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The Underground Railroad
Many abolitionist, the most famous being Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman, are known for their help on the Underground Railroad. Many slaves escaped to safety. Harriet Tubman helped over 300, she made nearly 20 trips back to the Underground Railroad after she had reached freedom. This was extremely dangerous, any slave catcher could get her. There was even a reward out for her. -
The Missouri Compomise
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/congress-passes-the-missouri-compromise With the purchase of the Louisiana Territory and the application of Missouri for statehood, the long-standing balance between the number of slave states and the number of free states would be changed. Controversy arose within Congress over the issue of slavery. -
The Missouri Compromise(continued)
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/congress-passes- Congress adopted this legislation and admitted Missouri as a slave state and Maine as a non-slave state at the same time, so that the balance between slave and free states in the nation would remain equal. The Missouri compromise also proposed that slavery be prohibited above the 36º 30´ latitude line in the remainder of the Louisiana Territory. This provision held for 34 years, until it was repealed by the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854. -
Nat Turner's Rebellion
<http://blueandgraytrail.com/event/Nat_Turner_and_the_Slave_Revolt' > Revolt of Nat Turner- August 22, 1831. The original date planned for this revolt was July, 4, 1831. Turner was ill on that day, so the date of the rebellion was changed. -
The Response to Nat Turner's Rebellion
<http://blueandgraytrail.com/event/Nat_Turner_and_the_Slave_Revolt' > Nat Turner is captured and hung for leading a slave revolt. His body is skinned and dispersed to white onlookers for souvenirs. -
Frederick Douglass' Life as an Abolitionist
<http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_year_did_Frederick_Douglass_escape_slavery'> Born in 1818, he finally escaped from slavery and went to New York in September 3, 1838. Before that, he had taught other slaves to read and had also previously unsuccessfully escaped. -
Compromise of 1850
<http://www.ourcampaigns.com/EventDetail.html?EventID=3' > California was admitted to the Union as a free state. This would upset the equilibrium of the free and slave states in the Senate. -
Kansas-Nebraska Act
<http://www.territorialkansasonline.org/~imlskto/cgi-bin/index.php?SCREEN=keyword&selected_keyword=Kansas%20Nebraska%20Act/' > Officially titled "An Act to Organize the Territories of Nebraska and Kansas," this act repealed the Missouri Compromise, which had outlawed slavery above the 36 degrees 30 minutes latitude in the Louisiana Territory and reopened the national struggle over slavery in the western territories. -
Bleeding Kansas
<http://americanhistory.about.com/od/beforethewar/g/bleedingkansas.htm' > On May 21, 1856 Border Ruffians ransacked Lawrence, Kansas which was known to be a staunch free-state area. One day later, violence occurred on the floor of the U.S. Senate when Congressman Preston Brooks of South Carolina attacked Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts with a cane after Sumner spoke out against Southerners responsible for violence in Kansas. -
Dred Scott Case
<http://americancivilwar.com/colored/dred_scott.html'> On March 6, 1857, Chief Justice Roger B. Taney delivered the Supreme Court's decision against Dred Scott, a slave who maintained he had been emancipated as a result of having lived with his master in the free state of Illinois and in federal territory where slavery was forbidden by the Missouri Compromise. -
Election of 1860
<http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/abraham-lincoln-elected-president' > Abraham Lincoln is elected the 16th president of the United States over a deeply divided Democratic Party, becoming the first Republican to win the presidency. Lincoln received only 40 percent of the popular vote but handily defeated the three other candidates: Southern Democrat John C. Breckinridge, Constitutional Union candidate John Bell, and Northern Democrat Stephen Douglas, a U.S. senator for Illinois. -
Attack on Fort Sumter
<http://www.civilwar.org/battlefields/fort-sumter.html' > On April 12, 1861, General P.G.T. Beauregard, in command of the Confederate forces around Charleston Harbor, opened fire on the Union garrison holding Fort Sumter. At 2:30pm on April 13 Major Robert Anderson, garrison commander, surrendered the fort and was evacuated the next day.
