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Missouri Compromise
Missouri entered as a slave state and Maine entered as a free state. Everything above 36, 30 were free territories, and everything below 36, 30 would be slave territories. -
Nat Turner's Rebellion
Nat Turner led a slave rebellion, killing slave owners and their families. They killed over 50 people. The result was all of the people involved were executed, fear spread through the South and more restrictions were put on slaves. -
Compromise of 1850
California became a free state. Slavery in Mexican Cession was to be decided by popular sovereignty (voting). There was a western border created for Texas. And there was the Fugitive Slave Act: 1. Recapture runaway slaves, 2. If you helped a runaway slave you could go to jail. -
Uncle Tom's Cabin
Uncle Tom's Cabin was a book written by Harriet Beecher Stowe. The book was about the horrors of slavery and it ended up making a lot of northerners become abolitionists. -
Kansas-Nebraska Act
The land was split into 2 territories, Nebraska and Kansas. The decision of slavery in the two territories was decided by popular sovereignty. Which made northerners mad because that meant slavery was no longer banned in Kansas so people from both the South and the North all began moving into Kansas. And on election day 5,000 people from Missouri came into Kansas to vote illegally for slavery. Pro-slavery won, and after many acts of violence occurred. This was named "bleeding Kansas" -
Dred Scott vs. Sandford Ruling
Dred Scott was a slave in Missouri, his owner took him to a place where slavery was illegal but they later returned to Missouri. When his owner died, Dred Scott sued for his freedom claiming he was once a free man when he lived in a place where slavery was illegal.
The Supreme Court ruling stated
1. African Americans were not citizens
2. Slaves were property. -
John Brown's Raid on Harpers Ferry
John Brown wanted to arm slaves so that they could start a rebellion. He led a raid on the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia. John Brown was tried for treason and was hung. The North mourned his death, they saw him as a hero. But, the South celebrated, they saw him as a threat. -
Election of 1860
Abraham Lincoln was elected. This led to many southern states to secede away from the U.S. The 7 states that seceded formed the Confederate States of America, and they wrote a constitution that supported state rights and protected slavery. Abraham Lincoln's first act as president was making secession illegal.