Key Events Leading to the American Civil War

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What was the Wilmot Proviso?

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An agreement stating that slavery would not expand into territories taken or purchased by the United States. It remained a proposal and showcased sectional division between the North and South.

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Free-Soil Party

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Political party with the goal to oppose the extension of slavery into the territories. Free-soilers believed that southern slaveholders had too much power and used their wealth and power to control national politics for the purpose of protecting slavery and extending it into the territories.

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What were the key conditions of the Compromise of 1850?

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1. California admitted as a free state. 2. Popular sovereignty in New Mexico and Utah. 3. Slave trade banned in the nation's capital. 4. Fugitive Slave Act enacted. 5. Texas-New Mexico border established.

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What is popular sovereignty?

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The principle that citizens determine through voting who would represent them and decide other issues, based on majority rule.

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What was the Fugitive Slave Act?

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Part of the Compromise of 1850, it provided federal money to slave catchers and imposed fines and prison sentences on those aiding escaped slaves. Many northerners felt the law forced them to act as slave catchers against their will.

This law also confirmed northerner’s suspicion of “slave power,” that is a minority of elite slaveholders who wielded a disproportionate amount of power over the federal government.  

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What was the Underground Railroad?

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A network of northern white and free black people who provided safe houses and passage for escapees from the South. Quakers who had long been troubled by slavery, were especially active in this network.

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Who was Harriet Tubman?

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An escaped enslaved person who helped over 300 enslaved people to freedom via the Underground Railroad.

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What did the Kansas-Nebraska Act do?

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Created Kansas and Nebraska territories, applied popular sovereignty to decide on slavery, and repealed the Missouri Compromise Line. Led to the formation of a new political party- the Republicans- which committed itself to ending the further expansion of slavery.

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What was the Republican Party's stance on slavery?

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Formed in 1854, it was an antislavery party committed to ending the expansion of slavery.

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Who were the Border Ruffians?

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Proslavery Missourians who crossed into Kansas to vote for slavery, often through voter fraud.