The document summarizes the key events and issues during the Antebellum period in the United States leading up to the Civil War. It describes the different economic bases of the Northern and Southern states and their reliance on one another. It discusses the institution of slavery, slave codes, and resistance efforts including the Underground Railroad. Abolitionist movements spread and influential books like Uncle Tom's Cabin helped sway public opinion against slavery, while the government failed to take action to end the growing divide over the issue of expanding slavery into new territories.

1. The Antebellum Era The Road to Civil War

25. Early slave rebellions like the one by Nat Turner , a Virginia slave, in 1831, caused extreme fear and suspicion among Southern slaveholders. Fifty-five whites were murdered.

34. What? Back to Africa? Nope. Just above something called the Mason-Dixon line . If a slave could get north of that line, they would be “free”.

36. Follow the “drinking gourd”. Also called the Big Dipper. Pointed North

38. Levi and Catharine Coffin

50. Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe Southern slaves were depicted in a wide manner of ways. Primarily as an object of pity.

51. Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe Stowe’s main character becomes someone you feel sorry for and care about. Then she brutally murders him off in a shocking way.

52. Especially when he puts a move on the beautiful, young slave-girl he’s just purchased. The evil slave owner, Simon Legree , is someone everyone would cheerfully love to kill.

62. 36°30´

64. 1845 Texas asks to join the USA as a “slave” state.

66. Remember the Alamo?

67. Even though America lost this battle, we eventually won the war and acquired Texas.

68. For a while, all is calm.

69. California Gold Rush , 1849 Near modern-day Sacramento, employees of John Sutter discovered gold while building a mill. Word spread around the world, and within one year , California had such a large population, they were applying for statehood.

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88. John Brown has been called the catalyst of the Civil War. What is a catalyst?

90. John Brown’s Raid, 1859

92. Brown is hunted down and captured by a daring young soldier, Robert E. Lee , of Virginia.

98. The dogs on both sides are awake and snarling!

104. On December 20, 1860, (one month after the election of Lincoln) South Carolina seceded from the Union. Why? Over Slavery?

105. Was the Civil War really only about slavery? Take a look at this graph…

108. White Class Structure in the South, 1860

115. The Missouri Compromise, 1820

117. The Mexican Cession, 1848

119. The Compromise of 1850

121. Kansas-Nebraska Act

123. The Election of 1860

125. The 11 Confederate States of America The 20 United States of America