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Image Credits: "The battle of Gettysburg," Library of Congress

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Compromise of 1850, in U.S. history, a series of measures proposed by the "great compromiser," Sen. Henry Clay of Kentucky, and passed by the U.S. Congress in an effort to settle several outstanding slavery issues and to avert the threat of dissolution of the Union. The crisis arose from the request of the territory of California (December 3, 1849) to be admitted to the Union with a constitution prohibiting slavery. The problem was complicated by the unresolved question of slavery's extension into other areas ceded by Mexico the preceding year ( see Mexican-American War).

The issue of whether the territories would be slave or free came to a boil following the election of Zachary Taylor as president in 1848. In his first annual message to Congress, Taylor endorsed statehood for California and urged that "those exciting topics" that had caused such apprehension be left to the courts. He opposed any legislative plan that would address the problems that so agitated Northerners and Southerners, thus preventing Henry Clay from pushing ahead with another compromise plan that, he hoped, would settle the issue for at least a generation, as had the Missouri Compromise of 1820. Then Taylor died just 16 months into his term, and his successor, Millard Fillmore, saw the wisdom of Clay's proposal and encouraged him to continue.

Clay's purpose was to maintain a balance between free and slave states and to satisfy both proslavery and antislavery forces. The plan adopted by Congress had several parts: California was admitted as a free state, upsetting the equilibrium that had long prevailed in the Senate; the boundary of Texas was fixed along its current lines; Texas, in return for giving up land it claimed in the Southwest, had $10 million of its onerous debt assumed by the federal government; areas ceded by Texas became the recognized territories of New Mexico and Utah, and in neither case was slavery mentioned, ostensibly leaving these territories to decide the slavery question on their own by the principle of popular sovereignty; the slave trade, but not slavery itself, was abolished in the District of Columbia; and finally, Congress passed a new and stronger Fugitive Slave Act, taking the matter of returning runaway slaves out of the control of states and making it a federal responsibility.

With the influential support of Sen. Daniel Webster and the concerted unifying efforts of Sen. Stephen A. Douglas, the five compromise measures were enacted in September. These measures were accepted by moderates in all sections of the country, and the secession of the South was postponed for a decade. Indeed, the political system had seemed to work, and many Americans greeted the Compromise of 1850 with relief. President Fillmore called it "a final settlement," and the South certainly had nothing to complain about. It had secured the type of fugitive slave law it had long demanded, and although California came in as a free state, it elected proslavery representatives. Moreover, New Mexico and Utah enacted slave codes, technically opening the territories to slavery.

The compromise, however, contained the seeds of future discord. The precedent of popular sovereignty led to a demand for a similar provision for the Kansas Territory in 1854, causing bitterness and violence there ( see Bleeding Kansas). Furthermore, the application of the new Fugitive Slave Act triggered such a strong reaction throughout the North that many moderate antislavery elements became determined opponents of any further extension of slavery into the territories. While the Compromise of 1850 succeeded as a temporary expedient, it also proved the failure of compromise as a permanent political solution when vital sectional interests were at stake.

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Compromise of 1850 | Summary, Map, Facts, & Significance

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Compromise of 1850, in U.S. history, a series of measures proposed by the 'great compromiser,' Sen. Henry Clay of Kentucky, and passed by Congress in an effort to settle several outstanding slavery issues and to avert the threat of dissolution of the Union.

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Article Credits: "The Gathering Storm: The Secession Crisis," Civil War Trust

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The Gathering Storm: The Secession Crisis

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Learn about the secession crisis that ultimately led to war.

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Article Credits: "United States presidential election of 1860," Encyclopaedia Britannica

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Who were the candidates in the United States presidential election of 1860?

Why was the U.S. presidential election of 1860 important?

What was the outcome of the U.S. presidential election of 1860?

What was the "Team of Rivals"?

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 in the months following Lincoln's election (and before his inauguration in March 1861) seven Southern states, led by South Carolina on December 20, 1860, seceded, setting the stage for the American Civil War (1861-65).

The conventions

Following on the heels of the Dred Scott decision of 1857, in which the U.S. Supreme Court voided the Missouri Compromise (1820), thus making slavery legal in all U.S. territories, the election of 1860 was sure to further expose sectional differences between those, especially (but not solely) in the North, who wanted to abolish slavery and those who sought to protect the institution. The Democratic Party held its convention in April-May 1860 in Charleston, S.C., where a disagreement over the official party policy on slavery prompted dozens of delegates from Southern states to withdraw. Unable to nominate a candidate (Sen. Stephen A. Douglas received a majority of the delegates' support but could not amass the required two-thirds majority needed for nomination), Democrats held a second convention in Baltimore, Maryland, on June 18-23, though many of the Southern delegates failed to attend. At Baltimore the Democrats nominated Douglas, who easily defeated Kentuckian John C. Breckinridge, the sitting vice president of the United States. Trying to unite Northern and Southern Democrats, the convention then turned for vice president first to Sen. Benjamin Fitzpatrick of Alabama, who declined nomination, and eventually to Herschel V. Johnson, a former U.S. senator and former governor of Georgia, who was chosen as Douglas's running mate. Disaffected Democrats, largely Southerners, then nominated Breckinridge, with Sen. Joseph Lane of Oregon as his running mate. Both Douglas and Breckinridge claimed to be the official Democratic candidates.

