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The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 was a strict federal law passed as part of the broader Compromise of 1850 that required citizens in free states to assist in the capture of escaped slaves -
Bleeding Kansas was a violent pre-Civil War struggle between pro-slavery and anti-slavery settlers in the Kansas Territory from approximately 1854 to 1859. -
it repealed the Missouri Compromise and allowed residents of the new Kansas and Nebraska territories to decide on the issue of slavery through "popular sovereignty". -
The Dred Scott v. Sandford case was a landmark 1857 Supreme Court decision that ruled African Americans were not U.S. citizens, therefore they could not sue in federal court. The ruling also declared the Missouri Compromise unconstitutional. -
The Lincoln-Douglas debates were a series of seven debates in Illinois between August 21 and October 15, 1858, primarily focused on the expansion of slavery into western territories -
when the abolitionist John Brown led a small group to seize the federal arsenal in Harpers Ferry, Virginia. His plan was to arm enslaved people to start a rebellion, but the raid was quickly stopped by local militias and U.S. Marines -
The split within the Democratic Party resulted in multiple candidates, but Lincoln, representing the Republican Party, won a majority of the Electoral College votes despite receiving only 40% of the popular vote.