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Missouri Compromise
Congress needed to come up with a way to help both slave and free states in the fight over Missouri. The south wanted to make Missouri a slave state and the north wanted Missouri to be a free state. Congress came up with the conclusion to make Missouri a slave state and added it to the Union. In return Maine was made a free state. This was only a temporary compromise because it didn't satisfy either side for long. -
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Events Leading Up to the Civil War
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Compromise of 1850
The Compromise of 1850 had something for everyone. It admitted California to the Union as a free state in order to please the North and New Mexico and Utah were made territories where slavory was aloud, in order to please the south. The Compromise of 1850 also made buying and selling slaves in Washington D.C illegal. Slave owners that currnetly had slaves could keep them but no more would be bought and sold. When the compromise failed to go through for months white southerners debated peacefully -
Compromise of 1850 part 2
leaving the union. In September of 1850 congress finally adopted the compromise. Americans were happy to finally see the crisis end. -
Kansas and Nebraska Act Part 2
the Bill if Douglas made a few changes.The final bill created two new territories, Kansas and Nebraska. It also made it so that the Missouri Compromise was partially nullified by allowing the settlers themselves to vote for slavery in the two territories. Settlers began to pour into Kansas. Some came to the plains just to oppose or support slavery. Violence broke out on May 21,1856 Supporters of slavery invaded Lawrence, Kansas. Invaders burned a house. Outrage spread through the north. -
Kansas and Nebraska Act
Events that took place angered northerners. Stephen Douglas introduced a bill that began a year of trouble for northerners. Douglas wanted to get a railroad built to California, and he believed that the project was more likely to occur if Congress organized the Great Plains into Nebraska Territory and opened the region to settlers. Because the territory lied north of the Missouri Compromise, Douglas' Bill didn't mention slavery. But southerners only agreed to support -
The Dred Scott Case
In 1857, the slavery controversy shifted to the supreme court. The court was deciding the case of a Missouri slave named Dred Scott. Years earlier Scott had traveled with his owner to Wisconsin where slavery was banned. Once they returned Scott went right to the supreme court to win his freedom. He believed his stay in Wisconsin would make him a free man. One of the Justices, Justice Taney hoped to use the Scott case to settle slavery controversy once and for all. Scott lost the case because -
The Dred Scott Case 2
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The Election of 1860
By the time the election of 1860 came around it was obvious how separated the nation actually was. The republicans were all for Lincoln while the Democrats were split between separate factions. Southerners chose John Breckinridge and Northerners chose Stephen Douglas. A new group known as the Constitutional Union Party nominated John Bell. Lincoln sailed to victory. Licoln won with 40% of the votes, all from the north. In the south he wasn't even on the ballot. Lincoln's victory made the South -
The Election of 1860 Part 2
the South a minority. It was clear to southerners that they no longer had the power to shape national events or policies. Southerners then began to fear that congress would eventually try to abolish slavery. This would cause the south to uprise and the northerners wanted to avoid a war as much as possible. Senators made a commitee to avoid this disaster at all costs. They began searching for a compromise -
Attack on Fort Sumter
Shortly after the south began to break apart from the Union sevearal hot heads opened fired on Fort Sumter. This was a federal fort in Charleston Harbor. After 33 hours of firing the defenders of the fort lowered the stars and stripes flag and replaced it with a plain whute one. the news of the attack sent a wave of fury into the north. everyone had then decided that the time for compromise was over and the time for war was just beginning.
