Timeline of events leading to the American Civil War

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Events leading to the American Civil War
Dred Scott, an enslaved African-American, who unsuccessfully sued for his freedom. The resulting 1857 Supreme Court decision angered Northern anti-slavery forces, escalated tensions, and led to secession and war.
General info
Important events and people

This timeline of events leading to the American Civil War is a chronologically ordered list of events and issues that historians recognize as origins and causes of the American Civil War. These events are roughly divided into two periods: the first encompasses the gradual build-up over many decades of the numerous social, economic, and political issues that ultimately contributed to the war's outbreak, and the second encompasses the five-month span following the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States in 1860 and culminating in the capture of Fort Sumter in April 1861.

Scholars have identified many different causes for the war. Among the most polarizing of the underlying issues from which the proximate causes developed was whether the institution of

was widespread in the Thirteen Colonies at the time of the American Declaration of Independence in 1776. During and after the American Revolution, events and statements by politicians and others brought forth differences, tensions and divisions between citizens of the slave states of the Southern United States and citizens of the free states of the Northern United States (including several newly admitted Western states) over the topics of slavery. In the many decades between the Revolutionary War and the Civil War, such divisions became increasingly irreconcilable and contentious.[1]

Events in the 1850s culminated with the election of the anti-slavery

Republican Abraham Lincoln as president on November 6, 1860. This provoked the first round of state secession as leaders of the cotton states of the Deep South were unwilling to remain in what they perceived as a second-class political status, with their way of life now threatened by the President himself. Initially, seven states seceded: Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina and Texas. After the Confederates attacked and captured Fort Sumter, President Lincoln called for volunteers to march south and suppress the rebellion. This pushed four other states in the Upper South (Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee and Arkansas) also to secede, completing the incorporation of the Confederate States of America
by July 1861. Their contributions of territory and soldiers to the Confederacy ensured, in retrospect, that the war would be prolonged and bloody.

Colonial period, 1607–1775

1619
1640
1652
1654
1671
  • About 2,000 of the 40,000 inhabitants of
    colonial Virginia are imported slaves. White indentured servants working for five years before their release are three times as numerous and provide much of the hard labor.[11]
1712
1719
  • Non-slaveholding farmers in Virginia persuade the Virginia General Assembly to discuss a prohibition of slavery or a ban on importing slaves. In response, the assembly raises the tariff on slaves to five pounds, which about equals the full price of an indenture, so as not to make importation of slaves as initially attractive or preferable to a mere indenture for a term of years.[13]
1739
1741
1774

American Revolution and Confederation period, 1776–1787

1776
  • The United States Declaration of Independence declares "that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." Slavery remains legal in the new nation.[2] A clause condemning slavery is included in the Declaration but is removed at the insistence of South Carolina and Georgia.[19]
1777
  • The
    Republic of Vermont, an independent state at the time, prohibits slavery in its constitution.[20][21]
1778
1779
  • John Laurens attempts to convince the Continental Congress to allow slaves to join the Continental Army in return for freedom. The Congress gives him permission to do this, but opposition from the South Carolina legislature prevents it.
1780
1782
  • Virginia liberalizes its very strict law preventing manumission; under the new law, a master may emancipate slaves in his will or by deed.[23]
1783
  • The New Hampshire Constitution says children will be born free, but some slavery persists until the 1840s.[28]
1784
  • Rhode Island and Connecticut pass laws providing for gradual emancipation of slaves.[29]
  • The Continental Congress rejects by one vote Jefferson's proposal to prohibit slavery in all territories, including areas that become the states of Alabama, Kentucky, Mississippi and Tennessee.[30]
1786
  • George Washington writes: "There is not a man living who wishes more sincerely than I do, to see a plan adopted for the abolition of it [slavery]."[31] Civil War era historian William Blake says these "sentiments were confined to a few liberal and enlightened men."[23]
1787
  • July 13: Under the
    fugitive slaves captured in the territory to their owners. The law no longer applies as soon as the territories become states. In the following years, anti-slavery Northerners cite the ordinance many times as precedent for the limitation, if not the abolition, of slavery in the United States. Despite the terms of the ordinance, Southern-born settlers try and fail to pass laws to allow slavery in Indiana and Illinois.[32]

