The document summarizes key events between 1820-1860 that heightened tensions between the North and South over the issue of slavery and led to Southern states beginning to secede from the Union. Some of the major events included the Missouri Compromise of 1820 allowing Missouri to enter as a slave state while banning slavery north of 36°30', the Mexican-American War and annexation of Texas expanding slavery, the Compromise of 1850 admitting California as a free state while strengthening the Fugitive Slave Act, the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 establishing popular sovereignty, and the Dred Scott decision of 1857 declaring that Congress could not regulate slavery in the territories. John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry in 1859

1. 1820-1860

3.  November: Abraham Lincoln becomes the
first Republican President.
 December: South Carolina becomes the first
Southern State to secede (withdraw) from
the Union, and declares itself an independent
country.

4.  Lincoln and the Republicans have pledged to
stop the spread of slavery by banning it from
the territories.
 Slavery has to expand to survive. Sensing a
threat to the expansion of slavery, the South
threatens to secede if Lincoln is elected.

5.  The Secession of South Carolina was the
beginning of the last dispute over whether or
not slavery would be permitted to spread into
the territories.

7.  Missouri wanted to join the Union as a slave
state.
 Northern Senators (especially from Illinois)
were concerned about slavery expanding to
hem in free soil and the balance of power
between free and slave states..

8.  Missouri enters Union as a slave state.
 Maine, which had been part of
Massachusetts, entered the Union as a free
state.
 In the future, there would be no slavery north
of the 36’30” parallel (Missouri’s southern
border).

10.  Democrats (especially in the South)
overwhelmingly supported the annexation of
Texas and the war with Mexico.
 Whigs and anti-slavery advocates, were
opposed on the grounds that it was a blatant
land grab to expand slavery.

12.  As news of the 1848 gold discovery spread,
300,000 people poured into California.
 In 1850, California applied for admission to
the Union as a free state.
 This time, the South was opposed to
expansion.

13.  California comes in as a free state.
 A stronger Federal Fugitive Slave Law goes
into effect.
 Slave-trading is banned in the District of
Columbia.
 The question of slavery in Utah and New
Mexico would be decided by Popular
Sovereignty (a vote by the settlers).

14.  Opened up settlement of Kansas and
Nebraska Territories. Slavery question to be
decided by Popular Sovereignty.
 Pro- (for) and Anti-(against) slavery settlers
pour into Kansas and begin to set up rival
governments. Violent conflicts erupt.
Violence makes it all the way to the U.S.
Senate.

16. In 1856, pro-slavery forces attack the town of
Lawrence, Kansas. Several buildings were
destroyed and ransacked.
That night, John Brown, his sons and some of
his followers killed 5 proslavery settlers near
Potawatomie Creek in Kansas.
The men were dragged from their beds
and hacked to death with broadswords.

17.  Dred Scott, a slave, sued his master for freedom on
the grounds that he’d lived with him in a free
territory.
 The Supreme Court rules that:

a) Slaves have no rights under the law. According to
Chief Justice Taney: “A black man has no rights that
a white man is bound to respect.”
b) Congress has no right to interfere with slavery in any
territory. All territories are now slave territories.

19. In 1859, he led a
raid on Harper's Ferry, VA intending
to start an armed slave rebellion.
The raid failed.
Brown was captured, tried and hanged.
Before his death, he said: "Now, if it is deemed
necessary that I should forfeit my life for
the furtherance of the ends of justice,
and mingle my blood further with the
blood of my children and with the blood of
millions in this slave country whose rights are disregarded by wicked, cruel, and
unjust enactments, I submit; so let it be done!"

20.  John Brown’s Raid on Harper’s Ferry
convinced many in the South that the North
would not protect the rights of slaveholders.
 The Election of a Republican President in
1860 confirmed this fear in the minds of
many in the South.

21.  “You think slavery is right and ought to be
extended; while we think it is wrong and
ought to be restricted. That I suppose is the
rub.”
-Abraham Lincoln, letter
to Georgia Senator Alexander H. Stephens

22.  A geographical line has been drawn across the Union, and all the States
north of that line have united in the election of a man to the high office
of President of the United States, whose opinions and purposes are
hostile to slavery. He is to be entrusted with the administration of the
common Government, because he has declared that that "Government
cannot endure permanently half slave, half free," and that the public
mind must rest in the belief that slavery is in the course of ultimate
extinction.
 This sectional combination for the submersion of the Constitution, has
been aided in some of the States by elevating to citizenship, persons
who, by the supreme law of the land, are incapable of becoming
citizens; and their votes have been used to inaugurate a new policy,
hostile to the South, and destructive of its beliefs and safety.
-December, 1860.

23.  Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of
slavery-- the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor
supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and
most important portions of commerce of the earth … These
products have become necessities of the world, and a blow
at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization. That blow
has been long aimed at the institution, and was at the point
of reaching its consummation. There was no choice left us
but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution
of the Union, whose principles had been subverted to work
out our ruin.
-January 1861.

24.  The prohibition of slavery in the Territories, hostility to it everywhere, the
equality of the black and white races, disregard of all constitutional guarantees
in its favor, were boldly proclaimed by its [the Republican Party] leaders and
applauded by its followers. With these principles on their banners and these
utterances on their lips the majority of the people of the North demand that we
shall receive them as our rulers. … [B]y their declared principles and policy they
have outlawed $3,000,000,000 of our property in the common territories of the
Union; put it under the ban of the Republic in the States where it exists and out
of the protection of Federal law everywhere; because they give sanctuary to
thieves and incendiaries who assail it to the whole extent of their power, in spite
of their most solemn obligations and covenants; because their avowed purpose
is to subvert our society and subject us not only to the loss of our property but
the destruction of ourselves, our wives, and our children, and the desolation of
our homes, our altars, and our firesides.
-January, 1861.

25.  We hold as undeniable truths that the governments of the various States, and of
the confederacy [the government of the Constitution] itself, were established
exclusively by the white race, for themselves and their posterity; that the African
race had no agency in their establishment; that they were rightfully held and
regarded as an inferior and dependent race, and in that condition only could
their existence in this country be rendered beneficial or tolerable.
 That in this free government *all white men are and of right ought to be entitled
to equal civil and political rights* [emphasis in the original]; that the servitude of
the African race, as existing in these States, is mutually beneficial to both bond
and free, and is abundantly authorized and justified by the experience of
mankind, and the revealed will of the Almighty Creator, as recognized by all
Christian nations; while the destruction of the existing relations between the
two races, as advocated by our sectional enemies, would bring inevitable
calamities upon both and desolation upon the fifteen slave-holding states.
 -February, 1861