Sectional Conflict Intensifies

Section 1: Slavery and Western Expansion

The Search for Compromise

The Wilmot Proviso

Popular Sovereignty

The Free-Soil Party Emerges

The Forty-Niners Head to California

The Great Debate Begins


Clay’s Proposal

Calhoun’s Response

The Fugitive Slave Act

The Compromise of 1850

Northern Resistance Grows

The Underground Railroad

Uncle Tom’s Cabin

The Kansas-Nebraska Act

Debating the Route of the Transcontinental Railroad

Repealing the Missouri Compromise

“Bleeding Kansas”

The Caning of Charles Sumner

Section 2: The Crisis Deepens

The Birth of the Republican Party

Republicans Organize

The Know-Nothings

The Election of 1856


The Dred Scott Decision

The Emergence of Abraham Lincoln

Kansas’s Constitution

Lincoln and Douglas

John Brown’s Raid

Section 3: The Union Dissolves

The Election of 1860

The Democrats Split

Lincoln Is Elected

Secession Begins

Founding the Confederacy

The Civil War Begins


Fort Sumter Falls

The Upper South Secedes

Hanging On to the Border States