1812 Louisiana is admitted as a slave state.[67]

1814

The Hartford Convention of delegates from Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island and others discusses New England's opposition to the War of 1812 and trade embargoes. The convention report says that New England had a "duty" to assert its authority over unconstitutional infringements on its sovereignty, a position similar to the later nullification theory put forward by South Carolina. The war soon ends and the convention and the Federalist Party which had supported it fall out of favor, especially in the South although leaders in Southern states later would adopt the States' rights concept for their own purposes.[68]

1816

Henry Clay , James Monroe, Bushrod Washington, Robert Finley, Samuel John Mills Jr. and others organize the American Colonization Society to send freed slaves to Liberia. The Society funds the migration of about 10,000 free blacks to return to Africa.[69]

In Philadelphia, the African Methodist Episcopal Church, the first black denomination in the United States, is established by Richard Allen.[70]

Indiana joins the United States as a free state. The 1816 state constitution freed all the slaves there.[71]

1817 Mississippi, a slave state, is admitted the union.[72]

1818

Illinois joins the union as a free state.[73]

Missouri petitions Congress for admission to the union as a slave state. Missouri's possible admission as a slave state threatens the balance of 11 free states and 11 slave states. Three years of debate ensues.[74]

1819

Alabama, a slave state, enters the union.[75]

Missouri again petitions for admission to the union.[76]

U. S. Representative James Tallmadge, Jr. of New York submits an amendment to the legislation for the admission of Missouri which would prohibit further introduction of slaves into Missouri. The proposal also would free all children of slave parents in Missouri when they reached the age of twenty-five. The measure passes in the House of Representatives but is defeated in the Senate.[77][78]

Representative Thomas W. Cobb of Georgia threatens disunion if Tallmadge persists in attempting to have his amendment enacted.[79]

Southern Senators delay a bill to admit Maine as a free state in response to the delay of Missouri's admission to the union as a slave state.[79]

1820 U.S. slave population in the 1820 United States Census: 1,538,000.[80]

Speaker of the House Henry Clay of Kentucky proposes the Missouri

Compromise to break the Congressional deadlock over Missouri's admission to the union.[81] Missouri was admitted to the Union as a slave state on August 10, 1821, and the northern counties of Massachusetts would be admitted as a free state, the State of Maine (which occurred on March 15, 1820).[82] To the west, slavery would be prohibited north of 36°30' of latitude, which was approximately the southern boundary of Missouri. Many Southerners argued against exclusion of slavery from such a large area of the country. The restriction of slavery north of the 36° 30' line of latitude will be abrogated by the popular sovereignty voting provision of the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854.[79][83]

The African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church is founded in New York City.[84]

1821

After Missouri becomes a state, its legislature passes a law excluding free blacks and mulattoes from the State in violation of a Congressional condition to its admission to the Union.[79]

1822

The Vesey Plot causes fear among whites in South Carolina, who are convinced that Denmark Vesey and other slaves plan a violent slave uprising in the Charleston area. The plan is discovered and Vesey and thirty-four of his presumed followers are seized and hanged.[85]

1824

Congregationalist minister Charles Grandison Finney, a leader of the religious revivals of the Second Great Awakening, includes abolitionism among its social reforms.[86]

1826

New Jersey, followed by Pennsylvania, pass the first personal liberty laws, which require a judicial hearing before an alleged fugitive slave can be removed from the state.[87]

Thomas Cooper of South Carolina publishes On the Constitution, an early essay in favor of states' rights.[88]

1827 The process of gradual emancipation is completed in New York state and the last

indentured servant is freed.[89]

1828 Congress passes the Tariff of 1828. It also is called the "Tariff of Abominations" by its opponents in the cotton South.[90]

The opposition of Southern cotton planters to transfer of federal funds in one state to another state for internal improvements and to protective tariffs to aid small Northern industries compete with foreign goods leads a South Carolina legislative committee to issue a report entitled South Carolina Exposition and Protest.[82] The report outlines the nullification doctrine. The doctrine would reserve to a state the right to nullify an act of Congress that injures perceived reserved state rights as unconstitutional. The state could prevent the law's

enforcement within its borders.[82] James Madison of Virginia, fourth President of the United States and a framer of the U.S. Constitution, called the doctrine a "preposterous and anarchical pretension." The report threatens secession of the State over high tariff taxes. In 1831, Vice President John C. Calhoun admits he was the author of the previously unsigned South Carolina committee report.[82][91]

1829

David Walker , a freed slave from North Carolina living in Boston, publishes Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World. He calls on slaves to revolt and destroy slavery.[92]

1830

U.S. slave population in the 1830 United States Census: 2,009,043.[80]

In North Carolina v. Mann, the Supreme Court of North Carolina ruled that slaveowners had absolute authority over their slaves and could not be found guilty of committing violence against them.