Early Constitutional period, 1787–1811

1787
  • The
    Three-Fifths Compromise, which increases legislative representation in the House of Representatives and Electoral College by counting each slave as three-fifths of a person (Article I, Section 2). Additionally, the passage of any law that would prohibit the importation of slaves is forbidden for 20 years (Article I, Section 9) and the return of slaves who escape to free states is required (Article IV, Section 2).[2][24][33]
1789
  • August 7: Congress re-adopts the Northwest Ordinance under the Constitution.[34][35]
1790
  • The total U.S. slave population according to the
    1790 United States Census is 697,681.[36][37][38] The number will grow to nearly 4 million by 1860, 3.5 million of whom live in the seceding Southern states.[39][40][41]
1791
1792
  • Kentucky drafts a constitution permitting slavery and is admitted to the Union.[21]
1793
  • Congress passes the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793, based on Article IV Section 2 of the Constitution and guaranteeing a slaveholder's right to recover an escaped slave.[24][43]
  • Eli Whitney, Jr. invents the cotton gin, making possible the profitable large-scale production of short-staple cotton in the South. The demand for slave labor increases with the resulting increase in cotton production.[44]
1794
  • In the Slave Trade Act of 1794 Congress prohibits ships from engaging in the international slave trade.[45] By 1794, every existing state has banned the international slave trade (though South Carolina reopens it in 1803).[46]
1796
1798
  • The legislatures of Kentucky and Virginia pass the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions, which are anonymously written by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. Most other states reject the Resolutions, which claim that the states can negate federal laws that go beyond the federal government's limited powers. In the second Kentucky resolution of November 1799, the Kentucky legislature says the remedy for an unconstitutional act is "nullification".[47][48][49]
1799
  • New York enacts a law that gradually abolishes slavery. It declares children of slaves born after July 4, 1799, to be legally free, but the children have to serve an extended period of indentured servitude: to the age of 28 for males and to 25 for females. Slaves born before that date were redefined as indentured servants but essentially continued as slaves for life.[50]
  • George Washington dies on December 14, 1799. His will frees the 124 slaves that he owns outright upon the death of his wife, Martha. They are freed by Martha in 1801, about 18 months before her death.[51] Richard Allen, a black minister, calls on the nation's white leaders to follow Washington's lead.[52][53]
1800
  • The U.S. slave population according to the
    1800 United States Census is 893,605 (as corrected by late additions from Maryland and Tennessee).[54][55]
  • The
    Gabriel Prosser, a literate blacksmith slave. He plans to seize the Richmond, Virginia armory, then take control of the city, which would lead to freedom for himself and other slaves in the area. The plot is discovered before it can be carried out; Gabriel, along with 26 to 40 others, is executed.[56]
1803
  • The United States purchases the Louisiana Territory from France. Slavery already exists in the territory and efforts to restrict it fail; the new lands thereby permit a great expansion of slave plantations.[57]
  • Ohio is admitted to the Union as a free state. Three hundred Blacks live there and the legislature tries to keep others out.[58]
1804
  • New Jersey enacts a law that provides for the gradual abolition of slavery. All states north of the Mason–Dixon line (the boundary between Maryland and Pennsylvania) have now abolished or provided for the gradual abolition of slavery within their boundaries.[59]
  • The American Convention of Abolition Societies meets without any societies from Southern states in attendance.[60]
  • 1804 Haiti Massacre. As a result of these events, white supremacist sentiment was bolstered in the Antebellum South
    .
1805
  • January: Slaves overpower and whip their overseer and assistants at Chatham Manor, near Fredericksburg, Virginia, in protest of shortened holidays. An armed posse of white men quickly gathers to capture the slaves, killing one slave in the attack. Two others die trying to escape and the posse deports two more, likely to slavery in the Caribbean.[61]
1806
  • Virginia repeals much of the 1782 law that had permitted more liberal emancipation of slaves, making emancipation much more difficult and expensive. Also, a statute permits a widow to revoke a manumission provision in her husband's will within one year of his death.[62]
1807
  • With the expiration of the 20-year ban on Congressional action on the subject, President Thomas Jefferson, a lifelong enemy of the slave trade[citation needed], calls on Congress to criminalize the international slave trade, calling it "violations of human rights which have been so long continued on the unoffending inhabitants of Africa, and which the morality, the reputation, and the best interests of our country have long been eager to proscribe".[63] At Jefferson's urging, Congress outlaws the international slave trade in an Act Prohibiting Importation of Slaves, whereby importing or exporting slaves becomes a federal crime, effective January 1, 1808; in 1820 it is made the crime of piracy. Previously about 14,000 new foreign-born slaves had arrived in the U.S. each year. This number is dramatically reduced following the new law, but illegal smuggling continues to bring in about 1,000 new slaves per year.[63] During the debates, Congressman John Randolph of Roanoke warns that outlawing the slave trade might become the "pretext of universal emancipation" and further warns that it would "blow up the constitution". If ever there should be disunion, he prophesies, the line would be drawn between the states that did and those that did not hold slaves.[64]
1810
  • The U.S. slave population according to the
    Upper South from less than one percent before the American Revolution to 10 percent by 1810. Three-quarters of all blacks in Delaware are free.[67]
1811
  • Slave
    a slave uprising in the Louisiana territory. Two white people are killed before the uprising is crushed.[68]

