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Fugitive Slave Law
pair of federal laws allowing the capture and return of runaway slaves in the United States. Enacted by congress in 1793, the first Fugitive Slave Act authorized local governments to seize and return escaped slaves to their owners and penalized anyone who aided in their flight. -
Missouri Compromise
The Missouri Compromise kept the balance of pro and and anti-slavery states. By allowing Maine as a free state, Missouri was able to become a pro-slavery state. This created tension between the north and south because the north did not like that congress could aid in the expansions of slavery. This becomes an argument over power. -
Compromise of 1850
The Compromise of 1850 consisted of laws admitting California as a free state, creating Utah and New Mexico territories with the question of slavery in each to be determined by popular sovereignty, settling a Texas-New Mexico boundary dispute in the former’s favor, ending the slave trade in Washington, D.C., and making it easier for southerners to recover fugitive slaves. -
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. -
Dred Scott Supreme Court Decision
In 1857, the United States Supreme Court issued a decision in the Dred Scott Case, affirming rights of slave owners to take their slaves into the Western territories, thereby negating the doctrine of popular sovereignty and severely undermining the platform of the newly created Republican Party. -
Raid on Harper's Ferry
Abolitionist John Brown leads a small group on a raid against a federal armory in Harper’s Ferry, Virginia, in an attempt to start an armed slave revolt and destroy the institution of slavery. -
Election of 1860
November 1860 Abraham Lincoln defeated John Breckenridge and Stephen Douglas and the constitutional candidate John Bell and was named the president of the United States -
Abraham Lincoln
Self taught lawyer and legislator with a reputation as an eloquent opponent of slavery, shocked many when he overcame several more prominent contenders to win the Republican party’s nomination for president in 1860. -
Battle of Antietam
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. After a string of Union defeats, this tactical victory provided Abraham Lincoln the political cover he needed to issue his Emancipation Proclamation. -
Battle of Gettysburg
The Battle of Gettysburg is the most important engagement of the American Civil War. Robert E Lee’s confederate army of Northern Virginia had victory over the army of the Potomac at Chancellorsville. Confederates attacked the Federals on both left and right. July 3, Lee ordered an attack by fewer than 15,000 troops. -
Emancipation Proclamation
The Emancipation Proclamation was a presidential proclamation and executive order issued by president Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863. Lincoln carefully framed the conflict as concerning the preservation of the union rather than the abolition of slavery. By mid- 1862 thousands of slaves fled to join the invading Northern armies.