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Period: to
Westward Expansion Leading to Civil War
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Louisianna Purchase
United States make deal with France known as Lousianna Purchase and acquire approximately 827,000 square miles of land west of the Mississippi River. This was part of President Jefferson's plans to expand westward and have access to international markets for American farm products. Jefferson did not have the power within the Constitution to agree to buy this land but he did it anyway, this shifted power away from the states and toward the President and Congress. -
Missouri Compromise
Henry Clay brought Missouri into the Union as a slave state and Maine as a free state to maintain the Congressional balance between slave and free. A parallel line was also drawn dividing the north and south as slave and free. -
Wilmot Proviso
Northern representatives on the U.S. House of Representative pass the Wilmot Proviso which would prevent slavery in territory captured from Mexico. Southern Senators said the Wilmot Proviso was unconstitutional and blocked it's passage, so it never became a law. However, it did increase friction between the North and South. -
Popular Sovereignty
The Popular Sovereignty and Slavery doctrine was first proposed by Vice President George Dallas in 1847 as a political policy that would allow the American settlers of new federal territories to decide whether to enter the Unionn as a slave or free state. This caused many anti-slavery Democrats to join the Free Soil Party. -
Gold is Discovered in California
Gold is found as the base of the Sierra Nevada Mountains sparking a gold rush whcih brings tens of thousands of new settlers to California. This causes California to apply for statehood in 1849. They have anti-slavery inclinations. -
Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo
At the end of the Mexican War the Treaty cedes Texas, New Mexico, and California to the United States. The United States now controls lands stretching all the way across North America. U.S. Senate continue to reject Wilmot Proviso. -
Compromise of 1850
Henry Clay proposes compromise to give something to North and something to South. For the North, it guaranteed Caliornia would enter the Union as a free state and slave trade would end in Washington D.C. The SOuth was promised that popular sovereignty would decide the question of in Utah and New Mexico territories and it reshaped the Fugitive Slave Act. The Fugitive Slave Act enraged the North. -
Kansas-Nebraska Act
Congress enacts Kansas- Nebraska Act which would have popular sovereignty determine if they were slave or free states. This repealed the Missouri Compromise (which would have made them free state). Congress felt they must do this to satisfy southern states who were threatening succession. -
Bleeding Kansas
When voters from Missouri snuck into Kansa to vote to make the territory a slave state, violence broke out between the proslavery supporters and the abolitionists. About 200 people were killed and $2 million worth of property was destroyed. Te violence would soon spread east. -
Lincoln Elected President
Abraham Lincoln is elected as president by winning almost all the electoral votes in the free states. He is against the expansion of slavery, so the Southern states succede from the Union.