1812–1849

1812
1814
  • The Hartford Convention, featuring 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 adopt the states' rights concept for their own purposes.[70]
1816
1817
1818
  • Illinois is admitted to the Union as a free state.[75]
  • The Missouri Territory 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 ensue.[76]
1819
  • Alabama is admitted to the Union as a slave state.[77]
  • Missouri again petitions for admission to the Union.[78]
  • 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 would also free all children of slave parents in Missouri when they reached the age of 25. Representative Thomas W. Cobb of Georgia threatens disunion if Tallmadge persists in attempting to have his amendment enacted.[79] The measure passes in the House of Representatives but is defeated in the Senate.[80][81]
  • Southern Senators delay a bill to admit Maine as a free state in response to the delay of Missouri's admission as a slave state.[79]
1820
1821
  • August 10: Missouri is admitted to the Union as a slave state. Its legislature soon passes a law excluding free blacks and mulattoes from the state in violation of a Congressional condition to its admission.[79]
1822
  • The Vesey Plot causes fear among whites in South Carolina, who are convinced that Denmark Vesey and other slaves are planning a violent slave uprising in the Charleston area. The plot is discovered and Vesey and 34 of his presumed followers are seized and hanged.[87]
1824
1826
  • New Jersey, later followed by Pennsylvania, passes the first personal liberty laws, which require a judicial hearing before an alleged fugitive slave can be removed from the state.[89]
  • Thomas Cooper of South Carolina publishes On the Constitution, an early essay in favor of states' rights.[90]
1827
  • The process of gradual emancipation is completed in New York state and the last indentured servant is freed.[91]
1828
1829
  • Boston, publishes Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World, calling on slaves to revolt and destroy slavery.[94]
1830
1831
  • Abolitionist
    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.[97]
  • August: Nat Turner leads a slave revolt in Southampton County, Virginia. 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 is captured several months later, after which he and 12 of his followers are executed. Turner's actions outrage Southerners and some suspect abolitionists supported him. They prepare for further uprisings.[98]
  • Southern defenders of slavery start describing it as a "positive good", not just a "necessary evil".[99][100]
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.[101][102]
  • James Hamilton, Jr., arguing that the Constitution only raises the federal government to the level of the state, not above it. He argues that nullification is not secession and does not require secession to take effect.[102]
  • 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.[103]
  • November 19: 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.[89][101][104]
  • President
    Nullification Crisis.[101] 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.[101][104]
1833
  • The
    Nullification Crisis by lowering some tariff rates. No other states support South Carolina's argument and position and, after Clay's compromise legislation passes, South Carolina withdraws its resolution.[89]
  • The abolitionist American Anti-Slavery Society is founded in Philadelphia. The movement soon splits into five factions[85] that do not always agree but which continue to advocate abolition in their own ways.[89][105][106]
  • 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.[89]
1834
  • Anti-slavery "debates" are held at
    Theodore Weld with financial help from abolitionist merchants and philanthropists Arthur Tappan and Lewis Tappan.[107]