The Republican convention was held in Chicago on May 16-18. The party, which had formed only in the 1850s, was largely opposed to the extension of slavery in the U.S. territories. Though many party members favoured the total abolition of slavery, the party pragmatically did not call for abolition in those states that already had slavery. Entering the convention, Sen. William H. Seward of New York was considered the favourite for the nomination, and on the first ballot he led Abraham Lincoln, who had been defeated in Illinois in 1858 for the U.S. Senate by Douglas, as well as a host of other candidates. On a second ballot the gap between Seward and Lincoln narrowed, and Lincoln was subsequently nominated on the third ballot. Sen. Hannibal Hamlin of Maine was nominated as Lincoln's running mate.

Trying to transcend the sectional divide was the Constitutional Union Party, which was formed in 1859 by former Whigs and members of the Know-Nothing Party. The Constitutional Unionists named former senators John Bell of Tennessee and Edward Everett of Massachusetts as their presidential and vice presidential nominees, respectively. The party's platform particularly appealed to border states in its attempt to ignore the slavery issue and focus instead on fealty to the U.S. Constitution:

U.S. Presidential History Quiz

Resolved, that it is both the part of patriotism and of duty to recognize no political principles other than the Constitution of the country, the Union of the states, and the enforcement of the laws; and that, as representatives of the Constitutional Union men of the country in national convention assembled, we hereby pledge ourselves to maintain, protect, and defend, separately and unitedly, these great principles of public liberty and national safety against all enemies, at home and abroad, believing that thereby peace may once more be restored to the country, the rights of the people and of the states reestablished, and the government again placed in that condition of justice, fraternity, and equality which, under the example and Constitution of our fathers, has solemnly bound every citizen of the United States to maintain a more perfect Union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.

The campaign

After his nomination, Lincoln put aside his law practice and ran a stay-at-home campaign, in which he made no stump speeches, though he did give full time to the direction of his campaign. His "main object," he had written, was to "hedge against divisions in the Republican ranks," and he counseled party workers to "say nothing on points where it is probable we shall disagree." With Republicans united, and with division within the Democratic Party and surrounding Bell's candidacy, the primary fear that Republicans had was that some disunity might appear and hamper their chances. Breckinridge also did little campaigning, giving only one speech. Douglas, however, was an active campaigner, in both the North and the South, where he gave a passionate defense of the Union and strenuously opposed secession. Still, much of the campaigning that did follow consisted of parades and rallies that boosted interest in the election (on election day some four-fifths of eligible voters turned out).

Despite four main candidates (and Douglas's forays into the South), the contests in the states were sectionally fought, with Douglas and Lincoln dominant in the North and Breckinridge and Bell dueling for support in the South. On election day Lincoln captured slightly less than 40 percent of the vote, but he won a majority in the electoral college, with 180 electoral votes, by sweeping the North (with the exception of New Jersey, which he split with Douglas) and also winning the Pacific Coast states of California and Oregon. Douglas won nearly 30 percent of the vote but won only Missouri's 12 electoral votes. Breckinridge, with 18 percent of the national vote, garnered 72 electoral votes, winning most of the states in the South as well as Delaware and Maryland. Bell, who won 12.6 percent of the vote, secured 39 electoral votes by winning Kentucky, Tennessee, and Virginia. The results in the South are instructive in understanding the deep sectional divide. Lincoln did not win any votes in any state that would form the Confederacy, with the exception of Virginia, where he garnered only 1 percent of the total vote (Douglas won slightly less than 10 percent). By the time of Lincoln's inauguration in March, seven Southern states had seceded, and barely a month after Lincoln became president, the country became engaged in civil war.

The 1860 election is regarded by most political observers as the first of three "critical" elections in the United States-contests that produced sharp and enduring changes in party loyalties across the country (although some analysts consider the election of 1824 to have been the first critical election). After 1860 the Democratic and Republican parties became the major parties in a largely two-party system. In federal elections from the 1870s to the 1890s, the parties were in rough balance-except in the South, which became solidly Democratic. The two parties controlled Congress for almost equal periods, though the Democrats held the presidency only during the two terms of Grover Cleveland (1885-89 and 1893-97).

For the results of the previous election, see United States presidential election of 1856. For the results of the subsequent election, see United States presidential election of 1864.
Michael Levy

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united states presidential election of 1860

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U.S. Presidential Election of 1860 | Candidates & Results

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U.S. presidential election of 1860, American election in which Republican Abraham Lincoln defeated Southern Democrat John C. Breckinridge, Democrat Stephen A. Douglas, and Constitutional Union candidate John Bell. After Lincoln's election seven Southern states seceded, setting the stage for the American Civil War.

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Article Credits: "John Brown's Harper's Ferry Raid," Civil War Trust

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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.

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Article Credits: "Lincoln-Douglas Debates," History.com

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Historians have traditionally regarded the series of seven debates between Stephen A. Douglas and Abraham Lincoln during the 1858 Illinois state election campaign as among the most significant statements in American political history. The issues they discussed were not only of critical importance to the sectional conflict over slavery and states' rights but also touched deeper questions that would continue to influence political discourse. As Lincoln said, the issues would be discussed long after "these poor tongues of Judge Douglas and myself shall be silent."

What is often overlooked is that the debates were part of a larger campaign, that they were designed to achieve certain immediate political objectives, and that they reflected the characteristics of mid-nineteenth-century political rhetoric. Douglas, a member of Congress since 1843 and a nationally prominent spokesman for the Democratic party, was seeking reelection to a third term in the U.S. Senate, and Lincoln was running for Douglas's Senate seat as a Republican. Because of Douglas's political stature, the campaign attracted national attention. Its outcome, it was thought, would determine the ability of the Democratic party to maintain unity in the face of the divisive sectional and slavery issues, and some were convinced it would determine the viability of the Union itself. "The battle of the Union is to be fought in Illinois," a Washington paper declared.

