Road to Civil War

Led by groups that wanted to outlaw slavery throughout the U.S. Proslavery Southerners were forced to either leave the state or keep silent. Publications of antislavery literature like The Liberator and Uncle Tom’s Cabin fueled the group’s objective.

• Abolitionist Movement

• Denmark Vesey Plot

• Dred Scott Decision

• Election of 1860

Allowed California to enter the Union as a free state, outlawed the slave trade in Washington D.C., gave popular sovereignty in New Mexico & Utah, & created a new tougher Fugitive Slave Law.

• Missiouri Compromise

• Compromise of 1820

• Compromise of 1850

• Kansas-Nebraska Act

An abolitionist led his men to an arsenal in Virginia with plans of starting a slave rebellion. They seized federal arsenal but his plan did not work; he was captured & executed.

• Denmark Vesey

• John Brown

• Nat Turner

• Abe Lincoln

admitted one slave state and one free state to the Union; prohibited slavery in the Louisiana Territory north of the 36 30’ latitude line; the North was concerned with the expansion of slavery and the South learned the importance of maintaining a balance of free and slave state Senators.

• Compromise of 1850

• Nullification Crisis of 1832

• Abolitionist Movement

• Missouri Compromise

Lincoln campaigned on a platform of ‘free soil’ & won the electoral votes in the North; South Carolina seceded.

• Compromise of 1850

• Nullification Crisis

• Bleeding Kansas

• Election of 1860

An alleged planned slave rebellion resulting in harsher slave codes; it fueled the abolitionist movement in the North and caused Southern opponets of slavery to be less vocal.

• Bleeding Kansas

• John Brown's Raid at Harpers Ferry

• Denmark Vesey Plot

• Stono Rebellion

Supreme Court case that ruled African Americans were not citizens of the U.S. and slaves were considered property. The court also ruled that Congress could not pass measures limiting the expansion of slavery into the territories.

• John Brown decision

• Denmark Vesey decision

• Abe Lincoln decision

• Dred Scott decision

In 1832, John C. Calhoun of South Carolina argued states had the right to refuse to enforce a federal law if they felt it was unconstitutional; argued that a tax on imported goods would benefit the North only and hurt the South.

• Secede

• antebellum

• Nullification Crisis

• Abolitionist Movement

As the country spread west, ‘popular sovereignty’ was granted to new teritories, fueling the debate over the expansion of slavery which led to deadly arguments between proslavery and antislavery activists.

• Missouri Compromise

• Compromise of 1850

• Denmark Vesey Plot

• Kansas-Nebraska Act

time period before the Civil War

• Revolutionary

• Early Republic

• Colonial

• Antebellum