1835
  • A Georgia law prescribes the death penalty for publication of material with the intention of provoking a slave rebellion.[108]
1836
  • May 26: The U.S. House of Representatives passes the Pinckney Resolutions. 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."[109][110] 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, threatens constitutional rights.[89][108][111]
  • The Republic of Texas declares and wins its independence from Mexico in the Texas Revolution.[110][112][113]
  • Arkansas is admitted to the Union as a slave state.[112]
  • Committed abolitionists
    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.[114]
  • Democratic Party nominee Martin Van Buren, a New Yorker with Southern sympathies, wins the 1836 presidential election.[111]
  • St. Louis, Missouri, on April 28, 1836. In a speech in January 1838, Abraham Lincoln called McIntosh's lynching "revolting to humanity".[115]
1837
1838
1839
1840
1841
  • The last lifetime indentured servant in New York is freed.[125]
  • William Henry Harrison dies in office after 31 days of becoming president, and his VP, John Tyler, takes over.[126]
  • Slaves being moved from Virginia to Louisiana seize the brig
    Bahamas, which as a British colony had already abolished slavery. The British give asylum to 111 slaves (giving the 19 ringleaders accused of murder their freedom once the case is decided in court). The U.S. government protests and in 1855 the British paid $119,000 to the original owners of the slaves.[127]
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.[128][129]
1843
  • Massachusetts and eight other states pass personal liberty laws under which state officials are forbidden to assist in the capture of fugitive slaves.[130]
1844
1845
  • Florida is admitted to the Union as a slave state.[133]
  • The Southern Baptist Convention breaks from the Northern Baptists but does not formally endorse slavery.[131]
  • 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.[134]
  • Former U.S. Representative and Governor of South Carolina and future U.S. Senator
    James Henry 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.[103]
  • 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.[135]
  • Texas is admitted to the Union as a slave state.[136]
1846
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".[140]
  • 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.[143][144]
  • 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.[145]
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.[146][147]
  • Radical New York Democrats and anti-slavery Whigs form the
    Election of 1848. 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 the 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.[148]
  • Wisconsin is admitted to the Union as a free state.[149]
  • The
    demand that the northern boundary of Oregon be set at 54°40' latitude and sacrificed Northern expansion while supporting Southern expansion through the Mexican–American War and the treaty ending that war.[146]
  • The Polk administration offers Spain $100 million for Cuba.[150]
  • Southerners support Narciso López's attempt to cause an uprising in Cuba in favor of American annexation of the island, which allows slavery. López 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.[151]
1849
  • The
    California Gold Rush quickly populates Northern California with Northern-born and immigrant settlers who outnumber Southern-born 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. President Zachary Taylor asks Congress to admit California as a free state, saying he will suppress secession if it is attempted by any dissenting states.[152]
  • Harriet Tubman escapes from slavery. She makes about 20 trips to the South and returns along the Underground Railroad with slaves seeking freedom.[153]

