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Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo/Mexican Cession (February 2, 1848)

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Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo/Mexican Cession (February 2, 1848)

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Mexico and the United States sign the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo to end the Mexican-American War. In this treaty, Mexico cedes 55% of their territory to the US. Including California, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, Oklahoma, Kansas, and Wyoming. The addition of new land westward furthers already prominent debates about whether slavery should expand or not.

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The free-soil party rises with a focus on opposing slavery's expansion westward. The new party is directly against prominent southern beliefs, furthering US division.

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Zachary Taylor firmly supported immediate statehood of the new western territory, if he hadn't died and was elected for a second term, the Compromise of 1850 may have not happened.

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In the Compromise of 1850, Texas borders are settled, California is declared a free-state, calls for slave-trade abolition are made, and the Fugitive Slave act is passed. The compromise pushes the nation further from slavery.

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The act requires slaves to be returned to their owners, regardless if they are found in a slave or free-state. Southerners who are pro-slavery are on board with this new act, however the act upsets abolitionists, especially in free-states.

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Uncle Tom's Cabin- Harriet Beecher Stowe (1852)

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Uncle Tom's Cabin- Harriet Beecher Stowe (1852)

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This novel shared ideas of injustice about slavery and pushed against dominant beliefs that slaves were different and inherently had less humanity than white people. This novel garnered more support for the anti-slavery movement, provoking people to question their beliefs.

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During his presidency, Pierce signed the Kansas-Nebraska Act. The act was designed to solve slavery expansion debates, it failed miserably.

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This act repealed the Missouri Compromise and created two new territories. The act failed miserably in solving slavery expansion debates and led to a violet uprising called "Bleeding Kansas".

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The party was started to combat slavery expansion towards the west. The party's creation was a direct result of the Kansas-Nebraska Act. The party was made up of mostly northerners or abolitionists. Southerners who wanted slavery to expand highly opposed the new party.

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Three distinct political groups occupied Kansas: pro-slavery, Free-Staters and abolitionists. Violence broke out immediately between these opposing factions and continued until 1861 when Kansas entered the Union as a free state on January 29. This era became forever known as Bleeding Kansas. This would further the divide of the North and South on the issue of slavery.

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"Tragic Prelude," a painting by John Steuart Curry, depicts John Brown leading the anti-slavery movement in Kansas Territory before the Civil War.
Kansas Historical Society

The years of 1854-1861 were a turbulent time in the Kansas Territory. The Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 established the territorial boundaries of Kansas and Nebraska and opened the land to legal settlement. It allowed the residents of these territories to decide by popular vote whether their state would be free or slave. This concept of self-determination was called popular sovereignty. In Kansas, people on all sides of this controversial issue flooded the territory, trying to influence the vote in their favor.

Rival territorial governments, election fraud, and squabbles over land claims all contributed to the violence of this era.

Three distinct political groups occupied Kansas: pro-slavery, Free-Staters and abolitionists. Violence broke out immediately between these opposing factions and continued until 1861 when Kansas entered the Union as a free state on January 29. This era became forever known as Bleeding Kansas.

During Bleeding Kansas, murder, mayhem, destruction and psychological warfare became a code of conduct in Eastern Kansas and Western Missouri. A well-known examples of this violence was the massacre in May 1856 at Pottawatomie Creek where John Brown and his sons killed five pro-slavery advocates.

In the Fort Scott area, trouble began in the summer of 1856, when a group of about 30 pro-slavery settlers from South Carolina arrived in Bourbon County. It was suspected that they were sponsored by the Southern Emigrant Aid Society and were members of the Dark Lantern Societies. These societies terrorized Free-State settlers and attempted to drive them from Kansas.

Fort Scott and the surrounding area were not immune from the violence. The division of the opposing factions was clearly visible at the site of the "old fort." The military had abandoned Fort Scott in 1853. Two years later, the buildings were sold at a public auction and the former fort immediately became the nucleus of a rapidly growing town.

Two of the buildings became hotels. One, a former officer's quarters, was opened as the Fort Scott or Free State Hotel. Located right across the parade ground was the Western or Pro-Slavery Hotel, a former infantry barracks. The residents of Fort Scott were predominately pro-slavers, while Free-Staters and abolitionists dominated the surrounding countryside. Radicals of each faction terrorized the town throughout the Bleeding Kansas era.