Daniel Webster delivers a speech entitled Reply to Hayne. Webster condemns the proposition expressed by Senator Robert Y. Hayne of South Carolina that Americans must choose between liberty and union. Webster's closing words became an iconic statement of American nationalism: "Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable!"[93]

The National Negro Convention, a black abolitionist and civil rights organization, is founded.[94]

1831

Abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison begins publishing The Liberator, a greatly influential publication. About this time, abolitionism takes a radical and religious turn. Many abolitionists begin to demand immediate emancipation of slaves.[95]

Nat Turner leads a slave revolt in Southampton County, Virginia in August. At least 58 white persons are killed. Whites in turn kill about 100 blacks in the area during the search for Turner and his companions and in retaliation for their actions. Turner hides but is captured several months later. Turner and 12 followers are executed. Turner's actions outrage Southerners and some suspect abolitionists supported him. They prepare for further uprisings.[96]

Southern defenders of slavery start describing it as a "positive good," not just a "necessary evil."[97][98]

1832 Congress enacts a new protective tariff, the Tariff of 1832, which offers South Carolina and the South little relief and provokes new controversy between the sections of the country.[99][100]

John C. Calhoun further explains the nullification doctrine in an open letter to South Carolina Governor James Hamilton, Jr. Calhoun says that the Constitution only raised the federal government to the level of the state, not above it. He argues that nullification is not secession and did not require secession to be put into effect.[100]

Thomas R. Dew writes Review of the Debate in the Virginia Legislature of 1831

and 1832, a strong defense of slavery and attack on colonization in Africa by freed slaves.[101]

On November 19, 1832, South Carolina calls a state convention, which passes an Ordinance of Nullification with an effective date of February 1, 1833. The convention declares the tariff void because it threatens the state's essential interests. The South Carolina legislature acts to enforce the ordinance.[87][99][102]

President Andrew Jackson, a Southerner and slave owner, calls nullification "rebellious treason" and threatens to use force against possible secessionist action in South Carolina caused by the Nullification Crisis.[99] Congress passes the "Force Bill" which permits the President to use the Army and Navy to enforce the law. Jackson also urges Congress to modify the tariff, which they soon do.[99][102]

1833

The Compromise Tariff of 1833 proposed by Henry Clay ends the Nullification crisis by lowering some rates. Under the Force Bill, which is also enacted, the President could use the army and navy to enforce federal laws. No other states supported South Carolina's argument and position and after Clay's compromise legislation passes, South Carolina withdrew its resolution.[87]

The abolitionist American Anti-Slavery Society is founded in Philadelphia. The movement soon splits into five factions[83] that do not always agree but which continue to advocate abolition in their own ways.[87][103][104]

Abolitionist Lydia Maria Child of Massachusetts publishes An Appeal in Favor of That Class of Americans Called Africans. Wendell Phillips and Charles Sumner are persuaded to become abolitionists.[87]

1834

Anti-Slavery "debates" are held at Lane Theological Seminary in Cincinnati, Ohio. Lane had been founded by abolitionist evangelist and writer Theodore Dwight Weld with financial help from abolitionist merchants and philanthropists Arthur Tappan and Lewis Tappan.[105]

1835 A Georgia law prescribes the death penalty for publication of material with the

intention of provoking a slave rebellion.[106]

1836 The U.S. House of Representatives passes the Pinckney Resolutions on May 26, 1836. The first two resolutions state that Congress has no constitutional authority to interfere with slavery in the states and that it "ought not" to do so in the District of Columbia. The third resolution, from the outset known as the "gag rule", says: "All petitions, memorials, resolutions, propositions, or papers, relating in any way, or to any extent whatsoever, to the subject of slavery or the abolition of slavery, shall, without being either printed or referred, be laid on the table and that no further action whatever shall be had thereon."[107][108] Massachusetts representative and former President John Quincy Adams leads an eight-year battle against the gag rule. He argues that the Slave Power, as a

political interest, threatened constitutional rights.[87][106][109]

Texas successfully declares its independence from Mexico.[108][110][111]

Arkansas, a slave state, is admitted to the Union.[110]

Committed abolitionists Angelina Grimké Weld and her sister Sarah Grimké who were born in Charleston, South Carolina, move to Philadelphia because of their anti-slavery philosophy and Quaker faith. In 1836, Angelina publishes An Appeal to the Christian Women of the South, inviting them to overthrow slavery, which she declares is a horrible system of oppression and cruelty.[112]