Compromise of 1850 to the Election of 1860

1850
  • The U.S. slave population according to the
    1850 United States Census is 3,204,313.[36][82][154]
  • 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.[155]
  • April 17: U.S. Senator Henry S. Foote of Mississippi pulls a pistol on anti-slavery Senator Benton on the floor of the Senate.[156]
  • 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.[142]
  • 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.[157]
  • 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.[157]
  • 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.[158]
  • The Utah Territory is organized and adopts a slave code. Only 29 enslaved black Americans are found in the territory in 1860[159] although several hundred Native Americans were enslaved in the territory as well.[160]
  • October: The Boston Vigilance Committee frees two fugitive slaves, Ellen and William Craft, from jail and prevents them from being returned to Georgia.[161]
1851
  • Southern Unionists in several states defeat secession measures. Mississippi's convention denies the existence of the right to secession.[159]
  • 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 helps him escape to Canada.[161]
  • April: The federal government guards fugitive slave Thomas Sims with 300 soldiers to prevent local sympathizers from helping him with an escape attempt.[161]
  • September: Free blacks confront a slave owner, his son and their official posse who are trying to capture two fugitive slaves near Christiana, Pennsylvania. In the fight that follows, the slave owner is killed while his son is seriously wounded.[162] The subsequent trial for treason of one of the white onlookers also stoked passions.
  • October: Black and white abolitionists free fugitive slave Jerry McHenry from the Syracuse, New York jail and aid his escape to Canada.[161]
1852
  • In Lemmon v. New York, a New York court frees eight slaves in transit from Virginia with their owner.[163]
  • In the Act in Relation to Service, the Utah Territory legalizes slavery in March 1852.[164]
  • 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.[165] 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.[166][167]
  • 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".[168]
  • The
    election and the party quickly fades away.[169] Pro-South ("doughface") Democrat Franklin Pierce of New Hampshire is elected president.[170]
1853
  • Democrats control state governments in all the states which will form the Confederate States of America.[171]
  • 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.[163][172]
  • 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.[173]
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.[174][175][176][177]
  • 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.[177] 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.[176]
  • Opponents of slavery and the Kansas–Nebraska Act meet in
    Republican Party.[176] 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).[163][175]
  • New England Emigrant Aid Society to encourage settlement of Kansas by persons opposed to slavery.[163]
  • 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.[176][177]
  • 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.[150]
  • Anthony Burns, a fugitive slave from Virginia, is arrested by federal agents in Boston. Radical abolitionists attack the courthouse and kill a deputy marshal in an unsuccessful attempt to free Burns.[163][178]
  • 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.[179]
  • The
    Caribbean Islands, including Cuba, and northern South America, is founded in Louisville, Kentucky.[150]
  • 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.[180]
  • 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.[163][175]
  • George Fitzhugh's pro-slavery Sociology for the South is published.[181]
1855
1856
  • May 21: Missouri Ruffians and local pro-slavery men sack and burn the town of Lawrence, Kansas, an anti-slavery stronghold.[185]
  • Pottawatomie Creek in retaliation for the sacking of Lawrence.[186]
  • 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.[187]
  • In the 1856 U.S.
    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.[188]
  • 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.[189]
  • Filibuster 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 are rescued by the U.S. Navy in May 1857.[190]
1857
  • chattel slavery and ridicules free labor as wage slavery.[191]
  • 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.[192]
  • 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.[193][194]
  • 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.[195]
  • 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.[196][197]
  • August: 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.[197][198]
  • 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.[199]
  • The
    R. M. T. Hunter of Virginia, uses the Walker Tariff as a base and lowers rates.[200]
1858
  • Minnesota is admitted to the Union as a free state.[198]
  • 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.[201]
  • The U.S. House of Representatives rejects the pro-slavery Lecompton constitution for Kansas on April 1.[201]
  • Congress passes the English Bill, proposed by Representative William Hayden English of Indiana, which sends the Lecompton constitution back to the voters of Kansas.[183][202]
  • May 19: Pro-slavery Missourians capture 11 free-staters in Kansas, then attempt to execute them in the
    Marais des Cygnes Massacre. Five are killed and five wounded.[203]
  • June 16: Lincoln gives his "House Divided" speech.[204]
  • August 2: Kansas voters reject the pro-slavery Lecompton Constitution.[198][201]
  • The
    New School Presbyterians split as the New Schoolers in the South who support slavery split and form the United Synod of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America. In 1861, the Old School church splits along North–South lines.[205]
  • 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.[206]
  • 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.[207]
  • Senator
    James Henry Hammond of South Carolina proclaims: "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 argues that even Europe is 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 vital source of raw material, King Cotton.[208]
  • William Lowndes Yancey and Edmund Ruffin found the League of United Southerners. They advocate reopening the African slave trade and the formation of a Southern confederacy.[209]
  • U.S. Senator William H. Seward says there is an "irrepressible conflict" between slavery and freedom.[210]
  • Although solid evidence of their guilt is presented, the crew of the illegal slave ship
    The Wanderer is 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.[198]
1859
1860

