Civil War
Brandon Davis
Kansas Nebraska Act
Created the territories of Kansas and Nebraska, opening new lands for settlement, and had the effect of repealing the Missouri Compromise of 1820.The act was designed by Democratic Senator Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois.The popular sovereignty clause of the law led pro- and anti-slavery elements to flood into Kansas with the goal of voting slavery up or down,
Emancipation proclamation
A presidential proclamation and executive order issued by President Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863. it changed the federal legal status of more than 3 million enslaved persons in the designated areas of the South from "slave" to "free". The Proclamation did not compensate the owners, did not outlaw slavery, and did not grant citizenship to the ex-slaves. It made the eradication of Slavery an explicit war goal, in addition to the goal of reuniting the Union.
Gettysburg
Dred Scott Case
A landmark decision by the U.S. Supreme court in which the Court held that African Americans, whether enslaved or free, could not be American citizens and therefore had no standing to sue in federal court, and that the federal government had no power to regulate slavery in the federal territories acquired after the creation of the United States.