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