Election of 1860 to the Battle of Fort Sumter

1860
1861

Further secessions and divisions

Additional events related to secession and initiation of the war follow; most other events after April 15 are not listed.

Several small skirmishes and battles as well as bloody riots in St. Louis and Baltimore took place in the early months of the war. The

Battle of First Bull Run
or Battle of First Manassas, the first major battle of the war, occurred on July 21, 1861. After that, it became clear that there could be no compromise between the Union and the seceding states and that a long and bloody war could not be avoided. All hope of a settlement short of a catastrophic war was lost.

1861
  • April 15–16: Kentucky and North Carolina immediately refuse to provide troops in response to Lincoln's call. Tension and anger increase in the border states of Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina. North Carolina troops seize
    Fort Caswell and Fort Johnston. On April 16, Virginia refuses to provide militia to suppress the rebellion.[366] On April 17, Missouri and Tennessee also refuse to meet the President's request for volunteers.[359]
  • April 16, Virginia's convention goes into secret session with militia officers present, Virginia legislators led by confederate war hawk Henry A. Wise vote at the night of April 16 to send troops to Harper's Ferry to loot federal military property. This was done without the knowledge of Virginia governor Letcher, who demanded an official notification of the convention voting for the motion, though Wise had already used his connections then to ship Virginian militia to Harper's Ferry by railroad in April 17.[367]
  • April 17, 19, May 7, 23: On April 17, a Virginia Convention votes for secession and provides for a referendum on May 23, although the secession issue was already effectively decided by the convention and subsequent state actions.[359][368] Strong pro-Union sentiment remains in the western counties of the state.[257][366] On April 19, the Virginia General Assembly passes an ordinance of session, schedules a vote for May 23.[347][369][370][371] On May 7, before the vote of the people, Virginia joins the Confederacy and Virginia troops become Confederate troops.[372] They occupy Arlington Heights, Virginia and the Custis-Lee plantation home of Robert E. Lee.[373] On May 23, Virginia citizens approve secession.[374] In western Virginia, which would become West Virginia in 1863, the vote was overwhelmingly against secession.[257][375]
  • April 18: Five companies of Pennsylvania volunteers arrive in Washington, becoming the first troops to respond to President Lincoln's call for volunteers.[365]
  • April 18–19: Federal troops are only partially successful in destroying the armory and arsenal at
    Harpers Ferry, Virginia, which, along with valuable machinery, are seized by Virginian Militia as the Federals flee.[365]
  • April 19, 27: President Lincoln declares a
    6th Massachusetts Militia, pass through on their way to Washington, D.C.[370][377][378] On April 27, Lincoln adds Virginia and North Carolina ports to the blockade.[379]
  • April 20: Federal forces abandon and attempt to destroy the
    Gosport Navy Yard near Norfolk, Virginia as well as five vessels with no crews present but Virginian state militia save much equipment, material, artillery, and parts of four ships, including USS Merrimack, as the Federals flee.[377][380]
  • April 25: The 7th New York Volunteer Infantry Regiment arrives in Washington, D.C.[379]
  • April 29: The Maryland House of Delegates votes against secession 53 to 13.[379][381][382]
  • May 1, 6, 16: On May 1, the Tennessee legislature authorizes the governor to appoint commissioners to enter an alliance with the Confederacy.[383] On May 6, the Tennessee legislature votes for secession and to submit the question to a vote on June 8.[375][384] Before the vote is even taken, on May 16, Tennessee is admitted to the Confederacy.[385]
  • May 1, 17, 20: The North Carolina legislature votes in favor of a state convention to consider the issue of secession.[372] North Carolina is admitted to the Confederacy on May 17, even before May 20 when the North Carolina convention votes for secession.[368][374][386] The North Carolina delegates decide not to submit the question to a vote of the people.[257][387]
  • May 6: The Confederate Congress recognizes that a state of war exists between the Confederate States of America and the United States of America.[388]
  • May 6, 18: The Arkansas legislature votes to secede. On May 18, Arkansas is admitted to the Confederacy.[389]
  • May 13: Queen Victoria announces Britain's position.
    belligerents but not as a nation.[386][390]
  • May 16, 20, September 3, 11, November 18: On May 16, a Kentucky legislative committee recommends the state remain neutral.[374][385] On May 20, Governor Beriah Magoffin of Kentucky declares Kentucky to be neutral and forbids both movement of troops of either side on its soil and hostile demonstrations by Kentucky citizens.[391] Kentucky effectively sides with the Union in September. On September 11, the Kentucky legislature called for Confederate troops, which had entered the state on September 3,[392] to leave but did not ask that Union forces leave. Rather they asked the Union forces to drive out the Confederates.[393] On November 18, Confederate Army soldiers in Kentucky adopt an ordinance of secession and create a Confederate government for the divided state. Officially, Kentucky remains in the Union and a majority support and fight for the Union.[394]
  • June 8: Tennessee votes for secession by 69% yes, 31% no; a majority in eastern Tennessee vote for Union.[395]

