-
Republican Party
The Republican Party during this time was against Congress or territorial legislatures having the power to make slavery legal, meaning they were against the existence of slavery. The slogan of the party was “Free Speech, Free Soil, and Fremont.” As a result of these beliefs, it created a stronger divide and controversy between the Democratic and Republican parties. Free Soilers. -
Uncle Toms Cabin
A novel published in serialized form in the United States in 1851–52 and in book form in 1852. An abolitionist novel, it achieved wide popularity, particularly among white readers in the North, by vividly dramatizing the experience of slavery. Uncle Tom's Cabin did increase the differences between the North and the South. Many Northerners realized how unjust slavery was for the first time. With increasing opposition to slavery, Southern slave owners worked even harder to defend the institution. -
Bloody Kansas
Because the Kansas-Nebraska Act stated that the future status of slavery in the territories was to be decided by popular vote, both antislavery Northerners and proslavery Southerners fought to win the region for their section. Kansas is an important starting place for what people argued is the first battles of the Civil War because it is this battlefield on which the forces of anti-slavery and the forces of slavery met for the first time. -
Kansas Nebraska Act
The Kansas Nebraska Act allowed people in the territories of Kansas and Nebraska to decide for themselves whether or not to allow slavery within their borders. The Act served to repeal the Missouri Compromise of 1820 which prohibited slavery north of latitude 36°30´. -
John Brown
John Brown was an American abolitionist. Brown advocated the use of armed insurrection to overthrow the institution of slavery in the United States. He first gained national attention when he led small groups of volunteers during the Bleeding Kansas crisis of 1856. He then led a raid on Harpers Ferry in 1859 which got him convicted and hanged. -
Election of 1856
The presidential election of 1856 took place in the middle of Kansas' civil war. The election was one of the most bitter in American history and the first in which voting divided along rigid sectional lines. The Democratic strategy was to picture the Republican Party as a “hotbed of radicalism”. Democrats called the Republicans the party of disunion and described Fremont badly. -
Brooks-Sumner Incident
Preston Brooks beat Charles Sumner with a cane on the floor of the United States Senate in retaliation or response for an anti-slavery speech in which Sumner verbally attacked Brooks's second cousin, South Carolina Senator Andrew Butler. Brooks walked out untouched and no charges were ever filed even though Sumner was almost beaten to death. -
Dred Scott
Dred Scott was an enslaved African American man in the United States who unsuccessfully sued for his freedom in the Dred Scott V Sanford. This case increased the momentum of Antislavery movements and it was a stepping stone for the Civil War. -
LeCompton Constitution
The LeCompton Constitution was drafted by Southern pro-slavery advocates of Kansas statehood. It contained clauses protecting slaveholding and a bill of rights excluding free blacks, and it added to the frictions leading up to the U.S. Civil War. -
Houses Divided Speech
In the speech, Lincoln tried to prove that the conflict would not stop until a crisis was reached and a well-known statement from this speech that tried to prove this was, “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” "I do not expect the Union to be dissolved — I do not expect the house to fall — but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other.” This speech signified his entrance into national politics when the nation was split over slavery. -
Lincoln Douglas Debates
Lincoln-Douglas debates series of seven debates between the Democratic senator Stephen A. Douglas and Republican challenger Abraham Lincoln during the 1858 Illinois senatorial campaign, largely concerning the issue of slavery extension into the territories. When Lincoln and Douglas debated the slavery extension issue in 1858, therefore, they were addressing the problem that had divided the nation into two hostile camps and that threatened the continued existence of the Union. -
Harpers Ferry
John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry was an 1859 effort by abolitionist John Brown to initiate an armed slave revolt in Southern states by taking over a United States arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia. It has been called the dress rehearsal for the Civil War. -
Election of 1860
The 1860 election revealed how divided the country had become. There were actually two separate sectional campaigns: one in the North, pitting Lincoln against Douglas, and one in the South between Breckinridge and Bell. Only Stephen Douglas mounted a truly national campaign. The Republicans did not campaign in the South and Lincoln's name did not appear on the ballot in 10 states. -
Secession
A secession convention of South Carolina had unanimously voted to leave the Union of the United States. The convention issued a declaration in which it attempted to justify its decision. Drawing on arguments developed by John C. Calhoun, the convention held that the states were sovereign entities that could leave the Union as freely as they joined. -
Lincoln's 1" Inaugural Address
Lincoln's first Inaugural Address refused any plan of Lincoln or his administration to get involved with the slavery in states where it existed. In Lincoln's opinion, he thought the United States was perpetual and unbroken and made secession legally impossible. He made clear that he would not use violence to prevent slavery and stop people from seceding.