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Cotton Gin
When Eli Whitney first introduced the cotton business wasn't doing too well because it was hard to separate the cotton from the actual seed and the machine speeded up the process so of course the demand for slaves went up so that they could harvest the cotton.This also caused for the farmers go westward to chase new land for cotton growing bringing their slaves with them.Who knows if the cotton gin wasn’t invented, the demand for slaves wouldn’t have gone up therefore not making sectional debate -
Missouri Compromise
Henry Clay introduced a compromise when Missouri wanted to be admitted as a slave state but the North opposed due to the imbalance.He admitted Maine as a free state to keep the balance.In the compromise, Congress forbade for any of the remaining Louisiana territory above the 36 30’ line to have any slavery.You could feel the tension rising over sectionalism.The sectionalism was gathering a competitive spirit. This foreshadowed the war because Congress wouldn’t be able to come up with a solution -
Priggs. vs Pennsylvania Edward Prigg, Joseph Story, Northern dates
Priggs had been convicted over the felony of the abduction of a runaway slave in Pennsylvania its illegal to do.Edward Prigg took the case to the supreme court stating that the law was overruling the federal law that runaway slaves had to be returned.However Chief Justice Story ruled the Pennsylvania law unconstitutional,his opinion was the one that pushed the Northern to establish personal liberty laws.Laws prohibiting state officials from capturing runaway slaves.Thiswas abolitionist movement. -
Treaty of Hidalgo Mexican Government and Nicholas Trist
When we won the Mexican War we gained a lot of land such as California and New Mexico along with a new vast territory and with the Rio Grande as the boundary. With this new territory would come new states and of course we would have to decide whether they would be slave or free states. That controversy would lead to the Compromise of 1850 and the Wilmot Proviso which would only lead to more sectionalism issues. -
Fugitive Slave Act Henry Clay
The fugitive slave acts was passed along with the Compromise of 1850. It was laws that stated that any runaway slaves had to be returned to their owner if found anywhere in the United States and those who helped them escape were going to be fined. Many northern states were angered by this states like Vermont and Wisconsin passed laws around the acts and some nullified the laws.. By these actions you can tell these acts just furthered the Abolitionist movement. -
Uncle Tom’s Cabin Harriet Beecher Stowe
In 1852 this fiction story called Uncle Tom’s Cabin appeared.The book was about the truth of how slaves were treated how cruel the masters can get.In the North the political opinion definitely hardened the opposition of slavery.By reading the book in the north the abolitionist were just furthered enraged! Giving them more motive to fight for the beliefs.In the south, the book was actually illegal in some states.They rejected, and hated the book.The book made the South more hateful of the North. -
Bleeding Kansas
Bleeding Kansas was a time when Kansas settlers were still fighting over if there were a free or slave state. People would move there to fight for their beliefs and what the state should be. There was one event that happened involving John Brown where he killed 5 pro-slavery settlers and he left the bodies there as a threat to any other pro-slavery citizens trying to enter Kansas. These events was the foreshadow of the civil war, almost like a smaller version of the civil war. -
Dred-Scott Decision Dred-Scott, John Sandford, The Supreme Court
When Dred-Scott filed for a suit against his owner’s widow was still keeping him a slave in a forbidden territory the owners brother came in to the picture and claimed him as private property. Chief Justice Taney spoke said that African Americans had no rights to citizenship. All this was a defeat was a defeat to the abolitionists which of course made them extremely angry. This ruling furthered the abolitionist opinion of the North. -
John Brown Raid
John Brown, an anti-slavery enthusiast led him and sixteen other followers to raid a U.S arsenal in Harpers Ferry, Virginia. He hope to inspire a slave insurrection but it did not inspire anybody and instead he was convicted for treason. This led southerners to believe that (even though it was untrue) that the republican party supported the raid. It also led them to believe that they were truly unsafe in the union, because what else would they have to protect themselves from. -
Abraham Lincoln Gets Elected
Abraham Lincoln and the Republican party
Lincoln's victory was the end of national unity. When Lincoln won the election of 1860 for many southerners that was the last straw because he was on the anti-slavery platform moreso than then the slavery platform. They saw no hope in staying in the union because they knew that with a president that didn't want to expand slavery/carry it on to the new territory they knew they would have no say.