See also

References

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  18. ^ James M. McPherson, Ordeal By Fire: The Civil War and Reconstruction (1982), p. 38 gives the year as 1775.
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  216. ^ a b c Eicher, 2001, p. 45.
  217. ^ Bowman, 1982, pp. 39–40.
  218. ^ Klein, 1997, p. 58.
  219. ^ Hansen, 1961, pp. 25–27.
  220. ^ McPherson, 1982, pp. 115–117.
  221. ^ Klein, 1997, p. 60.
  222. ^ McPherson, 1982, pp. 112–113.
  223. ^ Wagner, 2009, p. 74.
  224. ^ a b c d e f Bowman, 1982, p. 40
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  226. ^ McPherson, 1982, pp. 117–118.
  227. ^ Hansen, 1961, p. 32.
  228. ^ McPherson, 1982, pp. 119–120.
  229. ^ McPherson, 1982, p. 120.
  230. ^ McPherson, 1982, p. 75.
  231. ^ Reynolds, Donald E. (November 1, 1995). "Texas Troubles". Texas State Historical Association.
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  233. ^ a b c Wagner, 2009, p. 3.
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  235. ^ McPherson, 1982, p. 125.
  236. ^ Hansen, 1961, p. 38
  237. ^ Long, 1971, pp. 3–4
  238. ^ Potter, 2011 (1976), p. 490.
  239. ^ Long, 1971, pp. 4–5.
  240. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Eicher, 2001, p. 46.
  241. ^ Wagner incorrectly shows the date as December 10.
  242. ^ a b Long, 1971, p. 5.
  243. ^ a b c d e Potter, 2011 (1976), p. 491.
  244. ^ Long, 1971, pp. 5–6.
  245. ^ Klein, 1997, p. 114.
  246. ^ a b Long, 1971, p. 6.
  247. ^ Long, 1971, p. 7
  248. ^ Long, 1971, p. 8
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  250. ^ a b c d e f g h Bowman, 1982, p. 41
  251. ^ a b Bowman, 1982, pp. 41–42.
  252. ^ Long, 1971, pp. 9, 16–17, 23.
  253. ^ Long, 1971, p. 9.
  254. ^ Long, 1971, p. 10.
  255. ^ Long, 1971, p. 11.
  256. ^ Long, 1971, pp. 12–13
  257. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Hansen, 1961, p. 34.
  258. ^ Hansen, 1961, p. 10.
  259. ^ Eicher, 2001, pp. 34–35.
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  261. ^ a b Long, 1971, p. 27.
  262. ^ McPherson, 1982, p. 135.
  263. ^ a b c d e f g h Bowman, 1982, p. 43.
  264. ^ Long, 1971, p. 13.
  265. ^ Long, 1971, p. 18.
  266. ^ Long, 1971, pp. 14–15.
  267. ^ Long, 1971, pp. 15–16.
  268. ^ a b c d e f g h Eicher, 2001, p. 35.
  269. ^ a b c d e f Wagner, 2009, p. 4
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  272. ^ Klein, 1997, p. 107.
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  274. ^ Klein, 1997, p. 169
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  276. ^ Long, 1971, p. 45.
  277. ^ a b Long, 1971, p. 47
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  279. ^ a b c d e f Long, 1971, p. 51.
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  283. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Wagner, 2009, p. 67
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  286. ^ a b c d e f g h i Bowman, 1982, p. 42
