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Abolitionest event
The goal of the abolitionist movement was the immediate emancipation of all slaves and the end of racial discrimination and segregation. Advocating for immediate emancipation distinguished abolitionists from more moderate anti-slavery advocates who argued for gradual emancipation, and from free-soil activists who sought to restrict slavery to existing areas and prevent its spread further west. Radical abolitionism was partly fueled by the religious fervor of the Second Great Awakening, which pro -
Underground Railroad
The Underground Railroad was a connection of secret routs to the North for slaves to escape. They hung quilts up with patterns to signal slaves different things. They also put a lamp in windows to tell slaves that it was safe to cross the erie river. -
Kansas Nebraska Act
repealed the Missouri Compromise, allowing slavery in the territory north of the 36° 30´ latitude. Introduced by Senator Stephen Douglas of Illinois, the Kansas-Nebraska Act stipulated that the issue of slavery would be decided by the residents of each territory, a concept known as popular sovereignty. After the bill passed on May 30, 1854, violence erupted in Kansas between pro-slavery and anti-slavery settlers, a prelude to the Civil War. -
Missouri Compramise
Should Missouri be a free or slave state? Although slave owners have already moved into the Missouri territory James Tallmadge said no. Therefore the state of new York proposed that no more slaves will be brought into Missouri.Pickney of Maryland argued that states already in the union had joined withought any conditions. If congress, had declared, had the right to set conditions for new states, then these new states would not be equal to the old ones.The issue was resolved by a two part Compr -
Nat Turners Rebellion
In 1831 a slave named Nat Turner led a rebellion in Southhampton County, Virginia. A religious leader and self-styled Baptist minister, Turner and a group of followers killed some sixty white men, women, and children on the night of August 21. Turner and 16 of his conspirators were captured and executed, but the incident continued to haunt Southern whites. Blacks were randomly killed all over Southhampton County; many were beheaded and their heads left along the roads to warn others. In the wake -
Compramise of 1850
The Compromise of 1850 consists of five laws passed in September of 1850 that dealt with the issue of slavery. In 1849 California requested permission to enter the Union as a free state, potentially upsetting the balance between the free and slave states in the U.S. -
Dred Scott Case
In March 1857, in one of the most controversial events preceding the American Civil War (1861-65), the U.S. Supreme Court issued its decision in the case of Dred Scott v. Sanford. The case had been brought before the court by Dred Scott, a slave who had lived with his owner in a free state before returning to the slave state of Missouri. -
Presidential Election of 1860
The digital collections of the Library of Congress contain a wide variety of material associated with the presidential election of 1860, including manuscripts, broadsides, prints, political cartoons, sheet music, articles, and government documents. -
Bleeding Kansas
In 1854 the Kansas Nebraska act overturned the compromise of 1850, and instead of using popular sovereignty, decreed that the residents would determine whether the area became free or a slave state.
