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Uncle Tom's Cabin
This book was written by Harriet B. Stowe which recounted the life of slavery. The book itself became very famous and one of her best sellers. It played a key role in convincing the North and the South that slavery was an issue that couldn't be ignored and needed to be dealt with. Abraham Lincoln met Harriet once and said, "So this is the little lady that started our big war!" -
Bloody Kansas
Also known as "Bleeding Kansas" or the "Border War", this was a series of violent civil confrontations in the United States between 1854 and 1861 which emerged from a political and ideological debate over the legality of slavery in the proposed state of Kansas. -
Republican Party
The Republican Party also referred to as the GOP (‘Grand old party’), opposed the expansion of slavery but supported expanded banking, more railroads, and factories, and giving free western land to farmers as opposed to letting slave owners buy up the property. It argued that free-market labor was superior to slavery and was the very foundation of good citizen behavior and true republicanism. -
Kansas Nebraska Act
Passed by the U.S. Congress to allow people in the territories of Kansas and Nebraska to decide for themselves ("popular sovereignty") whether or not to allow slavery within their borders. This act kind of repealed the Missouri Compromise of 1820 which prohibited slavery north of latitude 36°30´. -
Brooks-Sumner Incident
Two days after the end of Sumner's speech over slavery, Brooks entered the chamber and flatly told Sumner, "You've libeled my state and slandered my white-haired old relative, Senator Butler, and I've come to punish you for it." Brooks ten began to strike Sumner over the head repeatedly with a gold-tipped cane. The cane shattered as Brooks gave blow after blow on Sumner, but Brooks could not be stopped. Only after being physically restrained by others did Brooks end the pummeling. -
Election of 1856
In the election of 1856, Democrat James Buchanan defeated Republican John C. Frémont with 174 electoral votes to Frémont’s 114. Whig and former president Millard Fillmore, who ran on the Know-Nothing ticket, garnered only 8 electoral votes. -
Dred Scott
As a part of the Scott v. Sanford court case, Dred Scott attempted to sue his owner, arguing that he had the right to be a free man since he was in the free territory as a slave where slavery was banned. The issues of whether slaves could be citizens or taken from their owners even though they were property came up as well as was the Missouri Compromise constitutional? -
LeCompton Constitution
The Lecompton Constitution was a document framed in the Territorial Capital of Kansas 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. -
House Divided Speech
A speech made by Abraham Lincoln to the Illinois Republican convention in 1858 where he noted that conflict between North and South over slavery was intensifying. He assured that the conflict wouldn't stop until a crisis was reached and passed since a biblical phrase Lincoln used says, “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” He said: “I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free." -
Lincoln Douglass Debates
The debates were a 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. The significance of the Lincoln Douglas Debates was that: Lincoln forced Douglas to defend the doctrine of popular sovereignty in relation to the issue of slavery. It helped Douglass win Senate but not election. They ended on October 15, 1858. -
Harper's Ferry
This raid was an assault by an armed band of abolitionists led by John Brown on the federal armory located at Harpers Ferry, Virginia. It was a main precipitating incident to the American Civil War. -
John Brown
Brown was born on May 9, 1800, and he was a religious fanatical that believed he was an instrument of God to help right the wrongdoing of slavery. In the raid of Harper's Ferry, he got caught and was charged with treason. He was executed on December 2, 1859. -
Secession
11 slave states seceded from the Union during 1860–61 following the election of Abraham Lincoln as president. Secession suddenly caused the American Civil War.
After Lincoln was elected, the Southern states decided to leave because they thought Lincoln was going to interfere with slavery even though he said he wasn't -
Election of 1860
In the election of 1860 in which Republican Abraham Lincoln defeated Southern Democrat John C. Breckinridge, Democrat Stephen A. Douglas, and Constitutional Union candidate John Bell. The electoral split between Northern and Southern Democrats was symbolic of the severe sectional split over slavery, and in the months following Lincoln’s election seven Southern states, led by South Carolina on December 20, 1860, seceded. -
Lincoln's First Inaugural Address
By Monday, March 4, 1861, seven states had left the Union and Lincoln addressed his remarks to the South. Considered one of America's great speeches, its conclusion is one of Lincoln's most-quoted passages.
