1. Free-Soil Party
1.1. 1848
1.1.1. In the election of 1848,both the free-soil party and the Democratic Party hoped to win by not taking a stand on the issue of slavery.Antislavery Whigs and Democrats joined forces to create a new political party.It called for the territory gained in the Mexican-American War to be "free soil",a place where slavery was banned.
2. Election Of Zachary Taylor
2.1. 1848
2.1.1. In the election of 1848,the controversy over the Wilmot Proviso led to the development of the Free-Soil Party.Democrats nominated Senator Lewis Cass of Michigan,the Whigs nominated Zachary Taylor,and the Free-Soil Party nominated former Democratic President Martin Van Buren. Senator Cass suggested that the people in each new territory should decide for themselves whether or not to allow slavery.Zachary Taylor,a hero of the Mexican-American War won the election.
3. The Compromise Of 1850
3.1. 1850
3.1.1. Gold was found in California and thousands moved to the area.Soon the territory had enough people to be admitted as a state.Since it was above the Missouri Compromise line,people felt it would be a free state.This angered the South and they threatened to succeed(leave the Union).The compromise was proposed by Senator Henry Clay of Kentucky in January,1850.He hoped this compromise would end the debate over slavery forever.This proposal produced one of the greatest debates in American political history.President Taylor opposed the compromise but died and new President Millard Fillmore supported it.Congress passes five series of bills in September,1850 that become known as The Compromise of 1850.California was admitted to the Union as a free state.Slave trade was banned in the Nation's Capitol.Congress declared that it could not regulate the slave trade between slave states.Popular Sovereignty(the people would vote) would be used to determine the issue of slavery in the rest of the Mexican Cession.The South received a new tough fugitive slave law.
4. The Fugitive Slave Act
4.1. 1850
4.1.1. Allowed special government officials to arrest any person accused of being a runaway slave.Suspects had no right to a trial to prove that they had been falsely accused.All it took was a slaveholder or any white witness to swear that the suspect was a slave holder's property.The law also required northern citizens to help capture accused runaways if authorities requested assistance.
5. Uncle Tom's Cabin
5.1. 1852
5.1.1. Written by Harriet Beecher Stowe in 1852,it was a novel about kindly Uncle Tom,an enslaved man who is abused by the cruel Simon Legree. The book became a best seller in the North.It shocked thousands of people who had been unconcerned with slavery before reading the book.The book caused people to view slavery as a human,moral problem and not just a political issue.White southerners were outraged.
6. The Kansas-Nebraska Act
6.1. 1854
6.1.1. Senator Stephen Douglas pushed through an Act in 1854 which led the nation closer to Illinois.He wanted to see a railroad built from Illinois through the Nebraska Territory to the Pacific Coast.He suggested creating two new territories the Kansas Territory and the Nebraska Territory.Both were above the Missouri Compromise Line and would become free states which upset the territory.To win southern support,he suggested that the issue of slavery resolved by Popular Sovereignty.This would undo the Missouri Compromise.
7. Bleeding Kansas
7.1. 1855
7.1.1. Both pro slavery and antislavery settlers flooded to Kansas to try and win the majority.Thousands of people from Missouri entered Kansas in March of 1855 to vote illegally in the election of a territorial legislature.Kansas had 3,000 voters but almost 8,000 people voted.Of the 39 people(legislators) elected,all but 3 supported slavery.Antislavery settlers refused to accept the results and held another election.Kansas now had two governments.Violence broke out.In April,a pro slavery sheriff was shot when he tried to arrest some antislavery settlers in the town of Lawrence.He returned the next month with 800 men and attacked the town.Three days later Brown,an antislavery settler from Connecticut let seven men to a pro slavery settlement near Pottawatomie Creek and murdered five pro slavery men and boys.This startedwidespread fighting in Kansas.
8. Bloodshed in the Senate
8.1. 1855
8.1.1. Charles Sumner of Massachusetts was the leading abolitionist senator and made fiery speeches denouncing the pro slavery legislature in Kansas.In one of his speeches he singled out Andrew butler who was an elderly senator from South Carolina who was not present when he gave his speech.A few days later his nephew,Congressman Preston Brooks,marched into the senate chamber and beat Sumner with a heavy cane until he fell to the floor bloody and unconscious.Sumner never really completely recovered from his injuries.
9. Republican Party
9.1. 1854
9.1.1. The Whig party split in 1854 and many northern Whigs formed a new political called the Repulican Party.Their main goal was to stop the spread of slavery into the western territories.Their antislavery stand attracted many northern democrats and Free-Soil members.The party quickly became very powerful.In the first congressional elections held just a few months after the partynwas created,205 of 105ncandidates were elected to the House of Representatives.Democrats also lost control of two northern state legislatures.Two years later the party ran its first candidate for president,John C. Fremont.
10. The Election Of 1856
10.1. 1856
10.1.1. First Republican candidate John C. Fremont(army officer who help win California's independence in the Mexican-American War) waged a strong antislavery campaign and won 11 of the 16 free states.Democra James Buchanah.
11. The Lincoln And Douglas Debates
11.1. 1858
11.1.1. Lincoln was chosen as the Congress candidate for Senate against Senator Douglas in 1858.Lincoln and Douglas were political and personal rivals(both had dated Mary Todd and she married Lincoln).Lincoln challenged Douglas to a series of seven debates.Thousands gathered to hear them speak.Newspapers reported what each man said throughout the nation.
12. Dred Scott v. Sanford Case
12.1. 1856
12.1.1. Dred Scott was an enslaved person who had once been owned by a U.S. Army doctor.
13. The Missouri Compromise....
13.1. The Missouri Compromise
13.1.1. 1860
13.1.1.1. As America began moving west the issue of whether or not Mexico should be allowed in the new states forming out west became an issue.The first state in which this became an issue was Missouri.Its addition to the U.S. threatened to upset the balance between North states and South states.In 1820,Senator Henry Clay persuaded Congress to approve the Missouri Compromise.The Missouri Compromise stated:Maine was admitted as a free state.Missouri was admitted as a slave state.Louisiana Territory north of Missouri's southern border was free.Southern slave owners gained the right to pursue escaped fugitives into free regions.
14. The Wilmot Proviso
14.1. 1848
14.1.1. Since the Missouri Compromise didn't apply to the large territory gained from Mexico in 1848,Representative David Wilmot of Pennsylvania proposed that Congress ban slavery in all territory's that might become part of the U.S. as a result of the Mexican-American War.The proposal passed in the House but failed in the Senate.