Democratic Party nominee Martin Van Buren, a New Yorker with Southern sympathies, won the Presidential election.[109]

1837

In Alton, Illinois, a mob kills abolitionist and anti-Catholic editor Elijah P. Lovejoy, whose paper angered Southerners and Irish Catholics.[113]

Michigan, a free state, joins the United States.[110]

1838

Kentucky Congressman William J. Graves kills Maine Congressman Jonathan Cilley in a duel.[114]

Anti-slavery societies claim to have 250,000 members.[115]

1839

Slaves revolt on the Spanish ship Amistad; ship winds up in U.S. After a highly publicized Supreme Court case argued by John Quincy Adams, the slaves are freed in March 1841; most return to Africa.[116][117]

Northern abolitionist Reverend Theodore Dwight Weld condemns slavery in American Slavery As It Is. He makes his argument by quoting slave owners' words as used in southern newspaper advertisements and articles.[110]

1840

U.S. slave population in the 1840 United States Census: 2,487,000.[118]

The abolitionist Liberty Party nominates James G. Birney of Kentucky for President.[119]

Arthur Tappan and Lewis Tappan organize the American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society.[120]

1841

The last slave (lifetime indentured servant) in New York is freed.[121]

Slaves being moved from Virginia to Louisiana seize the brig Creole and land in the Bahamas, a British colony that does not allow slavery. The British give asylum to 111 slaves (but not the 19 ringleaders accused of murder). The U.S. government protests and in 1855 the British paid $119,000 to the original owners of the slaves.[122]

1842 In Prigg v. Pennsylvania, the U.S. Supreme Court declares the Pennsylvania personal liberty law unconstitutional as in conflict with federal fugitive slave law. The Court holds that enforcement of the fugitive slave law is the

responsibility of the federal government.[123][124]

1843 Massachusetts and eight other states pass personal liberty laws under which state

officials are forbidden to assist in the capture of fugitive slaves.[116][125][126]

1844

The Methodist Episcopal Church, South breaks away from the Methodist Episcopal Church on the issue of slavery.[125]

Well-known black abolitionist, Charles Lenox Remond, and famous white abolitionist, William Lloyd Garrison, declare they would rather see the union dissolved than keep the Constitution only through the retention of slavery.[125]

1845

Florida, a slave state, is admitted to the United States.[125][127]

The Southern Baptist Convention breaks from the Northern Baptists but does not formally endorse slavery.[125]

Frederick Douglass publishes his first autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Written by Himself. The book details his life as a slave.[125]

Former U.S. Representative and Governor of South Carolina, and future U.S. Senator, James Hammond writes Two Letters on Slavery in the United States, Addressed to Thomas Clarkson, Esq. in which he expresses the view that slavery is a positive good.[101]

Anti-slavery advocates denounce Texas Annexation as evil expansion of slave territory. Whigs defeat an annexation treaty but Congress annexes Texas to the United States as a slave state by a majority vote of both Houses of Congress on a joint resolution without ratification of a treaty by a two-thirds vote in the U.S. Senate.[79][116][125][127][128]

1846 The Walker Tariff reduction leads to a period of free trade until 1860. Republicans (and Pennsylvania Democrats) attack the low level of the tariff rates.[129]

James D.B. DeBow establishes DeBow's Review, the leading Southern magazine, which becomes an ardent advocate of secession. DeBow warns against depending on the North economically.[130][131]

The Mexican–American War begins. The administration of President James K. Polk had deployed the Army to disputed Texas territory and Mexican forces attacked it.[132] Whigs denounce the war. Antislavery critics charge the war is a pretext for gaining more slave territory. The U.S. Army quickly captures New Mexico.[133]

Northern representatives in the U.S. House of Representatives pass the Wilmot Proviso which would prevent slavery in territory captured from Mexico. Southern Senators block passage of the proviso into law in the U. S. Senate. The Wilmot Proviso never becomes law but it does substantially increase friction between the North and South. Congress also rejects a proposal to extend the

Missouri Compromise line to the west coast and other compromise proposals.[125]

[134][135][136][137][138]

Iowa is admitted to the United States as a free state.[135]

1847

The Massachusetts legislature resolves that the "unconstitutional" Mexican–American War was being waged for "the triple object of extending slavery, of strengthening the slave power, and of obtaining control of the free states".[133]

John C. Calhoun asserts that slavery is legal in all of the territories, foreshadowing the U.S. Supreme Court's Dred Scott decision in 1857.[139][140]