By 1858, trouble had intensified in southeast Kansas. Radical elements from other theaters of the conflict were now converging on the Fort Scott area. James Montgomery became a leader of Free State forces and was involved in several violent incidents.

In April of 1858, Montgomery and his men fought U.S. troops stationed at Fort Scott in the battle of Paint Creek. One soldier was killed in this encounter.

In May of 1858, Montgomery and his men drove pro-slavery forces from Linn County. In retaliation, 11 Free-Staters were pulled out of their homes, taken to a ravine and shot down. This incident, known as the Marais des Cygnes Massacre, was rumored to have been plotted in the Western Hotel.

On June 5, 1858, Montgomery and his raiders tried to burn down the Western Hotel. Several shots were fired into the hotel and surrounding homes, but the hotel was saved.

Violence such as this caught the governor's attention. On June 15, 1858, he held a meeting at the Western Hotel in order to settle political unrest. While this meeting nearly devolved into a riot, it was successful. Peace and quiet reigned for a brief five-month period.
Montgomery and his raiders struck again in December of 1858 when he rescued Benjamin Rice, a Free-Stater. Rice had been arrested for murder and was imprisoned in the Fort Scott Hotel. Montgomery claimed that Rice had been jailed illegally, so he came to Fort Scott to free him.

In the struggle following Rice's rescue, former Deputy Marshal John Little, a pro-slavery advocate, fired shots into the ranks of the Free-Staters. Little peered out of a window of his father's store (the former post headquarters) to observe the effects of the shooting. His movement was noted by a Free-Stater, who shot and killed him. Little's fiancé, Sene Campbell, wrote Montgomery a letter reprimanding him and saying that he was a "minister of the devil, and a very superior one too..."

Fort Scott
January 4, 1859
Montgomery:

Listen to me. Today I heard that you said in a speech a few days ago that you were not sorry you had killed John Little. That he was not killed too soon. Can you before God say so? Oh, the anguish you have caused. He was one of the noblest men ever created, brave and true to his country and to his word. You can't prove that he ever injured an innocent person. A few days more and we were to have been married, then go south to trouble you no more.

But through your influence, he was killed. He was sent to another world without even time to pray or to say goodbye to his friends. But thanks to God, though you did kill his body, you can't touch his soul. No. No, it is in the spirit land. Now the cry of "the Osages are coming!" can awaken him no more. He quietly sleeps in our little graveyard.

But remember this. I am a girl, but I can fire a pistol. And if ever the time comes, I will send some of you to the place where there is "weeping and gnashing of teeth." You, a minister of God? You mean a minister of the devil, and a very superior one too. I have no more to say to you and your imps. Please accept the sincere regards of your future repentance.

Sene Campbell

Bleeding Kansas was part of the political storm that occurred throughout the United States before the Civil War. The anti-slavery forces prevailed as Kansas entered into the Union a free state on January 29, 1861. This turbulence illustrated the beginning of the terrifying bloodshed that was to come during the Civil War.

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Bleeding Kansas (U.S. National Park Service)

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The years of 1854-1861 were a turbulent time in the Kansas Territory. The Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 established the territorial boundaries of Kansas and Nebraska and opened the land to legal settlement. It allowed the residents of these territories to decide by popular vote whether their state would be free or slave.

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Newspaper headlines shocked readers in late May 1856 with descriptions of a violent attack within the United States Capitol Building. Preston S. Brooks had nearly bludgeoned Charles Sumner to death with his cane. The wide variety of reactions illustrated the growing sectional differences and foreshadowed the rising violence that culminated five years later with the outbreak of the American Civil War.

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In 1856, Democrat James Buchanan was elected president in a three-way contest, defeating Republican John C. Frémont and American Party (Know-Nothing) nominee Millard Fillmore. After passage of the controversial Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854, the debate over the expansion of slavery into the territories was the dominant issue of the campaign.