Although senators were elected by the state legislatures until 1913, Douglas and Lincoln took their arguments directly to the people. The timing of the campaign, the context of sectional animosity within which it was fought, the volatility of the slavery issue, and the instability of the party system combined to give the debates a special importance. Not long before, Douglas had defied President James Buchanan and the southern Democratic leadership when he opposed the admission of Kansas as a slave state under the controversial Lecompton constitution, a stand for which he received support from Republicans in Congress as well as their interest in his reelection. At the same time, Buchanan and the southern slave interests gave tacit (and in some instances explicit) support to Lincoln's candidacy because of their hostility to Douglas. As a result of this strange alignment, Lincoln's principal task was to keep Illinois Republicans from supporting Douglas by exposing the moral gulf that separated them from the senator and to win the support of radical abolitionists and former conservative Whigs. A relative newcomer to the antislavery cause (before 1854, he said, slavery had been a "minor question" with him), Lincoln used the debates to develop and strengthen the moral quality of his position.

The groundwork for the campaign was laid in Lincoln's famous House Divided speech in Springfield on June 16, 1858. Douglas opened his campaign on July 9 in Chicago. By mid-August, the two candidates had agreed to a series of debates in seven of the state's nine congressional districts.

Lincoln opened the campaign on an ominous note, warning that the agitation over slavery would not cease until a crisis had been passed that resulted either in the extension of slavery to all the territories and states or in its ultimate extinction. "A house divided against itself cannot stand," he declared. Lincoln's forecast was a statement of what would be known as the irrepressible conflict doctrine. The threat of slavery expansion, he believed, came not from the slaveholding South but from Douglas's popular sovereignty position-allowing the territories to decide for themselves whether they wished to have slavery. Furthermore, Lincoln charged Douglas with conspiring to extend slavery to the free states as well as the territories, a false accusation that Douglas tried vainly to ignore. Fundamental to Lincoln's argument was his conviction that slavery must be dealt with as a moral wrong. It violated the statement in the Declaration of Independence that all men are created equal, and it ran counter to the intentions of the Founding Fathers. The "real issue" in his contest with Douglas, Lincoln insisted, was the issue of right and wrong, and he charged that his opponent was trying to uphold a wrong. Only the power of the federal government, as exercised by Congress, could ultimately extinguish slavery. At the same time, Lincoln assured southerners that he had no intention of interfering with slavery in the states where it existed and assured northerners that he was opposed to the political and social equality of the races, points on which he and Douglas agreed.

Douglas rejected Lincoln's notion of an irrepressible conflict and disagreed with his analysis of the intentions of the Founding Fathers, pointing out that many of them were slaveholders who believed that each community should decide the question for itself. A devoted Jacksonian, he insisted that power should reside at the local level and should reflect the wishes of the people. He was convinced, however, that slavery would be effectively restricted for economic, geographic, and demographic reasons and that the territories, if allowed to decide, would choose to be free. In an important statement at Freeport, he held that the people could keep slavery out of their territories, in spite of the Dred Scott decision, simply by withholding the protection of the local law. Douglas was disturbed by Lincoln's effort to resolve a controversial moral question by political means, warning that it could lead to civil war. Finally, Douglas placed his disagreement with Lincoln on the level of republican ideology, arguing that the contest was between consolidation and confederation, or as he put it, "one consolidated empire" as proposed by Lincoln versus a "confederacy of sovereign and equal states" as he proposed.

On election day, the voters of Illinois chose members of the state legislature who in turn reelected Douglas to the Senate in January 1859. Although Lincoln lost, the Republicans received more popular votes than the Democrats, signaling an important shift in the political character of the state. Moreover, Lincoln had gained a reputation throughout the North. He was invited to campaign for Republican candidates in other states and was now mentioned as a candidate for the presidency. In winning, Douglas further alienated the Buchanan administration and the South, was soon to be stripped of his power in the Senate, and contributed to the division of the Democratic party.

The Reader's Companion to American History. Eric Foner and John A. Garraty, Editors. Copyright © 1991 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

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Historians have traditionally regarded the series of seven debates between Stephen A. Douglas and Abraham Lincoln during the 1858 Illinois state election campaign as among the most significant statements in American political history. The issues they discussed were not only of critical importance to the sectional conflict over slavery and states' rights but also touched deeper questions that would continue to influence political discourse.

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Article Credits: "Dred Scott Decision," History.com

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Who Was Dred Scott?

Dred Scott was born into slavery around 1799 in Southampton County, Virginia. In 1818, he moved with his owner Peter Blow to Alabama, then in 1830 he moved to St. Louis, Missouri-both slave states-where Peter ran a boarding house.

After Blow died in 1832, army surgeon Dr. John Emerson purchased Scott and eventually took him to Illinois, a free state, and then to Fort Snelling in Wisconsin Territory where the Missouri Compromise had outlawed slavery. There, Scott married Harriet Robinson, also enslaved, in a rare civil ceremony; her owner transferred ownership of Harriet to Emerson.

In late 1837, Emerson returned to St. Louis but left Dred and Harriet Scott behind and hired them out. Emerson then moved to Louisiana, a slave state, where he met and married Eliza (Irene) Sandford in February 1838; Dred Scott soon joined them.

Did you know? Dred Scott, along with several members of his family, was formally emancipated by his owner just three months after the Supreme Court denied them their freedom in the Dred Scott decision.