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  293. ^ Long, 1971, pp. 23–24.
  294. ^ Long, 1971, p. 24.
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  297. ^ a b c Bowman, 1982, p. 46.
  298. ^ William H. Brantley, "Alabama Secedes," Alabama Review 7 (July 1954): 1 65-85.
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  300. ^ E. Merton Coulter, Georgia: a short history (1960), ch. 23.
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  302. ^ Willie Malvin Caskey, Secession and restoration of Louisiana (1970) ch 2
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  328. ^ Hansen, 1961, p. 94.
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  330. ^ a b c d e f Wagner, 2009, p. 68.
  331. ^ McPherson, 1982, p. 154.
  332. ^ Long, 1971, p. 133.
  333. ^ Bowman's figures actually show the difference as only 194 votes.
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  335. ^ David Donald, Lincoln (1995), pp. 282–84.
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  341. ^ Long, 1971, pp. 52–53.
  342. ^ Hansen, 1961, p. 52.
  343. ^ a b c d Long, 1971, p. 50
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  346. ^ Thomas E. Schott, "Cornerstone Speech," in The Confederacy edited by Richard N. Current (1993), pp. 298–299.
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  349. ^ a b c d e Long, 1971, p. 54.
  350. ^ a b c d e f g Bowman, 1982, p. 50.
  351. ^ a b c d e Long, 1971, p. 55.
  352. ^ Hansen, 1961, p. 42.
  353. ^ Long, 1971, pp. 55–56.
  354. ^ Eicher, 2001, p. 37.
  355. ^ Long, 1971, p. 57.
  356. ^ Long, 1971, p. 58.
  357. ^ a b Hansen, 1961, p. 46.
  358. ^ Eicher, 2001, p. 38.
  359. ^ a b c d e f Bowman, 1982, p. 51.
  360. ^ a b c Eicher, 2001, p. 41.
  361. ^ Long, 1971, pp. 56–59.
  362. ^ McPherson, 1982, p. 145.
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  364. ^ Long, 1971, p. 59.
  365. ^ a b c d Eicher, 2001, p. 53.
  366. ^ a b Long, 1971, p. 60.
  367. .
  368. ^ a b McPherson, 1982, p. 150.
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  370. ^ a b Long, 1971, p. 62.
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  372. ^ a b Long, 1971, p. 70.
  373. ^ Hansen, 1961, p. 69.
  374. ^ a b c d Bowman, 1982, p. 55.
  375. ^ a b Long, 1971, p. 77.
  376. ^ Long, 1971, p. 61.
  377. ^ a b Bowman, 1982, p. 52.
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  379. ^ a b c Bowman, 1982, p. 53.
  380. ^ Eicher, 2001, pp. 54–55.
  381. ^ Long, 1971, p. 67.
  382. ^ Hansen, 1961, p. 34 gives date as April 27.
  383. ^ Long, 1971, p. 68.
  384. ^ Bowman, 1982, p. 54.
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  386. ^ a b Wagner, 2009, p. 8.
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  388. ^ Stephen C. Neff, Justice in blue and gray: a legal history of the Civil War (2010), p. 29.
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