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Missouri Compromise
The Missouri Compromise was an agreement passed in 1820 between the pro-slavery and antislavery minority in congress. It balanced the power of congress. Missouri would enter the Union as a slave state; and the remaining territory of the Louisiana Purchase, which lay north of the 36-30 parallel, would be closed off to slavery. -
Wilmot Proviso
The Wilmot Proviso was designed to eliminate slavery withinthe land acquired from the Mexican War.After the war began,President James Polk sought the donation of $2 million as part of a bill to negotiate the terms of a treaty.Fearing a pro-slave territory, David Wilmot proposed his amendment to the bill.Although the measure was blocked in the southern Senate, it made the growing controversy over slavery worse, and its underlying principle helped bring about the formation of the Republican Party. -
Compromise of 1850
Congress passed the Compromise of 1850, a series of 5 laws meant to solve the controversy over slavery. The Compromise of 1850 included five laws that addressed issues related to slavery. The compromise outlawed the slave trade (not slavery) in the District of Columbia while it enacted a stricter fugitive slave law to facilitate the retrieval of slaves who had run away to the North. -
Compromise of 1850
The compromise, while not wholly satisfactory to either the North or the South, temporarily preserved the Union. The bitterness between the North and South caused all attempts at compromise to fail. -
Fugitive Slave Act
The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 allowed officials to arrest anyone accused of being a runaway slave. Suspects had no rights to a trial. Northern citizens were required to help capture accused runaways. Slave catchers would seize fugitives even after many
years had passed since their escape.Senator Calhoun hoped that it would force northerners to admit that slaveholders had rights to their property. Instead, it convinced more northerners that slavery was evil.The North began to resist the law. -
Uncle Tom’s Cabin
Harriet Beecher Stowe was the daughter of an abolitionist minister, was deeply affected by the Fugitive Slave Law. In 1853, Stowe published the novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin, about an enslaved man who is abused by his cruel owner. The novel contributed to the outbreak of war by personalizing the political and economic arguments about slavery. When northerners read the novel they became more active in anti-slavery movement. Southerners viewed the novel as propaganda. -
Kansas Nebraska Act / Bleeding Kansas
The debate over slavery continued with the Kansas and Nebraska territories. Southerners refused to admit the territories because they lay above the Missouri Compromise line.
(In 1854, Senator Stephen Douglas helped pass the Kansas-Nebraska Act.) The Kansas- Nebraska Act
Allowed the people in the territories to decide the slavery issue by popular sovereignty. It allowed for new territories to decide is they were free or slave states. -
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John Brown’s Raid
They attacked Harper's Ferry, Virginia.They seized guns and planned to start a slave revolt.Brown was wounded and captured by Colonel Robert E. Lee. In 1859, John Brown raised a group of followers to help him free slaves in the South. Before he was sentenced, he gave a passionate defense of his actions. The Bible instructed him to care for the poor and enslaved. Northerners praised Brown’s attempt to lead a slave revolt.South saw him as proof that the North was out to destroy their way of life. -
Dred Scott Case
The slave Dred Scott sued for his freedom.He lived with his owner in two places where slavery was illegal.Therefore he argued that he was a free man.
Dred Scott Decision
Scott could not sue because he was a slave and, therefore, not a U.S. citizen.
Living in a free state did not make him free.
Slaves are property protected by the US Constitution. -
Dred Scott Case
Justice Taney also ruled that Congress did not have the power to prohibit slavery in any territory.
Both northerners and southerners were shocked by the court’s decision. North was angry while sout was glad because slavery was now legal in all territories. -
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Lincoln Douglas Debate
Lincoln Douglas debate was about the slavery and its future. Douglass didn't want blacks to ever be citizens.He was very racist. He wanted popular sovereignty.Lincoln thought that the country can not be divided on the issue of slavery,but the races will be forever divided, white race is superior,declaration of independence is applied to all.After winning,Douglas further alienated the South,was soon to be stripped of his power in the Senate,and contributed to the division of the Democratic party. -
Lincoln’s Election of 1860
There were 4 candidates in the election. The candidates were Lincoln, Douglas, Breckenridge, and Bell. Lincoln wins electoral and looses the popular vote. The south sees Lincoln's republican party background as a threat. South threatens to secede from the Union and South Carolina is the first secede. -
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Southern Secession
Within three months of Lincoln's election, seven states had seceded from the Union. Fort Sumpter is under attack and Lincoln tries to re-stock it with food, but South Carolina took it over first. This was viewed as act of aggression from the south. State by state, conventions were held, and the confederacy was formed. This triggers the beginning of the American Civil war