In October 1838, Emerson, his wife Irene and their enslaved workers returned to Wisconsin. After the army honorably discharged Emerson in 1842, he and Irene returned to St. Louis with Scott and his family (which now included two daughters), but they struggled to find success and soon moved to Iowa. It's unclear if Scott and his family accompanied them or stayed in St. Louis to be hired out.

John Emerson died suddenly in 1843 in Iowa, and his enslaved workers became Irene's property. She returned to St. Louis to live with her father and hired out Scott and his family. Scott tried multiple times to purchase his freedom from Irene, but she refused.

For unknown reasons, Dred and Harriet Scott never tried to run away or sue for freedom while living in or traveling through free states and territories.

Dred Scott v. Sandford

In April 1846, Dred and Harriet filed separate lawsuits for freedom in the St. Louis Circuit Court against Irene Emerson based on two Missouri statutes. One statute allowed any person of any color to sue for wrongful enslavement. The other stated that any person taken to a free territory automatically became free and could not be re-enslaved upon returning to a slave state.

Neither Dred nor Harriet Scott could read or write and they needed both logistical and financial support to plead their case. They received it from their church, abolitionists and an unlikely source, the Blow family who had once owned them.

Since Dred and Harriet Scott had lived in Illinois and the Wisconsin Territory - both free domains - they hoped they had a persuasive case. When they went to trial on June 30, 1847, however, the court ruled against them on a technicality and the judge granted a retrial.

The Scotts went to trial again in January 1850 and won their freedom. Irene appealed the case to the Missouri Supreme Court which combined Dred and Harriet's cases and reversed the lower court's decision in 1852, making Dred Scott and his family enslaved again.

In November 1853, Scott filed a federal lawsuit with the United States Circuit Court for the District of Missouri. By this time, Irene had transferred Scott and his family to her brother, John Sandford (although it was determined later that she retained ownership). On May 15, 1854, the federal court heard Dred Scott v. Sandford and ruled against Scott, holding him and his family in slavery.

In December 1854, Scott appealed his case to the United States Supreme Court. The trial began on February 11, 1856. By this time, the case had gained notoriety and Scott received support from many abolitionists, including powerful politicians and high-profile attorneys. But on March 6, 1857, in the infamous Dred Scott decision, Scott lost his fight for freedom again.

Chief Justice Roger Taney

Roger Taney was born into the southern aristocracy and became the fifth Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court.

Taney became best known for writing the final majority opinion in Dred Scott v. Sandford, which said that all people of African descent, free or enslaved, were not United States citizens and therefore had no right to sue in federal court. In addition, he wrote that the Fifth Amendment protected slave owner rights because enslaved workers were their legal property.

The decision also argued that the Missouri Compromise legislation - passed to balance the power between slave and non-slave states - was unconstitutional. In effect, this meant that Congress had no power to prevent the spread of slavery.

Despite Taney's long tenure as a Supreme Court justice, people vilified him for his role in the Dred Scott v. Sandford decision. In an ironic historical footnote, Taney would later swear in Abraham Lincoln, the "Great Emancipator," as president of the United States in 1861.

Dred Scott Wins His Freedom

By the time the U.S. Supreme Court handed down its Dred Scott decision, Irene had married her second husband, Calvin Chaffee, a U.S. congressman and abolitionist. Upset upon learning his wife still owned the most infamous slave of the time, he sold Scott and his family to Taylor Blow, the son of Peter Blow, Scott's original owner.

Taylor freed Scott and his family on May 26, 1857. Scott found work as a porter in a St. Louis hotel, but didn't live long as a free man. At about 59 years of age, Scott died from tuberculosis on September 17, 1858.

Dred Scott Decision: Impact on Civil War

The Dred Scott Decision outraged abolitionists, who saw the Supreme Court's ruling as a way to stop debate about slavery in the territories. The divide between North and South over slavery grew and culminated in the secession of southern states from the Union and the creation of the Confederate States of America. The Emancipation Proclamation of September 22, 1862 freed enslaved people living in the Confederacy, but it would be another three years until Congress passed the 13th Amendment abolishing slavery in the United States.

Sources

Missouri State Archives: Missouri's Dred Scott Case, 1846-1857. Missouri Digital Heritage.
Primary Documents in American History: Dred Scott v. Sandford. The Library of Congress.
Roger B. Taney. United States Senate.
The Dred Scott Case. National Park Service.

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Dred Scott Case - Decision, Definition & Impact

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In the Dred Scott case, or Dred Scott v. Sanford, the Supreme Court ruled that no enslaved person could claim U.S. citizenship or petition a court for their freedom.

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Article Credits: "Charles Sumner," History.com

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Charles Sumner - Facts & Summary - HISTORY.com

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Find out more about the history of Charles Sumner, including videos, interesting articles, pictures, historical features and more. Get all the facts on HISTORY.com

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Article Credits: "First Sack of Lawrence," Kansas City Public Library

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Civil War on the Western Border: The Missouri-Kansas Conflict, 1854-1865

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Event Summary:

Date: May 21, 1856

Location: Lawrence, Douglas County, Kansas

Adversaries: Free-Staters vs. proslavery militia

Casualties: One Proslavery man killed

Result: Proslavery attackers dispersed, with most returning to Missouri

The First Sack of Lawrence occurred on May 21, 1856, when proslavery men attacked and looted the antislavery town of Lawrence, Kansas. The assault escalated the violence over slavery in Kansas Territory during a period that became known as " Bleeding Kansas." The sacking coincided with South Carolina congressman Preston Brooks's scandalous caning of abolitionist Republican senator Charles Sumner, which had occurred on May 20. The two events were paired and dramatized by the national media, constituting turning point in the lead up to the Civil War.

