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Wilmot Proviso
An amendment to a budget reconciliation bill in the effort to make all land acquired following the Mexican-American War be free; introduced by Congressman Wilmot of Pennsylvania. The measure was defeated in the South-controlled Senate, further inflaming tensions and helped form the Republican Party in 1854. -
Compromise of 1850
A series of laws meant to placate both sides of the slavery argument. Following the acquiesced land from the Mexican-American War, California was to be admitted as a free state, Utah and New Mexico's slave statuses would be decided per referenda and southerners could now legally recover fugitive slaves. It was seen as insufficient for abolitionist Northerners, which would later anger the south with Northern juries nullifying the law and setting fugitive slaves free. -
Fugitive Slave Act of 1850
Included in the Compromise of 1850, the Fugitive Slave Act required all runaway slaves to be returned to their masters. Any black person—even if found free—could be essentially 'deported' back to the South via a singular affidavit from anyone claiming to be their master. Northerners violently opposed the law, nullifying it in court, creating 'sanctuary cities,' offering safety to black people and even getting into brawls with its proponents. -
Uncle Tom's Cabin
A book written and published by Harriet Beecher Stowe, which, in graphic detail, described the horrors slaves went through in their lives, with a focus particularly on the forced separation of enslaved families. The book was incredibly divisive, infuriating Southerners, who saw it as gross exaggeration of the 'actual' slave life, while emboldening Northern abolitionists, who saw it as rightful justification for their demonising of Southern slaveholders. -
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"Bleeding Kansas"
A period of violence during the settling of the Kansas territory. Due to its slave status being decided per a referendum, people from abolitionist and slave causes flooded the state, in an effort to influence the election. What resulted were multiple scrimmages and violent clashes between these two groups, with John Brown, an abolitionist, orchestrated many murders of pro-slavery settlers and battles. [Link text](goo.gl/MigCOh) -
Kansas-Nebraska Act
The Kansas-Nebraska Act was a legislation that required all newly-incorporated to hold referenda on whether slavery should be allowed in their states. The Act flew in the face of the Compromise of 1850, violating many of its provisions. Due to this, Northerners were justifiably angry at this congressional backstab, and quickly mobilised in parallel to pro-slavery groups to influence the Kansasian referendum in 'Bleeding Kansas.' -
Dred Scott v. Sanford Supreme Court Case
The Dred Scott decision was a Supreme Court case, in which Dred Scott, a slave, had lived with his owner in a free state before returning to Missouri, a slave state. Scott argued that the fact that he'd stepped foot on free land meant that he should be free. However, Justice Roger Taney said that slaves do not hold American citizenship, therefore ineligible for emancipation. The decision became a rallying cry for abolitionists, who were emboldened to outlaw slavery in its entirety. -
Lincoln-Douglas Debates
Six debates between Democratic Senator Douglas and Republican Abraham Lincoln. Douglas was seeking a third term in Congress, and Lincoln was challenging his Illinois Senator seat. It, like no other debates in history, transformed the way we take part in political discourse today, as well as exposing the deep tensions between pro-slave and anti-slave forces. -
Harper's Ferry
John Brown, a stanch abolitionist, and his five son attack an army arsenal at Harper's Ferry. They quickly overtake the arsenal, put are soon on the defensive after their supposed 'slave rebellion' never comes to fruition. The U.S. Marines retake the arsenal, and Brown is sentenced to death, with his sons already dead. His trial made the nation fraught with division; a terrorist in the South, a martyr in the North. His name would be uttered as a rallying cry during the war. -
The Election of 1860
Republican Abraham Lincoln versus Democrats Stephen A. Douglas, John C. Breckenridge and Constitutional Union John Bell. The split between Southern states allowed Lincoln to be victorious, with him being sworn in as the 13th president of the United States. Southern states cried, falsely, of a rigged election, and not a few months later, South Carolina seceded from the Union and the Civil War began. -
Battle of Fort Sumter
A previously Union-controlled fortification in Charleston Harbor, South Carolina, Fort Sumter was attacked by South Carolinian Confederate forces in the first battle of the Civil War. General Pierre Beauregard of the Confederacy and his troops bombarded the fort into submission, sparking the American Civil War and the single bloodiest war America had ever been involved in.