Democrat Lewis Cass of Michigan proposes letting the people of a territory vote on whether to permit slavery in the territory. This theory of popular sovereignty would be further endorsed and advocated by Democratic Senator Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois in the mid-1850s.[141][142]

1848 The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo confirms the Texas border with Mexico and U.S. possession of California and the New Mexico territory. The U.S. Senate rejects attempts to attach the Wilmot Proviso during the ratification vote on the treaty.[135][141][143]

Radical New York Democrats and anti-slavery Whigs form the Free-Soil party. The party names former President Martin Van Buren as its presidential candidate and demands enactment of the Wilmot Proviso. The party argues that rich planters will squeeze out small white farmers and buy their land. The Whig Party candidate, General Zachary Taylor, who was born in Virginia, grew up in Kentucky, lived in Louisiana and was the last U.S. President to own slaves, wins the United States Presidential Election of 1848.[135][138] Taylor expresses no view on slavery in the Southwest during campaign. After the election, he reveals a plan to admit California and New Mexico to the Union as free states covering entire Southwest and to exclude slavery from any territories. Taylor warns the South that he will meet rebellion with force. His moderate views on the expansion of slavery and the acceptability of the Wilmot Proviso angered his unsuspecting Southern supporters but did not fully satisfy Northerners who wanted to limit or abolish slavery.[135][141]

Wisconsin, a free state, is admitted to the Union.[135]

Oregon Treaty between the United States and Great Britain ends the Oregon boundary dispute, defines final western segment of Canada–United States border and ends the scare of a U.S.–Great Britain war. Northern Democrats complain the Polk administration backed down on the demand that the northern boundary of Oregon be set at 54° 40' line of latitude and sacrificed Northern expansion while supporting Southern expansion through the Mexican–American War and the treaty ending that war.[135][141]

The Polk administration offers Spain $100 million for Cuba.[144]

Southerners support Narciso Lopez's attempt to cause an uprising in Cuba in favor of American annexation of the island, which allows slavery. Lopez is defeated and flees to the United States. He is tried for violation of neutrality laws

but a New Orleans jury fails to convict him.[145]

1849

The California Gold Rush suddenly populates Northern California with Northern and immigrant settlers who outnumber Southerner settlers. California's constitutional convention unanimously rejects slavery and petitions to join the union as a free state without first being organized as a territory.[135] President Taylor asks Congress to admit California as a free state, saying he will suppress secession if it is attempted by any dissenting states.[141]

Harriet Tubman escapes from slavery. She makes about 20 trips to the South and returns along the Underground Railroad with slaves seeking freedom.[135]

Compromise of 1850 through 1860 election[edit]

1850 U.S. slave population in the 1850 United States Census: 3,204,313.[34][118][146]

March 11: U.S. Senator William H. Seward of New York delivers his "Higher Law" address. He states that a compromise on slavery is wrong because under a higher law than the Constitution, the law of God, all men are free and equal.[147]

April 17: U.S. Senator Henry S. Foote of Mississippi pulls a pistol on an anti-slavery senator on the floor of the U.S. Senate.[148]

President Taylor dies on July 9 and is succeeded by Vice President Millard Fillmore. Although he is a New Yorker, Fillmore is more inclined to compromise with or even support Southern interests.[135]

Henry Clay proposes the Compromise of 1850 to handle California's petition for admission to the union as a free state and Texas's demand for land in New Mexico. Clay proposes (1) admission of California, (2) prohibition of Texas expansion into New Mexico, (3) compensation of $10 million to Texas to finance its public debt, (4) permission to citizens of New Mexico and Utah to vote on whether slavery would be allowed in their territories (popular sovereignty), (5) a ban of the slave trade in the District of Columbia; slavery would still be allowed in the district, and (6) a stronger fugitive slave law with more vigorous enforcement. Under the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, a slave owner could reclaim a runaway slave by establishing ownership before a commissioner rather than in a jury trial. Clay's initial omnibus bill that included all these provisions failed. Senator Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois then established different coalitions that passed each provision separately.[149]

Responses to the Compromise of 1850 varied. Southerners cease movement toward disunion but are angered by Northern resistance to enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Act. Anti-slavery forces are upset about possible expansion of slavery in the Southwest and the stronger fugitive slave law that could require all U.S. citizens to assist in returning fugitive slaves.[150]

The Nashville Convention of nine Southern states discusses states' rights and slavery in June; in November, the convention talks about secession but adjourns due to the passage of the laws that constitute the Compromise of 1850.[151]

