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Missouri Compromise
The was mainly meant to create balance between slave and non-slave states. The Missouri Compromise was an effort by Congress to defuse the sectional and political rivalries triggered by the request of Missouri late in 1819 for admission as a state in which slavery would be permitted. At the time, the United States contained twenty-two states, evenly divided between slave and free. -
Missouri Compromise
The Compromise of 1850 determined that new states would be slave-free, and the slave trade was also abolished in Washington, D.C. After the Compromise of 1850 failed to settle the slavery matter, and the Civil War became increasingly inevitable in the following decade. The main purpose of the Missouri Compromise was to settle tensions between anti- and pro-slavery states. Missouri was petitioning for statehood as a slave state, which would have upset that balance. -
Compromise of 1850
One of the legislative bills that were passed as part of the Compromise of 1850 was a new version of the Fugitive Slave Act. At first, Clay introduced an omnibus bill covering these measures. Calhoun attacked the plan and demanded that the North cease its attempts to limit slavery. -
Fugitive Slave Law
The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 was an inclusion into the Compromise of 1850 in order to appease southern states. Learn how the act impacted runaway slaves and its contribution to the arrival of the Civil War. -
Kansas-Nebraska Act
The Kansas-Nebraska Act was passed by the U.S. Congress on May 30, 1854. It 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 -
Dred Scott Supreme Court decision
Sandford, legal case in which the U.S. Supreme Court on March 6, 1857, ruled (7–2) that a slave (Dred Scott) who had resided in a free state and territory (where slavery was prohibited) was not thereby entitled to his freedom; that African Americans were not and could never be citizens of the United States; -
Raid on Harper’s Ferry
Abolitionist John Brown leads a small group on a raid against a federal armory in Harpers Ferry, Virginia (now West Virginia), in an attempt to start an armed slave revolt and destroy the institution of slavery. ... One of Brown's sons was killed in the fighting. -
Election of 1860
The 1860 presidential election pitted four candidates against each other: Stephen Douglas for the Northern Democrats, John C. Breckenridge for the Southern Democrats, John Bell for the Constitutional Union Party, and Abraham Lincoln for the Republication Party. -
Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln was the 16th president of the United States of America, the leader who successfully prosecuted the Civil War to preserve the Nation. He played in key role in passage of the Thirteenth Amendment, which ended slavery in America. -
Battle of Antietam
On September 17,1862, Generals Robert E. Lee and George McClellan faced off near Antietam creek in Sharpsburg, Maryland, in the first battle of the American Civil War to be fought on northern soil. Though McClellan failed toutlilize his numerical superiority to crush Lee's Army. -
Emancipation Proclamation
On January 1, 1863, Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation. The declaration reads, all the people that was held as slaves within any state or designated part of a be then, thenceforward, and forever free. -
Battle of Gettysburg
The Battle of Gettysburg, fought in July 1863, was a Union victory that stopped Confederate General Robert E. Lee's second invasion of the North. More than 50,000 men fell as casualties during the 3-day battle, making it the bloodiest battle of the American Civil War.