Lawrence, Kansas, was founded in 1854 by the New England Emigrant Aid Society with an antislavery mission, and named after Boston philanthropist and antislavery reformer Amos Lawrence. Established on the heels of 1854's Kansas-Nebraska Act, Lawrence developed during a period of increasing tension in the Kansas Territory between newly-arrived eastern abolitionists and proslavery southerners, particularly border Missourians. The aid movement made considerable headlines in the eastern press during 1854, and Lawrence's founders nearly battled with proslavery Missourians in October of that year. Political strain intensified throughout 1855 following the Big Springs resolutions, the creation of a Free-State Party, and the Wakarusa War that fall. By late 1855, Lawrence residents fully anticipated an attack by proslavery partisans or " border ruffians" (the pejorative term for proslavery Missourians who crossed the state line to commit voting fraud or political intimidation). Indeed, that December agents from the Emigrant Aid Society requested additional weapons-Sharp's rifles ("Beecher's Bibles") and cannon-from their eastern benefactors as approximately 1,200 proslavery men, mostly Missourians, assembled on the Wakarusa River. With Lawrence besieged, only executive intervention by Governor Wilson Shannon staved off violence. But a harsh winter and snowballing political tension ensured that a proslavery attack had been more delayed than prevented.

Conditions were ripe for conflict when ... Douglas County Sheriff Samuel J. Jones was shot in the back while attempting to arrest some Free-State men on April 23.

The 1856 spring migration of antislavery settlers indicated that time was on the side of the Free-Staters. Lawrence, by now the center of crusading antislavery activity in Kansas, was growing, and proslavery forces felt a sense of urgency to suppress perceived antislavery insolence. Conditions were ripe for conflict when Wakarusa War veteran and Douglas County Sheriff Samuel J. Jones was shot in the back while attempting to arrest some Free-State men on April 23. Although only wounded, Jones was reported dead by the proslavery press and its disciples vowed revenge on the town. Although the antislavery press censured the attack, Judge Samuel D. Lecompte urged a territorial grand jury indict a number of Free-State officials and deemed their newspapers and hotel threatening to the peace. On May 11, federal marshal I. B. Donaldson issued a proclamation asking territorial citizens to aid him in serving warrants in Lawrence against the extralegal Free-State legislature. Donaldson was joined by at least a half dozen proslavery militia units, including the Douglas County Militia, the Kickapoo Rangers, and the Missouri Platte County Rifles, and peacefully made his arrests. Yet in response to Donaldson's mobilization and the findings of a territorial grand jury that antislavery forces in Lawrence were militarizing, Sheriff Jones assembled roughly 750 men to enter the town, disarm its citizens, and destroy its antislavery institutions.

On May 21, Jones's men placed cannon on nearby Mount Oread, sealed off all possible escape routes, and approached the town. With their leaders under arrest, the citizens of Lawrence offered no resistance. Rather than chaotic and irrationally violent, the proslavery attack was calculated and political. Donaldson made his headquarters in the residence of Dr. Charles Robinson, an antislavery leader and future first governor of the state of Kansas who was then under arrest at Lecompton. The proslavery force next targeted both of Lawrence's antislavery newspapers, including raising a banner with "Southern Rights" inscribed on one side and "South Carolina" on the other atop the printing office of the Herald of Freedom. The printing presses of both the Herald and The Kansas Free-State were then thrown into the Kansas River. The Free-State Hotel, which the proslavery grand jury claimed was in fact a military fortress, next drew the ire of the mob. Built by the Emigrant Aid Society, the stone hotel was blown up, ransacked, and burned. Attackers also directed violence and robbery against the homes of prominent abolitionists. The crowd then dispersed, with most returning to Missouri. For all its destruction, the incident produced only one casualty, a proslavery man who was killed by a falling brick.

Built by the Emigrant Aid Society, the stone hotel was blown up, ransacked, and burned.

The Republican press quickly labeled the attack the "Sack of Lawrence," and it created a media firestorm in the North. Antislavery newspapers circulated false reports that Free-State persons had been killed, and many otherwise neutral Americans admired the control exhibited by the antislavery faction and sympathized with their loss. Although the proslavery press downplayed the event as abolitionist sensationalism, the Sack of Lawrence, together with the caning of Charles Sumner, confirmed Republican fears of a violent "Slave Power" conspiracy. After all, a territorial grand jury, a county sheriff, a U.S. marshal had fomented the clash. Free-State restraint was short-lived, as militant abolitionist John Brown was so aroused by the Lawrence-Sumner bulletin that he retaliated by killing five proslavery men on May 25, 1856, in what became known as the Pottawatomie Creek Massacre.

Violent events in Kansas increasingly dictated policy in Washington. As South Carolina Congressman Lawrence Keitt wrote after the event, "The Kansas fight has just occurred and times are stirring. Everybody here feels as if we are on a volcano." "Bleeding Kansas" became a major campaign issue in the fall of 1856, the first to feature a Republican presidential candidate, prefiguring at the territorial level increasingly national political division and sectional conflict. Still more violence befell Lawrence during the Civil War, as Confederate guerrilla William Clarke Quantrill and his raiders attacked the town on August 21, 1863, in what became known as the Lawrence Massacre.

