# data[].attributes.body
Delegates in Charleston, SC voted to leave the Union on December 20, 1860. In February 1861, six more states joined SC and they became the Confederate States of America.

# data[].attributes.headline
Abraham Lincoln is Elected as President 

# data[].attributes.subject
Abraham Lincoln is Elected as President 

# data[].attributes.body
Lincoln won the election of 1860, but it was an unusual election. In ten Southern states, he wasn't even on the ballot. The South was now the minority. They felt like they lost everything.

# data[].attributes.body
Abolitionist John Brown took a rather extreme approach to ending slavery. Brown planned to still weapons from the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry to arm slaves for a rebellion. Most of his men were either killed or captured. Brown was sentenced to die. Many Northerners viewed Brown as a hero, while white Southerners were left uneasy.

# data[].attributes.body
Abraham Lincolns opponent in the senator race was Stephen Douglas. Douglas argued that the Dred Scott decision put slavery to rest, but Lincoln disagreed. He believed slavery was a moral, not legal issue. Lincoln lost the election, but the debates helped him become a national figure. Compromises over slavery were becoming impossible.

# data[].attributes.body
A Missouri slave known as Dred Scott had traveled with his owner to Wisconsin(free state because of the Missouri Compromise) and argued that his stay had made him a free man. Chief Justice Taney stated:
-Scott could not sue for his freedom because he was not a citizen.
-Scott could not become a citizen because no African American could ever become one.
-The Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional.
-Slaves were property.
This decision delighted slaveholders but Northerners were stunned and enraged.

# data[].attributes.body
Senator Charles Sumner wrote a passionate speech called "The Crime Against Kansas." Two days after the speech, a South Carolina representative by the name of Preston Brooks attacked Sumner in the Senate. He beat him with a metal tipped cane until it broke in half, and then the country was split once again. Southerners were proud, but Northerners were shocked.

# data[].attributes.body
Kansas had two competing governments in one territory.
Armed proslavery invaders invaded Lawrence, Kansas. They burned a hotel, looted multiple homes, and tossed the printing press of an abolitionist newspaper in the river. John Brown and seven followers invaded the proslavery town of Pottawatomie, Kansas. They dragged five men from their houses and murdered them.

# data[].attributes.body
Northerners were angry because President Franklin Pierce wanted to buy Cuba in order to add another slave state to the Union. Senator Stephen A. Douglas introduced a bill in 1854 that:
- created Kansas and Nebraska
- abolished the Missouri Compromise
- let settlers vote on what they wanted.

# data[].attributes.body
Northerners did not want to enforce the act, but the Southerners felt the act did not ensure the return of their slaves. Under this act:
-arrested slaves had almost no legal rights
-no person could help a runaway slave
Northerners hounded slave catchers when they came to Boston, causing most of them to leave.

# data[].attributes.body
The issue of slavery in new territories was brought up again following the Mexican-American War. The Compromise of 1850 admitted California as a free state, and allowed New Mexico and Utah territories to decide whether they wanted slavery. It ended the slave trade in Washington DC. It also made a stronger fugitive slave law which would make it easier to fine and reclaim runaway slave.

# data[].attributes.body
Congress debated what do to about slavery in the Mexican Cession for 3 years. The South wanted slavery, but the North wanted all of the land closed it off. Southerners wanted to extend the Missouri Compromise all the way to the Pacific, but Congress rejected it. Northerners in Congress welcomed California as free state in 1849, but Southerners denied California's request, because it would upset the balance of free and slave states in congress.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
History of California | The Animated Californian History In a Nutshell

# data[].attributes.body
The gag rule kept the slavery issue out of Congress for 10 years. After President James Polk sent a bill to Congress for funds for war in 1846, David Wilmot added an amendment to the bill known as the Wilmot Proviso. The  WIlmot Proviso stated "neither slavery nor involuntary servitude shall ever exist" in any part of territory that may be acquired from the Mexican-American War. Southerners in Congress strongly opposed the amendment and said Congress had no right to decide where slave-holders could take their property. The Wilmot Proviso passed the house, but not the senate.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Increasing political battles over slavery in mid 1800s | US History | Khan Academy

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Kim and Sal talk about increased tensions between slave and free states as new territory is added after Mexican-American War and from Compromise of 1850 (especially the Fugitive Slave Act). Watch the next lesson: https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/us-history/civil-war-era/slavery-and-the-civil-war/v/start-of-the-civil-war?utm_source=YT&utm_medium=Desc&utm_campaign=UShistory Missed the previous lesson?

# data[].attributes.body
Individual slaves continued to rebel by running away to freedom in the North, even after Nat Turners rebellion. They were helped by sympathetic people in the North. Slaveholders looked at the Northerners like robbers because they saw slaves as a piece of property. Slaveholders demanded the Congress pass a fugitive slave law in hopes that it would help them get back their "property".

# data[].attributes.body
As John Quincy Adams predicted, the "contest" over slavery was settled for a short time. However, the Second Great Awakening pushed the issue into the open again. Some Americans believed the Lords work was the abolition of slavery. Abolitionists wondered: did Congress have the power to ban slavery in the nation's capital? Congress voted in 1836 to set aside indefinitely all anti-slavery petitions. Abolitions were outraged because this "gagged" all congressional debate over slavery. In 1836, the gag rule prevented consideration of an antislavery proposal by John Quincy Adams, who was a member of Congress. Adams proposed an amendment saying no one could be born into slavery, but it was refused by Congress. Abolitionists continued attacking slavery in books, newspapers, and at public meetings. Southern states adopted  strict new laws to control the movement of slaves. States tried to keep abolitionist writings from getting to slaves, and Mississippi even offered at $5,000 dollar reward for the arrest and conviction of anyone spreading abolitionist ideas.

# data[].attributes.body
Missouri was asking for statehood once again in 1820, and by this time Maine was asking to enter the Union as a free state. Congress struggled to make a decision, but talk of civil war and secession was too loud to ignore. The Missouri Compromise admitted Missouri to the union as a slave state and Maine as a free state. The latitude 36'30' became the compromise line, where anything South was slave territory and anything North was free land with the exception of Missouri. Although it kept the Union together, it pleased few people. John Quincy Adams realized that this would not settle the future of slavery in the United States.