Utah is organized as a territory and adopts a slave code. Only 29 slaves are found in the territory in 1860.[152]

In October, a Boston "vigilance committee" frees two fugitive slaves, Ellen and William Craft, from jail and being returned to Georgia.[153]

1851

Southern Unionists in several states defeat secession measures. Mississippi's convention denies the existence of the right to secession.[154]

In February, a crowd of black men in Boston frees fugitive slave Shadrach Minkins, also known as Fred Wilkins, who was being held in the federal courthouse, and help him escape to Canada.[155]

In April, the government guards fugitive slave Thomas Sims with 300 soldiers to prevent local sympathizers from helping him with an escape attempt.[155]

In September 1851, free blacks confront a slave owner, his son and their allies who are trying to capture two fugitive slaves at Christiana, Pennsylvania. In the gunfight that followed, three blacks and the slave owner are killed while his son is seriously wounded.[156]

In October 1851, black and white abolitionists free fugitive slave Jerry McHenry from the Syracuse, New York jail and allow his escape to Canada.[157]

1852

In Lemmon v. New York, a New York court frees eight slaves in transit from Virginia with their owner.[158]

After magazine publication, Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe is published in book form. The powerful novel depicts slave owner "Simon Legree" as deeply evil, and the slave "Uncle Tom" as the Christ-like hero.[159] It sells between 500,000 and 1,000,000 copies in U.S. and even more in Great Britain. Millions of people see the stage adaptation. By June 1852, Southerners move to suppress the book's publication in the South and numerous "refutations" appear in print.[160][161]

April 30: A convention called by the legislature in South Carolina adopts "An Ordinance to Declare the Right of this State to Secede from the Federal Union".[162]

The Whig party and its candidate for President, Army general Winfield Scott, are decisively defeated in the election and the party quickly fades away.[163] Pro-South ("doughface") Democrat Franklin Pierce of New Hampshire is elected President.[164]

1853 Democrats control state governments in all the states which will form the Confederate States of America.[165]

The United States adds a 29,670-square-mile (76,800 km2) region of present-day southern Arizona and southwestern New Mexico to the United States through the Gadsden Purchase of territory from Mexico. The purposes of the Gadsden Purchase are the construction of a transcontinental railroad along a deep southern route and the reconciliation of outstanding border issues following the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which ended the Mexican–American War. Many early

settlers in the region are pro-slavery.[158][166]

Filibusterer William Walker and a few dozen men briefly take over Baja California in an effort to expand slave territory. When they are forced to retreat to California and put on trial for violating neutrality laws, they are acquitted by a jury that deliberated for only eight minutes.[167]

1854 Democratic U.S. Senator Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois proposes the Kansas-Nebraska Bill to open good Midwestern farmland to settlement and to encourage building of a transcontinental railroad with a terminus at Chicago. Whether slavery would be permitted in a territory would be determined by a vote of the people at the time a territory is organized.[168][169][170][171]

Congress enacts the Kansas-Nebraska Act, providing that popular sovereignty, a vote of the people when a territory is organized, will decide "all questions pertaining to slavery" in the Kansas-Nebraska territories. This abrogates the Missouri Compromise prohibition of slavery north of the 36°30´ line of latitude and increases Northerners' fears of a Slave Power encroaching on the North.[171] Both Northerners and Southerners rush to the Kansas and Nebraska territories to express their opinion in the voting. Especially in Kansas, many voters are pro-slavery Missouri residents who enter Kansas simply to vote.[170]

Opponents of slavery and the Kansas-Nebraska Act meet in Ripon, Wisconsin in February, and subsequently meet in other Northern states, to form the Republican Party.[170] The party includes many former members of the Whig and Free Soil parties and some northern Democrats. Republicans win most of the Northern state seats in the U.S. House of Representatives in the fall 1854 elections as 66 of 91 Northern state Democrats are defeated. Abraham Lincoln emerges as a Republican leader in the West (Illinois).[158][169]

Eli Thayer forms the New England Emigrant Aid Society to encourage settlement of Kansas by persons opposed to slavery.[158]

Bitter fighting breaks out in Kansas Territory as pro-slavery men win a majority of seats in the legislature, expel anti-slavery legislators and adopt the pro-slavery Lecompton Constitution for the proposed state of Kansas.[170][171]

