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Requires citizens and officials in free states to assist in the capture and return of escaped enslaved people to their owners -
Created two territories, and allowed for popular sovereignty, which allowed residents to vote on whether to allow slavery in their territories. -
Violence between pro-slavery and anti-slavery advocates who vied for political control in the newly forming state
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Sumner delivered a speech, "The Crime Against Kansas," condemning slavery and verbally attacking several pro-slavery politicians. Brooks then ambushed Sumner with a cane, striking him repeatedly. Spent three years recuperating and returned to the Senate in 1859. -
Upheld slavery in US territories, denied the legality of black citizenship in America, and declared the Missouri Compromise to be unconstitutional. -
Stephen Douglas and Abraham Lincoln faced off in a series of debates focused on slavery as they vied for a US Senate seat representing Illinois. In the long term, the Lincoln-Douglas debates propelled Lincoln’s political career into the national spotlight, while basically stifling Douglas’ career, and foreshadowing the 1860 Election. -
John Brown led a small group to raid the federal armory at Harpers Ferry, Virginia, with the goal of sparking a slave rebellion by seizing weapons. However, the enslaved people did not join the raid, and after a short standoff, local militia and then U.S. Marines quickly crushed the rebellion. Brown was captured, tried for treason, and executed, while the raid deepened. -
Abraham Lincoln won the presidential election of 1860. Although Lincoln received less than 40% of the popular vote, he easily won the Electoral College vote over Stephen Douglas, John Breckenridge, and John Bell. In the months following Lincoln’s election and before his inauguration in March 1861, seven Southern states, led by South Carolina on December 20, 1860, seceded, setting the stage for the American Civil War.
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