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The First Sack of Lawrence occurred on May 21, 1856, when proslavery men attacked and looted the antislavery town of Lawrence, Kansas. The assault escalated the violence over slavery in Kansas Territory during a period that became known as "Bleeding Kansas."

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Video Credits: Kansas-Nebraska Act, History.com

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Kansas-Nebraska Act Video - Kansas-Nebraska Act - HISTORY.com

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Get a crash course on the causes and consequences of the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 with historian Matthew Pinsker.

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Video Credits: Fugitive Slave Acts, History.com

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Fugitive Slave Acts Video - Fugitive Slave Acts - HISTORY.com

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Historian Matthew Pinsker presents a quick rundown of the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act.

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Article Credits: "Compromise of1850," Encyclopaedia Britannica

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Compromise of 1850, in U.S. history, a series of measures proposed by the "great compromiser," Sen. Henry Clay of Kentucky, and passed by the U.S. Congress in an effort to settle several outstanding slavery issues and to avert the threat of dissolution of the Union. The crisis arose from the request of the territory of California (December 3, 1849) to be admitted to the Union with a constitution prohibiting slavery. The problem was complicated by the unresolved question of slavery's extension into other areas ceded by Mexico the preceding year ( see Mexican-American War).

The issue of whether the territories would be slave or free came to a boil following the election of Zachary Taylor as president in 1848. In his first annual message to Congress, Taylor endorsed statehood for California and urged that "those exciting topics" that had caused such apprehension be left to the courts. He opposed any legislative plan that would address the problems that so agitated Northerners and Southerners, thus preventing Henry Clay from pushing ahead with another compromise plan that, he hoped, would settle the issue for at least a generation, as had the Missouri Compromise of 1820. Then Taylor died just 16 months into his term, and his successor, Millard Fillmore, saw the wisdom of Clay's proposal and encouraged him to continue.

Clay's purpose was to maintain a balance between free and slave states and to satisfy both proslavery and antislavery forces. The plan adopted by Congress had several parts: California was admitted as a free state, upsetting the equilibrium that had long prevailed in the Senate; the boundary of Texas was fixed along its current lines; Texas, in return for giving up land it claimed in the Southwest, had $10 million of its onerous debt assumed by the federal government; areas ceded by Texas became the recognized territories of New Mexico and Utah, and in neither case was slavery mentioned, ostensibly leaving these territories to decide the slavery question on their own by the principle of popular sovereignty; the slave trade, but not slavery itself, was abolished in the District of Columbia; and finally, Congress passed a new and stronger Fugitive Slave Act, taking the matter of returning runaway slaves out of the control of states and making it a federal responsibility.

With the influential support of Sen. Daniel Webster and the concerted unifying efforts of Sen. Stephen A. Douglas, the five compromise measures were enacted in September. These measures were accepted by moderates in all sections of the country, and the secession of the South was postponed for a decade. Indeed, the political system had seemed to work, and many Americans greeted the Compromise of 1850 with relief. President Fillmore called it "a final settlement," and the South certainly had nothing to complain about. It had secured the type of fugitive slave law it had long demanded, and although California came in as a free state, it elected proslavery representatives. Moreover, New Mexico and Utah enacted slave codes, technically opening the territories to slavery.

The compromise, however, contained the seeds of future discord. The precedent of popular sovereignty led to a demand for a similar provision for the Kansas Territory in 1854, causing bitterness and violence there ( see Bleeding Kansas). Furthermore, the application of the new Fugitive Slave Act triggered such a strong reaction throughout the North that many moderate antislavery elements became determined opponents of any further extension of slavery into the territories. While the Compromise of 1850 succeeded as a temporary expedient, it also proved the failure of compromise as a permanent political solution when vital sectional interests were at stake.

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Compromise of 1850 | Summary, Map, Facts, & Significance

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Compromise of 1850, in U.S. history, a series of measures proposed by the 'great compromiser,' Sen. Henry Clay of Kentucky, and passed by Congress in an effort to settle several outstanding slavery issues and to avert the threat of dissolution of the Union.

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Article Credit: "California becomes the 31st state in record time," History.com

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Though it had only been a part of the United States for less than two years, California becomes the 31st state in the union (without ever even having been a territory) on September 9, 1850.
READ MORE: When California (Briefly) Became Its Own Nation
Mexico had reluctantly ceded California and much of its northern territory to the United States in the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. When the Mexican diplomats signed the treaty, they pictured California as a region of sleepy mission towns with a tiny population of about 7,300-not a devastating loss to the Mexican empire. Their regret might have been much sharper had they known that gold had been discovered at Sutter's Mill in Coloma, California, nine days before they signed the peace treaty. Suddenly, the greatest gold rush in history was on, and "forty-niners" began flooding into California chasing after the fist-sized gold nuggets rumored to be strewn about the ground just waiting to be picked up. California's population and wealth skyrocketed.

Most newly acquired regions of the U.S. went through long periods as territories before they had the 60,000 inhabitants needed to achieve statehood, and prior to the Gold Rush, emigration to California had been so slow that it would have been decades before the population reached that number. But with gold fever reaching epidemic proportions around the world, more than 60,000 people from around the globe came to California in 1849 alone. Faced with such rapid growth, as well as a thorny congressional debate over the question of slavery in the new territories, Congress allowed California to jump straight to full statehood without ever passing through the formal territorial stage. After a rancorous debate between the slave-state and free-soil advocates, Congress finally accepted California as a free-labor state under the Compromise of 1850, beginning the state's long reign as the most powerful economic and political force in the far West.
READ MORE: 8 Things You May Not Know About the California Gold Rush

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California becomes the 31st state in record time

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Though it had only been a part of the United States for less than two years, California becomes the 31st state in the union (without ever even having been a territory) on September 9, 1850.