The Ostend Manifesto, a dispatch sent from France by the U.S. ministers to Britain, France and Spain after a meeting in Ostend, Belgium, describes the rationale for the United States to purchase Cuba (a territory which had slavery) from Spain and implies the U.S. should declare war if Spain refuses to sell the island. Four months after the dispatch is drafted, it is published in full at the request of the U.S. House of Representatives. Northern states view the document as a Southern attempt to extend slavery. European nations consider it as a threat to Spain and to Imperial power. The U.S. government never acts upon the recommendations in the Ostend Manifesto.[172]

Anthony Burns , a fugitive slave from Virginia, is arrested by federal agents in Boston. Radical abolitionists attack the court house and kill a deputy marshal in an unsuccessful attempt to free Burns.[158][173]

Abolitionist editor Sherman Booth was arrested for violating the Fugitive Slave Act when he helped incite a mob to rescue an escaped slave, Joshua Glover, in

Wisconsin from U.S. Marshal Stephen V. R. Ableman.[174]

The Knights of the Golden Circle, a fraternal organization that wants to expand slavery to Mexico, Central America, the Caribbean Islands, including Cuba, and northern South America, is founded in Louisville, Kentucky.[175]

Former Mississippi Governor John A. Quitman begins to raise money and volunteers to invade Cuba, but is slow to act and cancels the invasion plan in spring 1855 when President Pierce says he would enforce the neutrality laws.[176]

The Know-Nothing Party or American Party, which includes many nativist former Whigs, sweeps state and local elections in parts of some Northern states. The party demands ethnic purification, opposes Catholics (because of the presumed power of the Pope over them), and opposes corruption in local politics. The party soon fades away.[158][169]

George Fitzhugh's pro-slavery Sociology for the South is published.[177]

1855

Violence by pro-slavery looters from Missouri known as Border Ruffians and anti-slavery groups known as Jayhawkers breaks out in "Bleeding Kansas" as pro-slavery and anti-slavery supporters try to organize the territory as slave or free. Many Ruffians vote illegally in Kansas. Estimates will show that the violence in Kansas resulted in about 200 persons killed and $2 million worth of property destroyed during the middle and late 1850s. Over 95 percent of the pro-slavery votes in the election of a Kansas territorial legislature in 1855 were later determined to be fraudulent.[178]

Anti-slavery Kansans draft an anti-slavery constitution, the Topeka Constitution, and elect a new legislature, which actually represent the majority of legal voters. Meanwhile, the initial fraudulently elected but legal Kansas legislature still exists.[179]

1856 May 21: Missouri Ruffians and local pro-slavery men sack and burn the anti-slavery town of Lawrence, Kansas.[180]

John Brown , an abolitionist born in Connecticut, and his sons kill five pro-slavery men from Pottawatomie Creek in retaliation for the Sacking of Lawrence.[181]

May 22: Congressman Preston Brooks of South Carolina beats with a cane and incapacitates Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts on the floor of the U.S. Senate. In a speech in the Senate chamber, The Crime Against Kansas, Sumner ridicules slaveowners—especially Brooks's cousin, U.S. Senator Andrew Butler of South Carolina—as in love with a prostitute (slavery) and raping the virgin Kansas. Brooks is a hero in the South, Sumner a martyr in the North.[182]

In the 1856 U.S. presidential election Republican John C. Frémont crusades against slavery. The Republican slogan is "Free speech, free press, free soil, free men, Frémont and victory!" Democrats counter that Fremont's election could lead to civil war. The Democratic Party candidate, James Buchanan, who carries five northern and western states and all the southern states except Maryland, wins.[183]

Thomas Prentice Kettell , a New York Democrat, writes Southern Wealth and Northern Profits, a lengthy statistical pamphlet about the economies of the Northern and Southern regions of the country. The book receives wide acclaim among secessionists in the South and much derision from anti-slavery politicians in the North, even though some historians think Kettell intended it as an argument that the two regions are economically dependent upon each other.[184]

Filibusterer William Walker, in alliance with local rebels, overthrows the government of Nicaragua and proclaims himself president. He decrees the reintroduction of slavery. Many of Walker's men succumb to cholera and he and his remaining men have to be rescued by the U.S. Navy in May 1857.[185]

1857

George Fitzhugh publishes Cannibals All! Or Slaves Without Masters, which defends chattel slavery and ridicules free labor as wage slavery.[186]

Commercial conventions in the South call for the reopening of the African slave trade, thinking that a ready access to inexpensive slaves would spread slavery to the territories.[187]

Hinton Rowan Helper , a North Carolinian, publishes The Impending Crisis of the South, which argues that slavery was the main cause of the South's economic stagnation. This charge angers many Southerners.[188][189]

