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Missouri Compromise
The Missouri territory was carved out by settlers who were mostly pro-slavery and wanted to be annexed into the union as a slaver state. However it will cause tensions with the free states because this addition of a slave state will disrupt the balance.To resolve the dispute, a compromise was proposed that would admit Missouri and Maine as states, on condition that slavery would be prohibited north of the line 36°30′ within the new lands except for those comprising Missouri Territory. -
Nat Turner Rebellion
Nat Turner is an Black American man slave who led the only effective slave rebellion against the white citizens in the south.Nat told his 6 most trusted friends of his plan and they decided to kill all the white men, women, and children connected in any way to slave. This caused a terror in the Southern states and which caused tensions and caused the prohibition of education, movements, assembly of slaves, and anti-abolitionist convictions. Turner ran away to hide, but was caught and executed -
Compromise of 1850
Forestalled the Civil War by instating the Fugitive Slave Act , banning slave trade in DC, admitting California as a free state, splitting up the Texas territory, and instating popular sovereignty in the Mexican Cession. Slavery becomes outlawed in Washington D.C., California is admitted as a free state, and Utah and New Mexico will determine whether slavery is allowed through popular sovereignty. Also, the Fugitive Slave Law is passed. It caused tension because it reopened the slavery debate. -
Fugitive Slave Act
Concerns that free states would be a safe haven for runaway slaves, politicians empathized to congress to pass a law to resolve this concern. Following the increasing pressure from Southern politicians; congress passed the act which was a pair of federal laws that permitted the capture and return of runaway slaves to their owner. This new law denied the slaves to a right of a jury trail and the increase of fine to people that help these slaves. -
Uncle Tom’s Cabin
Uncle Tom’s Cabin was written by Harriet Beecher Stowe that was published in the United States. It was an abolitionist novel that was popular specially in the white readers. The book sold around 300,000 copies and was popular in England as well. The novel had a profound effect on attitudes toward African Americans because of it shedding light on slaves in a more positive light and and slavery in the U.S. and is said to have "helped lay the groundwork for the Civil War. -
Kansas-Nebraska Act
One of the most important event that contributed greatly to the Civil War. Settlers wanted to move in a new area now know as Nebraska. They couldn't claim the land because it was not a organized official territory yet. The southern states representatives were not making too much efforts to try to claim the land and add it to a addition to the slave states. This is because of the 36°30' parallel. The act mandated “popular sovereignty” -
Brooks Attacks Sumner
An event where Southern Congressman Preston Brooks beats Northern Senator Charles Sumner in the halls of Congress with his cane over the tension rise of expansion of slavery. -
Dred Scott v. Sandford
In Dred Scott v. Sandford (argued 1856 -- decided 1857), the Supreme Court ruled that Americans of African descent, whether free or slave, were not American citizens and could not sue in federal court. The Court ruled that no African American could be a citizen and that Dred Scott was still a slave. The court also ruled that the Missouri Compromise of 1820 was unconstitutional. -
Lincoln-Douglas Debates
Series of seven debates between the Democratic senator Stephen A. Douglas and Republican challenger Abraham Lincoln during the 1858 Illinois senatorial campaign, largely concerning the issue of slavery extension into the territories. The famous debates revolved around the subject of slavery. They are generally considered one of the most famous political contests in American History, tackling the issue of the survival of the union and the institution of slavery. -
Raid on Harpers Ferry
Abolitionist John Brown leads a small group on a raid against a federal armory in Harpers Ferry, Virginia (now West Virginia), in an attempt to start an armed slave revolt and destroy the institution of slavery. He planned to capture weapons in the US arsenal so slaves would fight for their freedom -
Election of 1860
United States presidential election of 1860, American presidential election held on Nov. 6, 1860, in which Republican Abraham Lincoln defeated Southern Democrat John C. Breckenridge, Democrat Stephen A. Douglas, John Bell. -
Bleeding Kansas
Series of violent civil confrontation in the United States between 1854 and 1861 which pro slavery and free-state settlers flooded Kansas to try to influence the decision of whether the territory will become a free state of a slave state -
The Battle of Fort Sumter
The Battle of Fort Sumter (April 12–13, 1861) was the bombardment of Fort Sumter near Charleston, South Carolina by the Confederate States Army, and the return gunfire and subsequent surrender by the United States Army, that started the American Civil War. Had the confederacy not attacked Fort Sumter there is a chance that the Confederate States would still exist today, although by now slavery would most likely have been abolished anyway in the south.
