# data[].attributes.body
Ended the Mexican-American war. The US paid 15 million dollars for the territory which established the border along the Rio Grande river. Was a cause of the war because of disputes on if the land was free or slave state territory when added.

# data[].attributes.body
A political party for a short time in the 1840s and 50s. Mainly focused on opposing the expansion of slavery. Contributed to the war by offering settlers free land (to oppose slavery).

# data[].attributes.body
Zachary Taylor led the ticket of the whig party in 1848. He was popular for leading war effort, continuing to grow unrest and leading to the civil war.

# data[].attributes.body
Called for the admission of California as a "free state," provided for a territorial government for Utah and New Mexico, established a boundary between Texas and the United States, called for the abolition of slave trade in Washington, DC, and amended the Fugitive Slave Act. Made southerners mad and increased tension over balance in government.

# data[].attributes.body
Required that slaves be returned to their owners, even if they were in a free state. Forced northerners to turn in slaves, made them really mad.

# data[].attributes.headline
Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe (1852)

# data[].attributes.subject
Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe (1852)

# data[].attributes.body
Shared ideas about the injustices of slavery, pushing back against dominant cultural beliefs about the physical and emotional capacities of black people. Abolitionist sentiment fueled by the release of Uncle Tom's Cabin helped usher Abraham Lincoln into office after the election of 1860 and played a role in starting the Civil War.

# data[].attributes.body
He was a northern Democrat who believed that the abolitionist movement was a fundamental threat to the nation's unity. Once pressured into backing the Kansas-Nebraska Act, Pierce accelerated the course towards civil war.

# data[].attributes.body
The Kansas-Nebraska Act repealed the Missouri Compromise, created two new territories, and allowed for popular sovereignty. It also produced a violent uprising known as “Bleeding Kansas,” as proslavery and antislavery activists flooded into the territories to sway the vote.

# data[].attributes.body
In 1854, the Republican Party emerged to combat the expansion of slavery into American territories after the passing of the Kansas–Nebraska Act. The early Republican Party consisted of northern Protestants, factory workers, professionals, businessmen, prosperous farmers, and after the Civil War, former black slaves. Were anti-slavery.

# data[].attributes.body
 A series of violent civil confrontations in Kansas Territory, It emerged from a political and ideological debate over the legality of slavery in the proposed state of Kansas.

# data[].attributes.body
Occurred on May 22, 1856, in the United States Senate chamber, when Representative Preston Brooks, a pro-slavery Democrat from South Carolina, used a walking cane to attack Senator Charles Sumner, an abolitionist Republican from Massachusetts. Sumner was among the first members of Congress to argue that the Civil War had to be fought to end slavery as much as to save the Union.

# data[].attributes.body
By refusing to take a firm stand on either side of the slavery issue, Buchanan failed to resolve the question, leaving his nation's gravest crisis (slavery) to his successor.

# data[].attributes.body
The Supreme Court ruled that Americans of African descent, whether free or slave, were not American citizens and could not sue in federal court. The Court also ruled that Congress lacked power to ban slavery in the U.S. territories. Led to Civil war because Northerners were mad that it made slavery technically legal everywhere.

# data[].attributes.body
The Lecompton Constitution is a pro-slavery document. If approved it would allow slavery in the state of Kansas.  It contained clauses protecting slaveholding and a bill of rights excluding free blacks, and it added to the frictions leading up to the U.S. Civil War.

# data[].attributes.body
Abolitionist John Brown led a small group on a raid against a federal armory in Harpers Ferry, Virginia. Trying to start an armed revolt of enslaved people and destroy the institution of slavery. Scared the south South—already fearful of slave rebellions—and convinced slaveholders that abolitionists would stop at nothing to eradicate slavery. It also created a martyr, John Brown, for the antislavery cause.

# data[].attributes.body
Lincoln ran on a political platform opposed to the expansion of slavery in the territories. His election directly caused the outbreak of the Civil War. After being sworn in as president, Lincoln refused to accept any resolution that would result in Southern secession from the Union.

# data[].attributes.body
South Carolina became the first state to secede from the federal Union on December 20, 1860. The victory of Abraham Lincoln in the 1860 presidential election triggered cries for disunion across the slaveholding South. Really started to boil over unrest over slavery so close to the start of the war.

# data[].attributes.body
An unsuccessful proposal to permanently enshrine slavery in the United States Constitution, and thereby make it unconstitutional for future congresses to end slavery. Obviously was very controversial and induced the war.