Key Events and Figures in American History

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Missouri Compromise

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Allowed Maine to become a free state and Missouri to become a slave state

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James Polk

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He was the 11th president, and a strong supporter of Manifest Destiny

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Annexation of Texas

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The process of adding the Republic of Texas to the United States

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Wilmot Proviso

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Law that attempted to make the states gained from the Mexican-American war free states, law fails

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Compromise of 1850

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Included the Fugitive Slave Act, California becomes a free state, end of slave trade in Washington D.C.

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Kansas-Nebraska Act

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Showed popular sovereignty failed and increased the division between the North and South

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Popular Sovereignty

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Rule by the people, when the population is allowed to vote on a political issue

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Dred Scott

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Former slave, that returns to slavery and unsuccessfully sues for his freedom

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John Brown

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Famous white abolitionist, decided to fight slavery with a violent slave rebellion

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Abraham Lincoln

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He won the 1860 Presidential Election