The U.S. Supreme Court reaches the Dred Scott v. Sandford decision, a 7 to 2 ruling that Congress lacks the power to exclude slavery from the territories, that slaves are property and have no rights as citizens and that slaves are not made free by living in free territory. Chief Justice Roger B. Taney concludes that the Missouri Compromise is unconstitutional. If a court majority clearly agreed (which it did not in this decision), this conclusion would allow all territories to be open to slavery. Scott and his family were purchased and freed by a supporter's children. Northerners vowed to oppose the decision as in violation of a "higher law". Antagonism between the sections of the country increases.[190]

Anti-slavery supporters in Kansas ignore a June election to a constitutional convention because less populous pro-slavery counties were given a majority of delegates. The convention adopts the pro-slavery Lecompton Constitution. Meanwhile, anti-slavery representatives win control of the state legislature.[191][192]

In August, a short economic depression, the Panic of 1857, arises, mainly in large northern cities, as a result of speculation in and inflated values of railroad stocks and real estate. Southerners tout the small effect in their section as support for their economic and labor system.[192][193]

Buchanan endorses the Lecompton constitution and breaks with Douglas, who regards the document as a mockery of popular sovereignty because its referendum provision does not offer a true free state option. A bitter feud begins inside the Democratic party. Douglas's opposition to the Lecompton constitution erodes his support from pro-slavery factions.[194]

The Tariff of 1857, authored primarily by R. M. T. Hunter of Virginia, uses the Walker Tariff as a base and lowers rates.[195]

1858 February: A fistfight among thirty Congressmen divided along sectional lines takes place on the floor of Congress during an all-night debate on the Lecompton constitution.[196]

The U.S. House of Representatives rejects the pro-slavery Lecompton constitution for Kansas on April 1.[196]

Congress passes the English Bill, proposed by Representative William Hayden English of Indiana, which sends the Lecompton constitution back to the voters of Kansas.[197][198]

Pro-slavery Missourians capture 11 free-state men in Kansas on May 19, then attempt to execute them in the Marais des Cygnes Massacre. Five killed, five wounded.[199]

On August 2, Kansas voters reject the pro-slavery Lecompton constitution.[193][196]

The New School Presbyterians split as the New Schoolers in the South who supported slavery split and formed the United Synod of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America. In 1861 the Old School church split along North-South lines.[200]

Lincoln gives his "House Divided" speech on June 16, 1858.[201]

The Lincoln-Douglas Debates of 1858 focus on issues and arguments that will dominate the Presidential election campaign of 1860. Pro-Douglas candidates win a small majority in the Illinois legislature in the general election and choose Douglas as U.S. Senator from Illinois for another term. However, Lincoln emerges as a nationally known moderate spokesman for Republicans and a moderate opponent of slavery.[202]

In a debate with Lincoln at Freeport, Illinois, Douglas expresses an opinion which becomes known as the "Freeport Doctrine". Lincoln asks whether the people of a territory could lawfully exclude slavery before the territory became a state. In effect, this question asks Douglas to reconcile popular sovereignty with the Dred Scott decision. Douglas says they could do so by refusing to pass the type of police regulations needed to sustain slavery. This answer further alienates pro-slavery advocates from Douglas.[203]

"Cotton is King!" proclaims Senator James Henry Hammond of South Carolina: "No, you dare not make war on cotton. No power on earth dares to make war upon it. Cotton is King; until lately the Bank of England was king; but she tried to put her screws, as usual...on the cotton crop, and was utterly vanquished", which seemingly means that even Europe was dependent on the cotton economy of the Southern states and would have to intervene in any U.S. conflict, even an internal threat, to protect its source of vital raw material, King Cotton.[204]

William Lowndes Yancey and Edmund Ruffin found the League of United Southerners. They advocate reopening the African slave trade and formation of a Southern confederacy.[205]

U.S. Senator William H. Seward says there is an "irrepressible conflict" between slavery and freedom.[206]

Although solid evidence of their guilt is presented, the crew of the illegal slave ship, The Wanderer, are acquitted of engaging in the African slave trade by a Savannah, Georgia jury. Similarly, a Charleston, South Carolina jury acquits the crew of The Echo, another illegal slave ship which is caught with 320 Africans

on board.[193]

The free state of Minnesota is admitted to the Union.[193]

1859

Southerners block an increase in the low tariff rates of 1857.[207]

In February, U.S. Senator Albert G. Brown of Mississippi says that if a territory requires a slave code in line with Douglas's Freeport Doctrine, the federal government must pass a slave code to protect slavery in the territories. If it does not, Brown says he will urge Mississippi to secede from the union.[194]