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In this ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court stated that enslaved people were not citizens of the United States and, therefore, could not expect any protection from the federal government or the courts. The opinion also stated that Congress had no authority to ban slavery from a Federal territory. This would lead to the growing divide between the North and the South on the issue of slavery.

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EnlargeDownload Link Citation: Judgment in the U.S. Supreme Court Case Dred Scott v. John F. A. Sandford; 3/6/1857; Dred Scott, Plaintiff in Error, v. John F. A. Sandford; Appellate Jurisdiction Case Files, 1792 - 2010; Records of the Supreme Court of the United States, Record Group 267; National Archives Building, Washington, DC. View All Pages in National Archives Catalog View Transcript In this ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court stated that enslaved people were not citizens of the United States and, therefore, could not expect any protection from the federal government or the courts.

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The Lecompton Constitution was a document framed in Lecompton, the Territorial Capital of Kansas, in 1857 by Southern pro-slavery advocates of Kansas statehood. 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.

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The Lecompton Constitution was drafted and signed in this building in 1857. Built in 1856, Constitution Hall is now a National Landmark and a museum. Located at 319 Elmore in Lecompton, Kansas. The Lecompton Constitution…

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On the evening of October 16, 1859 John Brown, a staunch abolitionist, and a group of his supporters left their farmhouse hideout en route to Harpers Ferry. Descending upon the town in the early hours of October 17th, Brown and his men captured prominent citizens and seized the federal armory and arsenal. US Marines under Colonel Robert E. Lee arrived and stormed the engine house, killing many of the raiders and capturing Brown. Brown was quickly placed on trial and charged with treason against the state of Virginia, murder, and slave insurrection. Brown was sentenced to death for his crimes and hanged on December 2, 1859. This would lead to the growing divide between the North and the South on the issue of slavery.

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On the evening of October 16, 1859 John Brown, a staunch abolitionist, and a group of his supporters left their farmhouse hide-out en route to Harpers Ferry. Descending upon the town in the early hours of October 17th, Brown and his men captured prominent citizens and seized the federal armory and arsenal. Brown had hopes that the local slave population would join the raid and through the raid's success weapons would be supplied to slaves and freedom fighters throughout the country; this was not to be. First held down by the local militia in the late morning of the 17th, Brown took refuge in the arsenal's engine house. However, this sanctuary from the fire storm did not last long, when in the late afternoon US Marines under Colonel Robert E. Lee arrived and stormed the engine house, killing many of the raiders and capturing Brown. Brown was quickly placed on trial and charged with treason against the state of Virginia, murder, and slave insurrection. Brown was sentenced to death for his crimes and hanged on December 2, 1859.

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On the evening of October 16, 1859 John Brown, a staunch abolitionist, and a group of his supporters left their farmhouse hide-out en route to Harpers Ferry...

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Election of Abraham Lincoln (November 6, 1860)

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Election of Abraham Lincoln (November 6, 1860)

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United States presidential election of 1860, American presidential election held on November 6, 1860, in which Republican Abraham Lincoln defeated Southern Democrat John C. Breckinridge, Democrat Stephen A. Douglas, and Constitutional Union candidate John Bell. The electoral split between Northern and Southern Democrats was emblematic of the severe sectional split, particularly over slavery. And would also lead to the secession of South Carolina.

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Crittenden Compromise (December 18, 1860) 

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Crittenden Compromise (December 18, 1860) 

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Senator John J. Crittenden introduced legislation that would reinstate the Missouri Compromise line, forbid the abolition of slavery on federal land in slaveholding states, compensate owners for runaway slaves, and other amendments to support the institution of slavery. This amendment, known as the “Crittenden Compromise,” was supported by Southern Leaders, but ultimately failed in Congress because of opposition from Northern. This would further the divide of the North and South on the issue of slavery.

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Secession of South Carolina (December 20, 1860)

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Secession of South Carolina (December 20, 1860)

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The victory of Republican presidential candidate Abraham Lincoln in the 1860 elections convinced South Carolina legislators that it was no longer in their state’s interest to remain in the Union. South Carolina insisted that the Northern states had breached their constitutional obligation to enforce federal laws. This would lead to six more southern states to secede and the eventual start of the civil war.