Federal arsenal in Virginia seized by abolitionist John Brown in 1859 in an attempt to show the ills of slavery and start a revolution. 

Overall abolitionists in the Northern States were largely unpopular and thought to be radicals in spite of the ‘peculiar institution’ known as slavery. 

 A widely read novel that dramatized the horrors of slavery. It heightened northern support for abolition and escalated the sectional conflict.

Southern nationalists characterized by unapologetic defenses of the South and slavery.

This treaty allowed for the United States to gain territory from Texas to Oregon in exchange for $18.25 million in cash and assumed debts.

First major battle of the Civil War and a victory for the South.

Thomas Paine’s anticlerical treatise that accused churches of seeking to acquire “power and profit” and to “enslave mankind.”

Admitted California as a free state, opened New Mexico and Utah to popular sovereignty, ended the slave trade (but not slavery itself) in Washington, D.C., and introduced a more stringent fugitive slave law.

 Failed constitutional amendments that would have given federal protection for slavery in all territories south of 36°30ʹ where slavery was supported by popular sovereignty. 

” Our slaves are hired for life and well compensated…..”, said……. as he addressed the Senate.