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The Cotton Gin
Eli Whitney invented a machine known as the cootton gin.The South became the cotton producing part of the country because Whitney's cotton gin was able to successfully pull out the seeds from the cotton bolls. The cotton gin was an important invention because it dramatically reduced the amount of time it took to separate cotton seeds from cotton fiber. -
The Embargo Act of 1807
It was sponsored by President Thomas Jefferson and enacted by Congress. The goal was to force Britain and France to respect American rights during the Napoleonic Wars.The act increased capital and labor in the New England textile and other manufacturing industries, lessening America's reliance on England. The act was also important because it proved, once again, the the young United States could hold it's own against England. -
The Missouri Compromise
The Missouri Compromise, submitted by Henry Clay, was passed in 1820 between the pro-slavery and anti-slavery factions in the United States Congress, involving primarily the regulation of slavery in the western territories. It prohibited slavery in the former Louisiana Territory north of the parallel 36°30′ north except within the boundaries of the proposed state of Missouri. -
The Compromise of 1850
The Compromise of 1850 was a package of five separate bills passed in the United States in September 1850, which defused a four-year 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 (1846–1848). The compromise, drafted by Whig Senator Henry Clay of Kentucky and brokered by Clay and Democratic Senator Stephen Douglas, reduced sectional conflict. -
Uncle Tom's Cabin
Uncle Tom's Cabin is an anti-slavery novel by American author Harriet Beecher Stowe. Published in 1852, the novel "helped lay the groundwork for the Civil War -
Bleeding Kansas
Bleeding Kansas, Bloody Kansas or the Border War was a series of violent political confrontations in the United States involving anti-slavery Free-Staters and pro-slavery "Border Ruffian" elements, that took place in the Kansas Territory and the neighboring towns of the state of Missouri between 1854 and 1861. -
Dred Scottt Case
In March of 1857, the United States Supreme Court, led by Chief Justice Roger B. Taney, declared that all blacks -- slaves as well as free -- were not and could never become citizens of the United States. The court also declared the 1820 Missouri Compromise unconstitutional, thus permiting slavery in all of the country's territories.
