(1854-1861)
Slavery continued throughout the 1850's with no hope for a peaceful solution to the problem. Civil War was on its way by the end of the decade due to Abraham Lincoln's attitude to stopping the expansion of slavery. Kansas Territories were full of violence fighting between proslavery and antislavery factions. To further the conflict, the Compromise of 1820 which imposed a solution to the slavery problem, was invalidated by the Dred Scott decision.

1.)Harriet Beecher Stowe publishes Uncle Tom's Cabin to open the eyes of the North to the horror of slavery. The novel had a huge political force and an enormous emotional impact on the nation.
2.)Kansas Nebraska Act of 1854 created new territories where the settlers decided whether or not to allow slavery in the name of "popular sovereignty. This act was a major step closer to the Civil War.
3.) "Bleeding Kansas" was a sequence of events including anti-slavery and pro-slavery conflicts in the Kansas-Nebraska Territory that attempted to influence  Kansas to enter the Union as a free or slae state.
4.)The Dred Scott decision was used as evidence by anti-slavery leaders in the North that Southeners wanted to extend slavery throughout the nation and rule the nation itself. But, Southerners approved the decision believing Congress had no right to prohibit slavery in the territories. The decision widened the political and social gap between the North and the South.
5.)During the Panic of 1857 over 5,000 businesses failed within a year, unemployment was accompanied by protest meetings, and the economies sudden downturn, though brief, was enough to shake the the public's confidence.

...6-10 to be continued..

Curt's right, this chapter does have a lot to do with what caused the Civil War and what led up to it, and a big factor was slavery, even though it wasn't out right stated that way. Lincoln did not want to say he was fighting a war to free the slaves because then he would lose the slave states that made up part of the Union.  But slavery was indeed a huge part in the war because Lincoln even states that Harriet Beecher Stowe was the little lady whoes book caused the big war.

6.)The Tariff of 1857 was a major tax reduction in the U.S. that caused a low point for tariffs. Robert Hunter of Virginia wanted to disperse the federal budget surplus through tax cuts in the mid 1850s. Southerners who supported the free state position also supported the tariff.
7.)The Lincoln-Douglas debates were a series of formal political debates between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas in a campaign for one of Illinois' two United States Senate seats. Douglas believed in popular sovereignty and was responsible for the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, while Lincoln believed that the U.S. could not survive as half-slave and half-free states. Lincoln may have lost this first election but it led to his election as President later on.
8.)In 1859 John Brown led a raid on the federal army at Harper's Ferry, killing 7 people, and wounding several others. His intentions were to arm slaves with weapons, but his attack failed and he was executed for his actions. Brown was an abolitionist who did not believe in peaceful resistance against the pro-slavery faction but instead saw violence as the only solution to the problem.
9.)After winning the four-way race for presidency in 1860, Abraham Lincoln was the first Republican to occupy the White House, but his presidency was overshadowed by the civil war. Weeks after the election and before Lincoln's inauguration, seven statesseceded from the Union and established themselves as the Confederate States of America.
10.) The Crittenden Compromise was an unsuccessful effort to avert the Civil War. It accepted the boundary between free and slave states that had been set by the Missouri Compromise, extended the line to California, and assured that slavery would continue where it already existed. In 1861 the Compromise failed in the House of Representatives, and show how inevitable the Civil War really was.

kathryn wrote:

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Harriet Beecher Stowe's book didn't only create a huge political force, but it made an uproar.  People all over the world were reading this book and finding sympathy for the african american slave.   This sparked more abolition in the north and eventually was the book "that started the war".

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"So you're the little woman who wrote the book that made this great great war!" - Abe Lincoln upon meeting H.B. Stowe

I know I'm adding even less than usual, but this quote is so appropriate right here - and so good!

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Why do you think Uncle Tom's Cabin made such a huge impact when it came out?  What actually happened at Bleeding Kansas?

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