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Eli Whitney's cotton gin
With the invention of the cotton gin, cotton became the major crop in the South because it reduced the time it took the slaves to separate the seeds from the cotton. With the increase of plantations came the increase of slave labor causing the Southerners to become too dependent on slavery. Congress started searching for a way to balance the number of free and slave states and due to the South's grip on slavery a rift between the North and the South began. -
The Missouri Compromise of 1820
After the Louisiana Purchase was added to the United States in 1803 expansion of slavery bacame a national debate. The Missouri Compromise was a series of agreements in which Missouri was admitted as a slave state and Maine as a free state to maintain the balance between the powers in the senate, and a line along the 36 30' parallel which divided the north as free states and south as slave states. The conflict was caused by Roger Taney in 1857 when he deemed the compromise unconstitutional. -
The Wilmot Proviso
After the Mexican-American War, David Wilmot proposed a piece of legislation that would outlaw slavery in the territory acquired by the United States during the war. The plan never passed but the proviso commenced secession within the states which was a cause of the Civil War. -
The Compromise of 1850
Henry Clay and Stephen Douglas came up with the Compromise of 1850 in order to prevent further territorial expansion and strenghten the Fugitive Slave Acts; New states would become free states, slavery was abolished in Washington D.C., and the south would receive an amendment to the Fugitive Slave Act. Although the North and the South managed to postpone hostilities, the tensions with slavery did not decrease and caused an even bigger division within the United States. -
The Fugitive Slave Act
The Fugitive Slave Act was a law that required Northerners to support the Southern institution and return runaway slaves to the South. The act increased tension within the Northerners and the Southerners because the Northerners were being forced to hunt slaves and return them to the place where they were being abused. The cruelty of the Southern institutions became the inniciative for the abolitionists' cause. -
Kansas-Nebraska Act
The Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1845 created two territories that allowed popular sovereignty to decide whether they would be free or slave states. When people found out they started to move to Kansas to force it to be a slave state; problems starting rising along with fighting from the pro-slavery and abolitinosts and Kansas became known as "Bleeding Kansas". -
Dred Scott Decision
On March 6, 1857, Chief Justice Roger B. Taney decided along with nine justices that Dred Scott, a slave that filed to become free, was never a free man therefore should remain a slave without citizenship. The Missouri Compromise of 1820 was also declared unconstitutional and slavery could not be restricted in federal territories by Congress. -
The Broderick-Terry Duel
When David S. Terry lost a re-election for Chief Justice of the Supreme Court he blamed his friend David Colbreth Broderick by giving a speech in Sacramento in 1859. Terry attacked Broderick and his anti-slavery views, Broderick responded with an equally insulting statement. As conflict spread Terry challenged Broderick to a duel in which Broderick died. This duel reflected the nation's conflict with violence which contributed towards the violence in the Civil War. -
John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry, Virginia
In October 16, 1859, John Brown along with 21 followers raided a government arsenal in Harpers Ferry, Virginia in hopes of obtaining weapons and supplying Southern slaves to start slave uprising. Brown was forced to surrender by Colonel Robert E. Lee while trying to capture the arsenal; he was tried for treason and then executed. This raid increased hostility between the North and the South which became the stimulus for the Civil War. -
Abraham Lincoln's Election
Abraham Lincoln won as the first Republican pledging to keep slavery out of the territories, seven states in the deep South seceded and formed the Confederate States of America. Lincoln and most of the North refused legitimacy of secession due to the fear of the effects like a discrediting democracy that would eventually fragment the United States into small countries.
