Key Events and Figures Leading to the American Civil War

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Missouri Compromise

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Created a border line (36 - 30) between northern free states and southern slave states.

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Kansas-Nebraska Act

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Act that created the territories of Kansas and Nebraska, opening new lands for settlement, and had the effect of repealing the Missouri Compromise by allowing settlers to determine through popular sovereignty whether they would allow slavery within each territory.

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Compromise of 1850

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Following the Mexican -American war, the U.S. had to develop a way to determine if slavery would be allowed in the new states. Outcome=popular sovereignty

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Popular Sovereignty

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People in newly created states had the right to decide whether slavery will be permitted there.

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Sectionalism

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Term used to describe what was happening in the United States leading up to the Civil War. The north and south were divided on the issue of slavery.

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Dred Scott v. Sanford

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Supreme Court decision that ruled that African Americans, whether free or slave, were not American citizens and could not sue in federal court. Essentially stated that slaves were considered property.

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Election of 1860

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The presidential election in which Abraham Lincoln was elected as the 16th President of the United States, leading to the secession of Southern states.

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Secession

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To secede means to leave. The southern states, beginning with South Carolina decide to secede (leave) the Union (country). They created their own country called the Confederacy.

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Fugitive Slave Act

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Laws passed by the United States Congress in 1793 and 1850 that stated runaway slaves must be returned to their masters.

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Bleeding Kansas

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A series of violent civil confrontations in the United States between 1854 and 1859 which emerged from a political and ideological debate over the legality of slavery in the proposed state of Kansas.