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Article Credit: "Wilmot Proviso," Encyclopaedia Britannica

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Wilmot Proviso, in U.S. history, important congressional proposal in the 1840s to prohibit the extension of slavery into the territories, a basic plank upon which the Republican Party was subsequently built. Soon after the Mexican War, Pres. James K. Polk asked Congress for $2,000,000 to negotiate peace and settle the boundary with Mexico. In behalf of anti-slavery forces throughout the country, a Democratic congressman from Pennsylvania named David Wilmot offered an amendment (August 8, 1846) to the bill forbidding slavery in the new territory, thus precipitating bitter national debate in an atmosphere of heightening sectional conflict. Despite repeated attempts, the Wilmot Proviso was never passed by both houses of Congress. But out of the attempt by both Democrats and Whigs to subordinate or compromise the slavery issue grew the Republican Party, founded in 1854, which specifically supported the Wilmot principle.

Amy Tikkanen.

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Wilmot Proviso | Slavery, Abolition & Expansion

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Wilmot Proviso, in U.S. history, important congressional proposal in the 1840s to prohibit the extension of slavery into the territories, a basic plank upon which the Republican Party was subsequently built. Soon after the Mexican War, Pres. James K. Polk asked Congress for $2,000,000 to negotiate

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Article Credits: "Fugitive Slaves," National Archives

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Gag rule, in U.S. history, any of a series of congressional resolutions that tabled, without discussion, petitions regarding slavery; passed by the House of Representatives between 1836 and 1840 and repealed in 1844. Abolition petitions, signed by more than 2,000,000 persons, had inundated

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Article Credits: "Gag rule," Encyclopaedia Britannica

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Gag rule, in U.S. history, any of a series of congressional resolutions that tabled, without discussion, petitions regarding slavery; passed by the House of Representatives between 1836 and 1840 and repealed in 1844. Abolition petitions, signed by more than 2,000,000 persons, had inundated

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Video Credits: Missouri Compromise, History.com

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Learn more about the Missouri Compromise of 1820, a temporary solution to the brewing controversy over slavery in the United States.

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Following Lincoln's election as president, Southern fears began to rise, and secession became a serious topic in the South. Lincoln refused to compromise on slavery being blocked from spreading to the territories, whilst a committee in South Carolina voted to secede from the Union. After South Carolina seceded, six more states followed, forming the Confederate States of America in February 1861, the month before Lincoln's inauguration. Storm clouds were on the horizon, and the American Civil War was about to begin.

Image Credits: "Interior of Fort Sumter in April 1861 after its surrender by U.S. garrison," Library of Congress

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14. Abraham Lincoln is Elected as President

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14. Abraham Lincoln is Elected as President

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The election of 1860 was a contentious one. The Republican Party fully supported Lincoln, while Lincoln's opposition was split between three factions. As such, Lincoln became president, despite only having 40% of the votes, all of whom were from Northern states, and not even being on the ballot in ten southern states. This was not a recipe for unity, and Lincoln's victory shocked Southerners, who began to fear that Lincoln intended to abolish slavery once and for all. The South began to fear for its way of life.

Image Credits: "Abraham Lincoln," Library of Congress

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The radical abolitionist John Brown, who had murdered five pro-slavery settlers in Kansas only two years earlier, believed that the issue of slavery could only be settled through violence. In 1858, he launched a raid on the federal military arsenal at Harper's Ferry, hoping to use the weapons captured at the arsenal to begin a slave revolt. Though Brown was caught and executed, many Northerners viewed him as a hero, while Southerners were greatly disturbed at what they saw as a Northern attempt to turn their own slaves against them.

Image Credits: John Brown, Library of Congress

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In the 1858 Senate race in Illinois, two statesmen, Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas, publicly faced off against one another on the issue of slavery.
Douglas believed that the issue had been settled by Dred Scott, and that the nation could continue to go on divided between free and slave states.
On the other hand, Lincoln believed that the issue of slavery was still an important one. He argued that the nation could not survive if one part of the country despised the practice, while the other applauded it. He claimed that the divisions of slave and free states undermined the stability of the Republic.
While Douglas won the election, Lincoln's ideas became widely publicized across the country.

Image Credits: "Lincoln & Douglas in a presidential footrace," Library of Congress

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In 1857, the case of a slave appealing for freedom reached the Supreme Court. This slave, a man known as Dred Scott, had spent several years in Wisconsin, and argued that living in a free state gave him the right to be a free man. The Supreme Court, which had five southern members and four northern members at the time, ruled that Scott was not legally allowed to sue for his freedom because he was a slave, and slaves were property, and because he was African American, and the Supreme Court ruled that African Americans could not become citizens. In addition, the Supreme Court ruled that the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional because it took away slaves, considered property by the Southern judges, from Southern landowners without due process of law, which was interpreted as violating the Fifth Amendment. This only inflamed Northerners and dramatically divided the country.

Image Credits: "Dred Scott," Library of Congress

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The sack of Lawrence was proof to Massachusetts senator Charles Sumner that Senator Steven Douglas was collaborating with southerners to spread slavery northwards. Sumner was incensed enough to begin a strongly worded speech known as "The Crime Against Kansas," in which he insulted many prominent politicians, including Steven Douglas and Senator Andrew Butler of North Carolina. This speech inflamed Southerners and prompted Representative Preston Brooks, who was Butler's nephew, to savagely beat Sumner with a metal-tipped cane. Northerners were horrified at this, while Southerners applauded Brooks for defending his family's honor.

