Timeline for Antebellum,Zhiyuan Lin

  • Compromise of 1850

    Compromise of 1850
    Compromise of 1850 is known as the US Congress in September 1850 by the five bills related to slavery. The compromise by the federal government in a peaceful manner temporarily be preserved.
    The legislation would eventually pass and be highly controversial, but it essentially delayed the Civil War by a decade.
  • Frederick Douglass speech

    Frederick Douglass speech
    Frederick Douglass delivers notable speech, “The Meaning of July 4th for the black.”
    During the 1850s, Frederick Douglass typically spent about six months of the year travelling extensively, giving lectures. During one winter -- the winter of 1855-1856 -- he gave about 70 lectures during a tour that covered four to five thousand miles. And his speaking engagements did not halt at the end of a tour. From his home in Rochester, New York, he took part in local abolition-related events.
  • New President:Franklin Pierce

    New President:Franklin Pierce
    November 2: Franklin Pierce elected President of the United States.March 4: sworn in as President of the United States.
    Franklin Pierce was the 14th President of the United States. Pierce was a northern Democrat who saw the abolitionist movement as a fundamental threat to the unity of the nation.His polarizing actions in championing and signing the Kansas–Nebraska Act and enforcing the Fugitive Slave Act failed to stem intersectional conflict, setting the stage for Southern secession.
  • Republican Party formed

    Republican Party formed
    Founded by anti-slavery activists in 1854, the GOP dominated politics nationally and in most of the northern U.S. for most of the period between 1860 and 1932. There have been 18 Republican U.S. presidents
  • Bleeding Kansas

    Bleeding Kansas
    was a series of violent political confrontations in the United States involving anti-slavery Free-Staters and pro-slavery "Border Ruffian" elements, that took place in the Kansas Territory and the neighboring towns of the state of Missouri between 1854 and 1861. The Kansas–Nebraska Act of 1854 called for "popular sovereignty"—that is, the decision about slavery was to be made by the settlers (rather than outsiders). It would be decided by votes—or more exactly which side had more votes counted
  • The Kansas-Nebraska Act

    The Kansas-Nebraska Act
    The Kansas-Nebraska Act signed into law. The legislation, designed to lessen the tension over slavery, actually has the opposite effect.This act, introduced by Illinois Sen. Stephen Douglas, extended popular sovereignty (allowing residents of a state to vote on whether to allow slavery) to these territories north of the 36° 30' latitude. It essentially repealed the (Missouri) Compromise of 1820.
  • The Pottawatomie massacre

    The Pottawatomie massacre
    The Pottawatomie massacre occurred during the night of May 24 and the morning of May 25, 1856. In reaction to the sacking of Lawrence, Kansas by pro-slavery forces, John Brown and a band of abolitionist settlers—some of them members of the Pottawatomie Rifles—killed five settlers north of Pottawatomie Creek in Franklin County, Kansas. This was one of the many bloody episodes in Kansas preceding the American Civil War, which came to be known collectively as Bleeding Kansas. Bleeding Kansas was la
  • Dred Scott Decision

    Dred Scott Decision
    In a landmark decision, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that slaves were not citizens, that the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional, and that Dred Scott, although he had once resided in a free state, would remain a slave.
  • Period: to

    Debates

    perennial rivals Stephen Douglas and Abraham Lincoln hold a series of seven debates in Illinois while running for a U.S. Senate seat. Douglas won the election, but the debates elevated Lincoln, and his anti-slavery views, to national prominence.
  • Abolitionist Fanatic John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry

    Abolitionist Fanatic John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry
    was an attempt by the white abolitionist John Brown to start an armed slave revolt in 1859 by seizing a United States arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia. Brown's raid, accompanied by 21 men in his party, was defeated by a detachment of U.S. Marines led by Col. Robert E. Lee. John Brown had originally asked Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass, both of whom he had met in his formative years as an abolitionist in Springfield, Massachusetts, to join him in his raid, but Tubman was prevented by il
  • John Brown executed

    John Brown executed
    Captured during his failed raid on the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia (now West Virginia), John Brown was charged with murder, conspiring with slaves to rebel and treason against the state of Virginia. His trial lasted only five days, and he was found guilty on all charges and sentenced to death. A month later, he was executed by hanging in Charles Town. Six of Brown's men captured at Harpers Ferry were tried and hanged as well. To Southerners, Brown was a mad fanatic. Northerners we