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Missouri Compromise
It kept the Senate equal by adding Missouri as a slave state and Maine as a free state. It was used to decide future states at 36.30. -
Compromise of 1850
Stephen Douglass carried out Harry Clay's wish for a compromise stating that California was a free state. The compromise also ended slave trading but did not abolish slavery altogether. -
Fugitive Slave Act
All citizens had to catch escaped, enslaved, African-Americans or they would be jailed and fined up to $1,000. It also set up a reward for judges who made them go back to the South. -
Uncle Tom's Cabin Published
Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote about slavery from a different perspective than the white, land-owning, men. It's shows the evils of slavery and the injustice of the Fugitive Slave Act. It created more tension between the North and South seeing that the slave-owners believed that it was an inacurate representation of slavery leading the U.S. closer to the Civil War. -
Kansas-Nebraska Act
New states Kansas and Nebraska were added to the U.S. by Stephen Douglas. Whether they were free or slave states was determined by popular sovereignty. This created problems by allowing slave owners to move to the North and separated the states more by sectionalist arguments. -
Dred Scott Case
dred Scott was a slave from Missouri who's owner moved to Illinois. When his owner died he got passed onto his late owners brother-in-law. Scott sued because it was breaking the Missouri Compromise. The judge decided that no African-American could be free in the U.S.. -
John Brown's Raid on Harper's Ferry
John Brown led an antislavery campaign to raid an arsenal with a group of people, including 5 African-Americans. He was caught but still encouraged slave revolts. He didn't seem to care that he was sentenced to death for murder and treason. -
South Carolina Secedes
South Carolina is the first state to secede from the United States.