Causes of the Civil War annotated timeline

  • Wilmot Proviso

    David Wilmot(Pennsylvania Congressman) wanted to reform a bill that would forbid the slavery in any new territory that was buying from Mexico. This made Southerners angry because the southern states wanted to have slaves in their states= created conflicts between North and South.
  • Free Soil Movement

    Free Soil Movement
    Free Soil Party (new party) that prohibiting the extension of slavery in the territories. Free Soiler (followers) also has known as abolitionists slavery. This created more tensions in Northern states and Southern states because Southern states always wanted to extend slavery into new territories and northerners wanted to stop it.
  • Compromise of 1850

    Compromise of 1850
    Henry Clay proposed a compromise (known as Compromise of 1850) to decrease the tensions between north and south. He wanted to admit California to Union as a free state and adopted Fugitive Slave Law... In fact, adopting new law created more tensions between proslavery and antislavery because it forced the Northerners to capture the slaves and return them to the Southern slave owners. Northerners also had heavily penalty if they hide runaway slaves.
  • Uncle Tom's Cabin

    Uncle Tom's Cabin
    Published by Harriet Beecher Stowe in 1852 about the conflict between a slave man (Tom) and his brutal owner. Southerners said this book was untruth about them, and it seems like the North have the incurable prejudice about the South. Southerners also argued about the long hour working of labor in the industrial(factory) in the north was worse than slavery. Arguing back and forth and no one wanted to accept each other position. The relationship between North and South was turning bad.
  • Kansas-Nebraska Act

    Kansas-Nebraska Act
    Stephen Douglas wanted to build a transcontinental railroad, so he must have an approval from the South in order to construct the railroad. He introduced a bill to divide Nebraska into Kansas and Nebraska states. Kansas near the 36° 30' line, so Northerner fear Kansas would became slave state. Later on, this conflict extend more tensions between proslavery and antislavery b/c Douglas’s bill seems unequal to the northerners because if allowed south states to extend slavery.
  • Republican Party

    Republican Party
    The Republican Party was created in Wisconsin in 1854. They wanted to repeal Fugitive Slave Law and their platform was to prevent expansion of slavery, free homestead, and the protective tariff. It seems like they don't favor Southerner because they had different positions about the slavery issue. Southerners wanted to have slavery in their states and this party against it=more tension between N & S.
  • Caning of Charles Sumner

    Caning of Charles Sumner
    Charles Sumner (a Massachuset Senator) gave a speech that attacked Democratic administration= against Andrew Butlers ( a South Carolina Senator). His nephew-Preston Brook protected his uncle's honor by using a cane to beat Sumner in the head. The Northern was very mad with his deed, but the Southern were applauded and sending new cane to Brook to replace the old one.
    This action created more tension that had been growing in the northern and southern states.
  • Bleeding Kansas

    Bleeding Kansas
    The conflict between proslavery and antislavery led to Bleeding Kansas. In 1856, proslavery attacked and killed antislavery people in Lawrence. Then, John Brown attacked back the proslavery people in Pottawatomie Creek. The tension between proslavery and antislavery increase even worse than before.
  • Dred Scott v. Sanford decision

    Dred Scott was a slave live in Wisconsin (a free state) state and then he moved back to Missouri(a slave state). He wanted freedom because as he said, he had been lived in a free state for a long time before moving back to the slave state. The Chief Justice Roger Taney said numerous reasons that Dred Scott can not count as the free slave even though he lived in a free state. This made Northerner doubted about the court's decision whether this decision had been secretly made=More tension.
  • Lincoln-Douglas debates

    Lincoln-Douglas debates
    Abraham Lincoln (a Republican candidate) challenged Douglas to reconcile popular sovereignty with the Court's decision for Dred Scott. Douglas said popular sovereignty is based on people deciding whether to allow slavery in that territory or not. Southern Democrats alienated Douglas because his responsed didn't support enough for the Dred Scott case.
  • John Brown's Raid on Harpers Ferry

    John Brown attacked federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry. He wanted to give guns to the Virginia slaves for the revolt. He gets captured by Robert Lee and hanged afterward. John Brown = martyr to the north. Southerners seem this revolt as intention to destroy the South. This created awkward feelings between the North and the South.
  • Election of Lincoln

    Abraham Lincoln (a Republican candidate) became the 16th president of U.S after defeat 2 Democrats( Stephen Douglas & John Breckinridge) and John Bell from Constitutions Union Party. This election led to the secede in the southern states. They didn't want Lincoln to become their president. Many states in the south voted to leave the Union. This election made the relationship between the North and the South more tensions.