Pre-Civil War Timeline by Samuel Patino Castano

The Missouri Compromise (1820)

spatin69 — 2025-03-28 13:13:53 UTC

The Missouri Compromise (also known as the Compromise of 1820) was federal legislation of the United States that balanced the desires of northern states to prevent the expansion of slavery in the country with those of southern states to expand it. It admitted Missouri as a slave state and Maine as a free state and declared a policy of prohibiting slavery in the remaining Louisiana Purchase lands north of the 36°30′ parallel, this maintained the balance of power for a time, increasing sectional tensions. The 16th United States Congress passed the legislation on March 3, 1820, and President James Monroe signed it on March 6, 1820.

The Compromise of 1850

spatin69 — 2025-03-28 13:42:20 UTC

The Compromise of 1850 was a package of five separate bills passed by the United States Congress in September 1850 that temporarily defused tensions between slave and free states in the years leading up to the American Civil War. Designated by Whig senator Henry Clay and Democratic senator Stephen A. Douglas, with the support of President Millard Fillmore, the compromise centered on how to handle slavery in recently acquired territories from the Mexican–American War (1846–48).

Uncle Tom's Cabin (1851)

spatin69 — 2025-03-28 13:49:37 UTC

Uncle Tom's Cabin; or, Life Among the Meek is an anti-slavery novel by American author Harriet Beecher Stowe. Published in two volumes in 1852, the novel had a profound impact on attitudes toward African Americans and slavery in the United States, and is said to have helped lay the groundwork for the Civil War.

Wilmot Proviso (1846)

spatin69 — 2025-03-28 13:52:24 UTC

The Wilmot Clause was a failed 1846 proposal in the United States Congress to prohibit slavery in the territory acquired from Mexico during the Mexican-American War. The conflict surrounding the Wilmot Clause was one of the major events leading to the Civil War.

After an earlier attempt to acquire Texas through a treaty failed to obtain the necessary two-thirds Senate approval, the United States annexed the Republic of Texas through a joint resolution of Congress that required only a majority vote in both houses.

Kansas-Nebraska Act and Bleeding Kansas (1854-1861)

spatin69 — 2025-03-28 13:55:48 UTC

The Kansas–Nebraska Act of 1854 (10 Stat. 277) was a territorial organic act that created the territories of Kansas and Nebraska. It was drafted by Democratic Senator Stephen A. Douglas, passed by the 33rd United States Congress, and signed into law by President Franklin Pierce. Douglas introduced the bill intending to open up new lands to develop and facilitate the construction of a transcontinental railroad. However, the Kansas–Nebraska Act effectively replicated the Missouri Compromise of 1820, raising national tensions over slavery and contributing to a series of armed conflicts known as "Bleeding Kansas."

Bleeding Kansas, Bloody Kansas, or the Border War, was a series of violent civil confrontations in Kansas Territory, and to a lesser extent in western Missouri, between 1854 and 1859. It emerged from a political and ideological debate over the legality of slavery in the proposed state of Kansas.

The Dred Scott Decision (1857)

spatin69 — 2025-03-31 11:38:57 UTC

The decision involved the case of Dred Scott, an enslaved black man whose owners had taken him from Missouri, a slave-holding state, into Illinois and the Wisconsin Territory, where slavery was illegal. When his owners later brought him back to Missouri, Scott sued for his freedom and claimed that because he had been taken into "free" U.S. territory, he had automatically been freed and was legally no longer a slave. Scott sued first in Missouri state court, which ruled that he was still a slave under its law. He then sued in U.S. federal court, which ruled against him by deciding that it had to apply Missouri law to the case. He then appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The Lincoln/Douglas Debates (1858)

spatin69 — 2025-03-31 11:46:54 UTC

The Lincoln–Douglas debates were a series of seven debates in 1858 between Abraham Lincoln, the Republican Party candidate for the United States Senate from Illinois, and incumbent Senator Stephen Douglas, the Democratic Party candidate. Until the Seventeenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which provides that senators shall be elected by the people of their states, was ratified in 1913, senators were elected by their respective state legislatures, so Lincoln and Douglas were trying to win the votes of the state legislature of the two chambers of the Illinois General Assembly meeting at the state capital town of Springfield for their respective political parties.

John Brown's Raid (1859)

spatin69 — 2025-03-31 11:50:16 UTC

John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry was an effort by abolitionist John Brown, from October 16 to 18, 1859, to initiate a slave revolt in Southern states by taking over the United States arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia (since 1863, West Virginia). It has been called the dress rehearsal for the American Civil War.

Brown's party of 22 was defeated by the company of U.S. Marines, led by First Lieutenant Israel Greene. Ten of the raiders were killed during the raid, seven were tried and executed afterwards, and five escaped. Several of those present at the raid would later be involved in the Civil War.

The Presidential Election of 1860 (Abraham Lincoln as President)

spatin69 — 2025-03-31 11:53:36 UTC

Presidential elections were held in the United States on November 6, 1860. The Republican Party ticket of Abraham Lincoln and Hannibal Hamlin emerged victorious in a four-way race. With an electoral majority comprised only of Northern states that had already abolished slavery, and minimal support in the Democratic-dominated Southern slave states, Lincoln's election as the first Republican president thus served as the main catalyst for Southern secession and consequently the American Civil War.