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Period: to
Hannah Kish Antebellum
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Compromise of 1850
The Compromise of 1850 was passed between September 9th and September 20th of 1850. This compromise was presented by Henry Clay to try to solve the issue of slavery. To satisfy the north, California was to be admitted as a free state and to satisfy the South, there would be stricter fugitive slave laws. Daniel Webster and the North supported the plan but John C. Calhoun opposed it. The compromise fail to pass at first but then President Millard Fillmore made the Compromise of 1850 a law. -
Uncle Tom's Cabin
On March 20, 1852, Harriet Beecher Stowe published an anti-slavery novel called Uncle Tom's Cabin. The book was read and heard all over the country. Harriet wrote it to inform people about slavery who were not around it. When President Abraham Lincoln met her, he said, "So you are the lady that started this war". Many people in the south denied that slavery was really this harsh. -
The Kansas-Nebraska Act
Since slavery in the territories became a big issue again, Stephen Douglass thought it would be a good idea to split the Nebraska territory in to Nebraska and Kansas. He thought that one state would enter at a slave state and the other as a free state but the North argued against that. The North strongly opposed slavery. In 1854, The Kansas-Nebraska Act became a law. Both Kansas and Nebraska would decide whether or not to allow slavery. -
Violence in the Senate
In May 1856, Senator Charles Sumner gave a "Crime Against Kansas" speech which attacked slavery suporters in the union. In the speech, Sumner singled out Senator Andrew Butler from south Carolina. Two days later, a representative from South Carolina named Preston Brooks attacked Charles Sumner on the senate floor with a cane. -
Bleeding Kansas
Because of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, proslavery and antislavery people from both the North and South all rushed into Kansas so they would have enough people to vote on slavery. A person named John Brown killed five proslavery people. This lead to more violence and about 200 deaths. Kansas was given the nickname Bleeding Kansas because of all the violence. -
Dred Scott vs. Sanford
Dred Scott was a free slave who sued his owner for freedom. Roger B. Taney, who was Chief Justice, ruled that Dred Scott was not a citizen and never could be. The effects of the Dred Scott decision were that being in a free state did not make a slave free, it declared that the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional, and it not only permitted the extension of slavery, but guaranteed it. -
Freeport Doctrine
Aberaham Lincoln's and Stephen Douglas' second debate took place in Freeport, Illinoois. While there, Senator Douglas issued the Freeport Doctrine. It said that people in the western territories could get around the Dred Scott decision by electing representatives who would not enfore slave property laws regardless of the ruling of the supreme court. -
Harpers Ferry
John Brown, who was a white abolitionist, tried to start a slave uprising. Him and a few other people attacked a federal arsenal in Harpers Ferry in Virginia. Local troops and Robert E. Lee captured John Brown and 10 other men. The troops killed the 10 men and John Brown was convicted of treason and hanged. -
Abraham Lincoln Gets Elected
On November 6, 1860, Abraham Lincoln got elected president. He did not recieve any electoral votes from the South. Since he was a republican, he was antislavery. This sruck fear in many Southerners. A month after Lincoln became president, South Carolina succeded from the nation. By the spring, six more states had followed. -
Confederate States of America
After President Lincoln won the presidential election, people in the South thought they had lost their political power in the United States. The southern states began to succeed from the Union one by one. South Carolina was the first to succeed on December 20, 1860. By the spring, six other states followed. They formed the Confederate States of America and elected Jefferson Davis as their president.