Oregon admitted as a free state that prohibits the residency of any person of African origin: slave or free.[208]

In Ableman v. Booth, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the 1850 Fugitive Slave Law was constitutional and that state courts cannot overrule federal court decisions.[209]

President Buchanan and Southern members of Congress, including Senator John Slidell of Louisiana, make another attempt to buy Cuba from Spain. Douglas supports the proposed annexation of Cuba. Republicans block funding.[210]

Southern senators block a homestead act that would have given settlers in the West each 160 acres of land.[210]

The Southern Commercial Convention endorses reopening the African slave trade to reduce the price of slaves and widen slaveholding. Many members think this would lessen feelings that the slave trade was immoral and provide an incentive or tool for Southern nationalism.[211]

On October 4, Kansas voters adopt the anti-slavery Wyandotte Constitution by a 2 to 1 margin.[211]

On October 16, Kansas abolitionist John Brown attempts to spark a slave rebellion in Virginia through seizure of weapons from the federal armory at Harpers Ferry.[211][212] Brown holds the arsenal for 36 hours. No slaves join him and no rebellion ensues but seventeen persons, including 10 of Brown's men, are killed. Brown and his remaining men are captured by U.S. Marines led by Army Lieutenant Colonel Robert E. Lee.[212] Brown is tried for treason to the state of Virginia, found guilty and hanged on December 2 in Charles Town, Virginia (now Charlestown, West Virginia).[212][213] Brown becomes a martyr to the North, but alarms the South as an example of a fanatical Yankee abolitionist trying to start a bloody race war.[211] Secession sentiment grows in the South in response to Northern sympathy for Brown.[189][214][215][216]

New Mexico territory adopts a slave code, but no slaves are in the territory according to the 1860 census.[217]

Members of the Congress which convenes in December insult, level charges at, threaten, and denounce each other. Members come to the sessions armed. The House of Representatives requires eight weeks to choose a Speaker. This delays consideration of vitally important business.[218][219]

1860 U.S. slave population in the 1860 United States Census: 3,954,174.[37][38][39]

The United States Census of 1860 concludes the U.S. population is 31,443,321,

which is an increase of 35.4 percent over the 23,191,875 persons enumerated during the 1850 Census.[38]

The 1860 Census shows 26 percent of all Northerners but only 10 percent of Southerners live in towns or cities.[38] The census also shows that 80 percent of the Southern workforce but only 40 percent of the Northern workforce works in agriculture.[220]

Southern opposition kills the Pacific Railway Bill of 1860. President Buchanan vetoes a homestead act.[221]

February 27: Lincoln gives his Cooper Union speech against the spread of slavery.[222]

Also in February, U.S. Senator Jefferson Davis of Mississippi presents a resolution stating the Southern position on slavery, including adoption of a Federal slave code for the territories.[189][223]

Knights of the Golden Circle reach maximum popularity and plan to invade Mexico to expand slave territory.[144]

April 23 – May 3: The Democratic Party convention begins in Charleston, South Carolina. Southern radicals, or "fire-eaters", oppose front runner Stephen A. Douglas's bid for the party's Presidential nomination. The Democrats begin splitting North and South as many Southern delegates walk out.[223] Douglas can not secure the two-thirds of the vote needed for the nomination. After 57 ballots, the convention adjourns to meet in Baltimore six weeks later.[189][223][224]

May 9: Former Whigs from the border states form the Constitutional Union Party and nominate former U.S. Senator John C. Bell of Tennessee for President and Edward Everett of Massachusetts for Vice President on a one-issue platform of national unity.[189][225]

William H. Seward of New York, Salmon P. Chase of Ohio, and Simon Cameron of Pennsylvania are leading contenders for the Republican presidential nomination, along with more moderate Abraham Lincoln of Illinois, when the Republican convention convenes in Chicago on May 16. Lincoln supporters from Illinois skillfully gain commitments for Lincoln. On May 18, Lincoln wins the Republican Party nomination for President.[223] The Republicans adopt a concrete, precise, and moderately worded platform which includes the exclusion of slavery from the territories but the affirmation of the right of states to order and control their own "domestic institutions".[189][223][226]

June 18: The main group of Democrats meeting in Baltimore, bolstered by some new Douglas Democrat delegates from Southern states who were seated to the exclusion of the Southern delegates from the previous session of the convention, nominate Douglas for President.[222][223]

June 28: Southern Democrats nominate Vice President John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky for President. Their platform endorses a national slave code.[222][227]

Honduran militia stop another filibuster effort by William Walker. They capture and execute him before a firing squad on September 12, 1860.[228]