Major Topics

From 1854 through much of 1857, the territory of Kansas was ripped apart by a sporadic guerrilla war that pitted free soiler settlers against pro-slavery "ruffians" as each vied to see who might control the political and economic future of the region.

The assault against Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts by South Carolina congressman Preston Brooks in May 1856 shocked most northerners and thrilled many southerners. However, this violent episode in the heart of the U.S. Capitol illustrated to nearly everyone that the sectional conflict was becoming far more than a battle of words. (By Matthew Pinsker)

Senator Henry Clay's so-called "omnibus" proposal in late January 1850 to find a national accommodation over a variety of sectional issues plaguing the nation ultimately did lead to a compromise of sorts in September of that year. The compromise failed to settle any major arguments but did allow for a series of legislative agreements, including the admission of California as a free state and the passage of a tougher federal fugitive slave law that temporarily quieted the national debate over slavery. (By Matthew Pinsker)

Chartered in September 1783, Dickinson College was originally a Presbyterian school that re-opened in 1834 under Methodist auspices. The following decades saw the institution produce and influence hundreds of young men who spread all across the American continent and into the halls of government. Little more than twenty miles above the Mason-Dixon Line, the college was also one of the few antebellum American institutions that remained about evenly divided in its membership between northerners and southerners. (By Matthew Pinsker)

Dred and Harriet Scott both filed freedom suits in St. Louis Circuit Court in 1846. Eleven years later, Chief Justice Roger Taney and the U.S. Supreme Court issued a verdict in the federal case of Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857) that threw away decades of precedent and political custom and helped spiral the nation closer toward civil war. (By Matthew Pinsker)