Acts and Laws
This territory was gained as a result of the Mexican-American war and the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo.
What is Texas?
This decision declared Missouri a slave state and Maine a free state.
What is the Missouri Compromise/Compromise of 1820?
This act allowed slaveowners to retrieve slaves who escaped to the North to be free.
What is the Fugitive Slave Act?
Although it may not be considered Western territory, the U.S. continued to grow when they acquired this territory from Spain.
What is Florida?
This movement was the result of the Indian Removal Act of 1830, causing the deaths of thousands of Native Americans. [PIC]
What is the Trail of Tears?
When Missouri was made into a state, it was carved out from this larger territory, acquired in 1803 by Thomas Jefferson. [PIC]
What is the Louisiana Purchase?
This famous Abolitionist wrote "What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?" and was a collaborator of Abraham Lincoln. [PIC]
Who was Frederick Douglass?
This Supreme Court decision about a former slave who moved states decided that states should be able to determine slave laws, not the U.S. government. [PIC]
What is the Dredd Scott v. Sanford decision?
The act established popular sovereignty in the United States, replacing the example set by the Missouri Compromise.
This was a 1854 territory in the Southwest acquired in order to expand the Transcontinental Railroad.
What is the Gadsden Purchase?
This white abolitionist led a rebellion in Harper's Ferry West Virginia against slavery. [PIC]
Who was John Brown?
This decision decided that Abraham Lincoln would become the President of the United States.
What is the Election of 1860?
The Missouri Compromise of 1820 was undone when the U.S. switched to this new way of deciding slavery based on popular vote.
What is popular sovreignty?
This territory known for the Gold Rush was added as a result of the Compromise of 1850.
What is California?
This is the name of the American slave who believed he was chosen by God, and he led a revolt in Virginia in 1831.
Who is Nat Turner?
This was the nickname given to the event where voters from out of state would move into the Kansas-Nebraska area to disturb the vote on slavery.
What is Bleeding Kansas?
This 'horrible' act taxed Southern States for all imported manufactured goods, triggering outrage in the South.
This unsuccessful act would have made Texas a free state and outlaw any additional Western territories from allowing slavery after the Mexican-American War.
What is the Wilmot Proviso?
This popular novel written by Harriet Beecher Stowe allowed Americans to read about the conditions of slavery in text in all parts of the United States.
What is Uncle Tom's Cabin?
As a result of the Tariff of Abominations, South Carolina decided it would stop acknowledging the laws of the federal government, causing this event.
What is the Nullification Crisis?