Key Events and Figures in the Slavery Debate

Compromise of 1850

agreement designed to ease tensions caused by the expansion of slavery into western territories

Fugitive Slave Act

part of the Compromise of 1850, law ordering citizens to return all escaped slaves to their former masters

Popular sovereignty

policy of letting the people in a territory decide whether slavery would be allowed there

Wilmot Proviso

Amendment to a 1846 bill stating that slavery would not be permitted in any of the territory acquired from Mexico, never became law, showed Northerners willingness to keep slavery out of the territories

Secessionist

person who wanted the South to secede from the North

Millard Fillmore

13th President who approved of the Compromise of 1850

Underground Railroad

secret network of people who hid fugitive slaves who went north to freedom

Harriet Tubman

famous 'conductor' on the Underground Railroad

Harriet Beecher Stowe

Author of anti-slavery novel Uncle Tom's Cabin

Kansas-Nebraska Act

1854 law that called for the creation of these two new territories, and stated that the citizens in each territory should decide whether slavery would be allowed there

Franklin Pierce

14th President

Stephen A. Douglas

Senator from Illinois who worked to pass the Compromise of 1850

Nativism

policy of favoring native born Americans over immigrants

Know-Nothing Party

Political Party formed to stop the influence of immigrants

Free-Soil Party

Political Party formed in 1848 to oppose extending slavery in the territories

Republican Party

Political Party formed in 1854 to oppose the spread of slavery to the territories