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Bleeding Kansas
In 1854 the Kansas-Nebraska Act overturned the Missouri Compromise’s use of latitude as the boundary between slave and free territory and instead, using the principle of popular sovereignty, decreed that the residents would determine whether the area became a free state or a slave state. Proslavery and free-state settlers flooded into Kansas to try to influence the decision. Violence soon erupted as both factions fought for control. -
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The Civil War
The Civil War between the Union and the Confederacy (1861-1865) was the most costly of all American wars in terms of the loss of human life-and also the most destructive war ever fought in the Western Hemisphere. The deaths of 750,000 people, a true national tragedy, constituted only part of the impact of the war on American society. Most important, the Civil War freed 4 million people from slavery, giving the nation what President Lincoln called a "new birth of freedom." -
The Emancipation Proclamation
Lincoln issued a warning that enslaved people in all states still in rebellion would be "then, thenceforward, and forever free." The proclamation stated:
I do order and declare that all persons held as slaves within said designated States and parts of States are, and henceforward shall be, free; and that the Executive Government of the United States, including the military and naval authorities thereof, shall recognize and maintain the freedom of said persons. -
End of Slavery (13th Amendment)
After the adoption of the 13th Amendment in 1865, 4 million people (3.5 million in the Confederate states and 500,000 in the border states) were "freed men" and "freed women." For these people and their descendants, economic hardship and political oppression would continue for generations. Even so, the end of slavery represented a momentous step. Suddenly, slaves with no rights were protected by the U.S. Constitution, with open-ended possibilities of freedom. -
Impeachment of Andrew Jackson
The Tenure of Office Act, passed over Johnson's veto in 1867, stated that a president could not dismiss appointed officials without the consent of Congress. He fired a member of his cabinet anyways which resulted in congress giving him an impeachment trial but by one vote he continued president. -
The Compromise of 1877
The Compromise effectively ended the Reconstruction era. Southern Democrats' promises to protect civil and political rights of blacks were not kept, and the end of federal interference in southern affairs led to widespread disenfranchisement of blacks voters.