Supreme Court in 1857, shortly before the outbreak of the Civil War. Dred Scott, a slave, sought to be declared a free man on the basis that he had lived for a time in a “free” territory with his master.

  • Lincoln/Douglas

    Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglass had a series of debates concerning slavery. Abraham was anti slavery and gained popularity among the northerners. However the voters of Illinois chose members of the state legislature who in turn reelected Douglas to the Senate in the Illinois state election.

  • Harper's ferry

    Harpers Ferry was the target of an assault by an armed band of abolitionists led by John Brown. The raid was intended to be the first stage in an elaborate plan to establish an independent stronghold of freed slaves in the mountains of Maryland and Virginia.

  • Election of 1860

    With four candidates in the field(John Bell, John Breckenridge, Abraham lincoln, and Stephen Douglas), Lincoln received only 40% of the popular vote and 180 electoral votes.
  • Period: to

    Secession

    eleven states in the Lower and Upper South severed their ties with the Union.

  • Fort Sumter

    Fort Sumter is most famous for being the site of the first shots of the Civil War.