Timeline: 1850-1861

  • Uncle Tom's Cabin

    Uncle Tom's Cabin was a novel written by abolitionist Harriet Beecher Stowe to show America the true injustices that were happening to the slaves at the time. The book was an important piece of literature that would bring more and more people onto the anti-slavery side of America.
  • Republican Party

    This was the beginning of the modern-day Republican party. It emerged to combat the expansion of slavery after the Kansas-Nebraska act. It consisted of mainly northerners.
  • Kansas Nebraska Act

    This act created two new territories that would later be called Kansas and Nebraska and also repealed the Missouri compromise which basically allowed these two territories popular sovereignty when it came to slavery. Popular sovereignty meant that the people could decide whether or not to allow slavery.
  • Period: to

    Bloody Kansas

    After popular sovereignty was established in Kansas the two sides of slavery, the anti-slavery side and the side that supported slavery began fighting each other so that one side could come out on top to either ban slavery or permit it. The anti-slavery side won in the end.
  • Election 1856

    During this election, it was a three-party election where it was the first time a republican ran for the presidency. In the end, the democratic representative won who was named James Buchanan.
  • Dred Scott

    Dred Scott was a slave who claimed freedom because he owned residency in a free state. He took his case all the way to the Supreme Court where the Supreme Court established the Missouri Compromise unconstitutional and would not give Scott citizenship.
  • Lincoln Douglas

    These were debates that Lincoln and Douglas had during their campaigns when running for the presidency. Lincoln ended up coming on top.
  • Harper's Ferry

    This was a raid that John Brown led where they raided a federal armory for weapons to instate a slave rebellion.
  • John Brown

    John Brown was an American abolitionist who took some pretty extreme measures to get his point across, especially armed revolts. He was later captured and executed by hanging in Charles Town.
  • Election 1860

    This was the election where Abraham Lincoln was elected as president.
  • Secession

    Many states began to succeed because they wanted to preserve their ways of slavery.