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In Illinois, a senator named Lyman Trumbull asked President-Elect Abraham Lincoln whether he could support a compromise on slavery. Lincoln's answer was clear. He would not interfere with slavery in the South, and he would support enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Act.

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Lincoln won the presidential election with just 40 percent of the votes, all of them cast in the North. In ten Southern states, he was not even on the ballot. Southerners feared that, sooner or later, Congress would try to abolish slavery.

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In 1859, Brown launched his raid. It was an insane scheme during which many of his men were either killed or captured. Brown himself was convicted of treason and sentenced to die. On the day of his hanging, he left a note that read, “I John Brown am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but with Blood.”

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As a major part of the national acknowledgment of the 150th anniversary of John Brown's raid on the Federal Armory at Harpers Ferry, Virginia, the Virginia Historical Society presents the exhibition "The Portent: John Brown's Raid in American Memory." The exhibition was on display at the VHS October 2009 through April 2010.

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Douglas argued that the Dred Scott decision had put the slavery issue to rest, but Lincoln disagreed. In his eyes, slavery was a moral, not a legal, issue. He declared, “The real issue in this controversy  is the sentiment of one class that looks upon the institution of slavery as a wrong, and of another class that does not look upon it as a wrong.”

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Sanford, legal case in which the U.S. Supreme Court on March 6, 1857, ruled that a slave who had resided in a free state and territory was not thereby entitled to his freedom; that African Americans were not and could never be citizens of the United States.

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The violence in Kansas greatly disturbed Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts. Senator Stephen Douglas had plotted with Southerners to make Kansas a slave state. Preston Brooks, attacked Sumner in the senate beating him with his metal cane.

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Bloody Kansas or the Border War was a series of violent confrontations in the United States between 1854 and 1861 which emerged from a political and ideological debate over the legality of slavery in the proposed state of Kansas.

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The Kansas-Nebraska Act was passed by the U.S. Congress on May 30, 1854. It allowed people in the territories of Kansas and Nebraska to decide for themselves whether or not to allow slavery within their borders. The Act served to repeal the Missouri Compromise of 1820 which prohibited slavery north of latitude 36°30´.

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The Fugitive Slave Law or Fugitive Slave Act was passed by the United States Congress on September 18, 1850, as part of the Compromise of 1850 between Southern slave-holding interests and Northern Free Soilers. Abolitionists nicknamed it the "Bloodhound Law" for the dogs that were used to track down runaway slaves.

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On January 21, 1850, Henry Clay trudged though a Washington snowstorm to pay a call on senator Daniel Webster  of Massachusetts. Clay, the creator of the Missouri Compromise had a new plan to end the deadlock over California. The compromise led to the demise of one of the country's main political parties, the Whig Party and Clay and Webster's party.

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In 1849, Californians sought statehood and, after heated debate in the U.S. Congress arising out of the slavery issue, California entered the Union as a free, non-slavery state by the Compromise of 1850.California became the 31st state on September 9,1850.

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In 1846, President James Polk sent a bill to Congress asking for funds for the war with Mexico. Pennsylvania David Wilmot added an amendment to the bill known as the Wilmot Proviso.

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Fugitives from slavery were often helped in their escape by sympathetic people in the North. Slaveholders demanded that Congress pass a fugitive slave law to help them recapture their property.

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A powerful force was building that soon pushed the issue into the open again, the Second Great Awakening. Leaders of the early 1800 religious revival promised that God would bless those who did the Lord's work.

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What Was the Missouri Compromise? | History

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The Missouri Compromise was an effort by Congress to defuse the sectional and political rivalries triggered by the request of Missouri late in 1819 for admission as a state in which slavery would be permitted. At the time, congress drew a line across the Louisiana Purchase.