Social Studies Project

The Missouri Compromise was United States federal legislation that admitted Maine to the United States as a free state, making Missouri a slave state. The northerners did not like the new law because it could spread slavery into new territory. The compromise was to split the U.S to be equal between slave states and free states.

The Texas annexation was the 1845 annexation of the Republic of Texas into the United States of America, which was admitted to the Union as the 28th state on December 29, 1845. The Republic of Texas declared independence from the Republic of Mexico on March 2, 1836. The north objected slavery while the south approved slavery in there states to extend their slave territory, leading a war between Texas and Mexico. This war was to stop the spread of slavery.

The Compromise of 1850 was a package of five separate bills passed by the United States Congress in September 1850 that defused a political confrontation between slave and free states on the status of territories acquired in the Mexican–American War. After California was admitted to the 16th free state, the south made sure that no federalist restrictions on slavery would be admitted to Utah or New Mexico. But the north refused to enforce the fugitive slave law.

Published in 1852, the novel had a profound effect on attitudes toward African Americans and slavery in the U.S. and is said to have "helped lay the groundwork for the Civil War". The book helped the north realise how negative slavery really is for everyone and helped abolish it in all states.

The Kansas-Nebraska Act was passed by the U.S. Congress on May 30, 1854. It allowed people in Kansas and Nebraska to decide for themselves whether or not to allow slavery in their states. The northerners were outraged because the act could influence the spread of slavery to other states.

The Supreme Court ruled that African Americans descent, whether free or slave, were not American citizens and could not sue in federal court. The Court also ruled that Congress lacked power to ban slavery in the U.S. territories. The southerners approved the Dred Scott Court Case thinking the Congress had no right to ban slavery in the south.

John Brown lead a small group on a raid against a federal armory in Harpers Ferry, Virginia (now West Virginia), in an attempt to start an armed slave revolt and destroy the institution of slavery. After the raid slave laws were harsher to the slaves. The north even tried to help slaves escape the south because of the slave laws.

The election of 1860 was when the North and South states seperated because of diversity. The South believed slavery was beneficial to their lands and it made them feel as if they had more power. But the Northerners believed slavery was wrong and everyone is equal.

On December 20, 1860, South Carolina became the first slave state in the south to declare that it had seceded from the United States. James Buchanan, the United States president, declared the law illegal but did not act to stop it. The south seceded because they did not want the north telling them what to do, they didn't want the north to affect the institution of slavery and feared that the north would make Abraham Lincoln the president an ban slavery.