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Missouri Compromise
A series of laws enacted in 1820 to maintain the balance of power between slave states and free states. it upset the balance of power that existed between these rival factories in the senate. It was declared unconstitutional and helped pay the way to the civil war. -
Dred Scott v. Sanford
An 1856 supreme court case in which a slave, Dred Scott, sued for his freedom because he had been taken to live in territories where slavery was illegal the court ruled against scott. It helped bring the war by hardening the positions of each side to the point where both were willing to fight over the issue of slavery. -
Wilmot Proviso
An 1846 proposal that outlawed slavery in any territory gained from the war with Mexico. It helped cause the war by creating great bitterness between North and South and helped crystallize the conflict over the extension of slavery. -
Compromise of 1850
A series of congressional laws intended to settle the major disagreements between free states and slave states. It helped cause the civil war by making the tension between pro slavery and anti slavery forces greater. -
Uncle Tom's Cabin
A novel published by Harriet Beecher Stowe in 1852 that portrayed slavery as brutal and immoral.Uncle Tom's Cabin contributed to the outbreak of war by personalizing the political and economic arguments about slavery. -
Kansas-Nebraska Act
The law divided the land west of missouri into two, Kansas and Nebraska. Proslavery and Antislavery elements flooded into kansas with the goal of voting slavery up or down leading to the bloody civil war. It was the first war that started the civil war. -
Sack of Lawrence
In may, a proslavery mob attacked town of Lawrence, Kansas. The attackers destroyed offices and the house of the governor of the antislavery government. The town of Lawrence became the first casualty in America's Civil War that would officially be declared five years later. -
Pottawatomie Massacre
a small band of abolitionists led by john brown, murdered five pro-slavery men just north of Pottawatomie creek. It was the most famous event leading up to the American civil war. -
Election of 1860
Lincoln and douglas go against eachother in presidental election in 1860; lincoln wins. This event caused South Carolina to secede bring the union closer to declaring war. -
South Carolina Suceeding from Union
Before the 1860 presidential election many southerners warned that if Lincoln won, the southerners would secede or withdraw from the union. It helped cause the civil war by having one less state to hold the union together, it suceded to to perpetuate the institution of slavery.