Image Credits: "Brooks Attacks Sumner," Getty Images

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Following the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, settlers began to pour into the new territories, hoping to take advantage of the fertile soil. However, in Kansas, a sizable number of settlers migrated for political reasons. Southerners sent detachments of young men into Kansas to make it a slave state, while Northerners armed settlers to fight in Kansas against their pro-slavery counterparts. The state effectively split into pro-slavery and anti-slavery groups, which could only lead to violence.
On May 21, 1856, pro-slavery settlers as well as "border ruffians," who were settlers from Missouri who crossed the border to commit voting fraud or attack abolitionist settlers, attacked and looted the anti-slavery town of Lawrence. This escalated tensions, and led radical abolitionist John Brown to brutally murder five men for their suspected pro-slavery views in retaliation.

Image Credits: "Ruins of the Free State Hotel in 1856," Sara T.D. Robinson

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In 1854, Illinois Senator Stephen A. Douglas tried to get a bill to organize the Great Plains into territories, which would make the construction of a railroad to California easier. However, Southern senators only agreed to support the bill if they could add several clauses. The southern revisions abolished the Missouri Compromise by creating two territories, Nebraska and Kansas, north of the 36° 30' Parallel and opening these two territories to slavery. This raised huge fears across the North about slavery spreading northwards, and Southerners failed to allay said fears.

Image Credits: "The 1850s: Road to Secession," James Henry

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As part of the Compromise of 1850, the Fugitive Slave Act completely failed to alleviate tensions about slavery. Northerners did not want to enforce it, whilst Southerners felt that it was not being enforced enough. Under the Fugitive Slave Act, caught slaves had no legal rights, and anyone who aided or refused to catch fugitive slaves could be imprisoned. However, widespread Northern opposition to the act made it nearly impossible to enforce. In Boston, crowds of abolitionists blocked and taunted slave catchers, eventually sending most of the slavers back south. Only 299 fugitive slaves were caught as a result of the Fugitive Slave Act.

Image Credits: "Practical Illustration of the Fugitive Slave Law," Library of Congress

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To settle the issue of slavery in the Mexican Cession, Senator Henry Clay of Kentucky, the creator of the Missouri Compromise, crafted the Compromise of 1850, intended to appeal to both North and South.
For Northerners, Clay stipulated that California would be admitted as a free state, while the slave trade (but not the practice of slavery), would be outlawed in Washington D.C.
For Southerners, Clay agreed to open New Mexico and Utah to slavery, while also allowing for the passing of a fugitive slave law that would give Southern slavers to catch runaway slaves in the North.
After nine months of debate, the Compromise of 1850 passed.

Image Credits: "Henry Clay," Library of Congress

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In Congress, a fierce debate on whether or not to allow slavery in the territories ceded by Mexico in the Mexican-American War raged for three years without a definite solution. Southern congressmen pushed a failed compromise to extend the Missouri Compromise line to the Pacific Ocean. In 1849, California applied for admission to the Union as a free state, which would have given free states a crucial advantage in the Senate. Northerners pushed for California's admission, while Southerners opposed it, leading to a deadlock in the Senate.

Image Credits: "Admission Day Celebration, Historic View, 1850, Montgomery & California Streets, San Francisco, San Francisco County, CA," Library of Congress

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In 1846, then-President James Polk requested Congress for funding for the Mexican-American War. Despite the gag rule, representative David Wilmot of Pennsylvania attempted to add a clause to the funding bill in which the territories conquered in the war  would be prevented from becoming slave states. Southerners were enraged, and although the Wilmot Proviso passed the House, it failed to pass the Senate.

Image Credit: "David Wilmot (1814 - 1868)," Library of Congress

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Slaves from the South routinely escaped to the North, and were aided by Northern abolitionists. Slaves were expensive, so Southern landowners became enraged at Northerner collaborators, and pushed for the ability to hunt down slaves in free Northern states.

Image Credits: "In hiding," Library of Congress

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Throughout the 1820s and 1830s, a new religious movement known as the Second Great Awakening encouraged many Northerners to work to help achieve freedom for those in bondage. Abolitionists put so much pressure on Congress that Congress put in place a "gag rule," in which no abolitionist petitions would be discussed, in 1836. Though intended to simply put off the issue of slavery, the gag rule only encouraged abolitionists to take more personal action in the fight against slavery. Abolitionists spread their ideas at public meetings and encouraged slaves to revolt, which led to rising fears in the South against Northern abolitionists.

Image Credits: "Abolition Frowned Down Upon," Abolition Seminar

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In 1787, Congress had decided to ban slavery in states north of the Ohio River. In addition, they had created an agreement to balance the number of free and slave states so that neither side would have an advantage in the Senate.
In 1819, Missouri, a territory with land on both sides of the Ohio River, applied for admission as a slave state. This would have given slave states an advantage in the Senate, and could set a precedent for slave states spreading northwards. The Senate and the House were deadlocked on what to do.
In 1820, Maine applied for admission as a free state, which would have kept the balance between free and slave states, should Missouri be admitted as well.
However, this would still set a precedent for allowing slavery to spread northwards. Congress created a line on the 36° 30' Parallel, which would serve as the dividing line for future slave and free states, although Missouri violated this same line. This was unpopular in both North and South because it only delayed the issue of slavery and did not settle it for either side.

Image Credits: "United States, 1821," Getty Images