Station #1: Fugitive Slave Act- part of the Compromise of 1850The Fugitive Slave Law or Fugitive Slave Act was passed by the United States Congress on September 18, 1850, as part of the Compromise of 1850 between Southern slave-holding interests and Northern Free-Soilers.

This was one of the most controversial elements of the 1850 compromise and heightened Northern fears of a "slave power conspiracy". It required that all escaped slaves were, upon capture, to be returned to their masters and that officials and citizens of free states had to cooperate in this law. Abolitionists nicknamed it the "Bloodhound Law" for the dogs that were used to track down runaway slaves

The law stated that any federal marshal who did not arrest an alleged runaway slave could be fined $1,000. People suspected of being a runaway slave could be arrested without warrant and turned over to a claimant on nothing more than his sworn testimony of ownership. A suspected black slave could not ask for a jury trial nor testify on his or her behalf.

Any person aiding a runaway slave by providing shelter, food or any other form of assistance was liable to six months' imprisonment and a $1,000 fine. Those officers capturing a fugitive slave were entitled to a fee and this encouraged some officers to kidnap free Negroes and sell them to slave-owners. They received $10 for a returned slave, $5 if freed.

Station #2: THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD

The Underground Railroad was a network of secret routes and safe houses used by 19th-century enslaved people of African descent in the United States in efforts to escape to free states and Canada with the aid of abolitionists and allies who were sympathetic to their cause. It was formed in the early 19th century, and reached its height between 1850 and 1860. One estimate suggests that by 1850, 100,000 slaves had escaped via the "Railroad".[5] Harriet Tubman was a runaway slave from Maryland who became known as the "Moses of her people." Over the course of 10 years, and at great personal risk, she led hundreds of slaves to freedom along the Underground Railroad, a secret network of safe houses where runaway slaves could stay on their journey north to freedom.

STATION #3: UNCLE TOM’S CABINUncle Tom's Cabin is an anti-slavery novel by American author Harriet Beecher Stowe. Stowe, a Connecticut-born teacher and an active abolitionist, featured the character of Uncle Tom, a long-suffering black slave around whom the stories of other characters revolve. The sentimental novel depicts the reality of slavery while also asserting that Christian love can overcome something as destructive as enslavement of fellow human beings.[4][5][6]

Uncle Tom's Cabin was the best-selling novel of the 19th century and the second best-selling book of that century, following the Bible

Excerpts:

"I told you, Cousin, that you'd find out that these creatures can't be brought up without severity. If I had my way, now, I'd send that child out, and have her thoroughly whipped; I'd have her whipped till she couldn't stand!" - Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom's Cabin

"Here, you rascal, you make believe to be so pious,--didn't you never hear, out of your Bible, 'Servants, obey yer masters'? An't I yer master? Didn't I pay down twelve hundred dollars, cash, for all there is inside yer old cussed black shell? An't yer mine, now, body and soul?" - Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom's Cabin,

“Is this the little woman who made the great war?”–

-(allegedly) President Abraham Lincoln, when meeting Harriet Beecher Stowe

Station #4: The Kansas Nebraska Act

Illinois Senator Stephen Douglas wanted to create territories in Kansas and Nebraska to encourage settlers to move there and make possible a transcontinental railroad that would start in Chicago.

The Kansas Nebraska Act, passed in 1854, included the

concept of POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY to decide the slavery question in the territories. This meant the inhabitants of each territory would decide whether it would be a free or slave state (not Congress).

Territory which had been closed to slavery for 34 years, since the MISSOURI COMPROMISE, was opened up again.

"(Popular sovereignty) will triumph & impart peace to the country & stability to the Union."- Stephen Douglas

Station 5: Bleeding Kansas

Following the Kansas Nebraska Act, pro-slavery and anti-slavery settlers poured into the Kansas Territory, each side hoping to decide the question of slavery via popular sovereignty.

“Border Ruffians” or “bushwackers”- proslavery settlers from Missouri

“Jayhawkers”- armed anti-slavery settlers from New England

There had been several attacks during this time, primarily of proslavery against Free State men. People were tarred and feathered, kidnapped, killed. But now the violence escalated. On May 21, 1856, a group of proslavery men entered Lawrence, where they burned the Free State Hotel, destroyed two printing presses, and ransacked homes and stores.

In retaliation, the fiery abolitionist John Brown led a group of men on an attack at Pottawatomie Creek. The group, which included four of Brown's sons, dragged five proslavery men from their homes and hacked them to death.

Violence also erupted in Congress itself. The abolitionist senator Charles Sumner delivered a fiery speech called "The Crime Against Kansas," in which he accused proslavery senators, particularly Andrew Butler of South Carolina, of [cavorting with the] "harlot, Slavery." In retaliation, Butler's nephew, Congressman Preston Brooks, attacked Sumner at his Senate desk and beat him senseless with a cane. Brooks continued to beat Sumner until he broke his cane. Several other senators attempted to help Sumner, but were blocked by Rep. Laurence Keitt, who was holding a pistol and shouting "Let them be!" Sumner was beaten severely and did not return to his Senate desk for three years as a result of his injuries to the head and neck area; he became regarded as an antislavery martyr.

Station #6: Abraham Lincoln and the creation of the Republican Party Abraham Lincoln, from a speech in Peoria, IL, Oct. 1854

I think, and shall try to show, that (the Kansas Nebraska Act) is wrong; wrong in its direct effect, letting slavery into Kansas and Nebraska---and wrong in its prospective principle …When southern people tell us they are no more responsible for the origin of slavery, than we; I acknowledge the fact.… I surely will not blame them for not doing what I should not know how to do myself. If all earthly power were given me, I should not know what to do, as to the existing institution (of slavery)

My first impulse would be to free all the slaves, and send them to Liberia,---to their own native land. But a moment's reflection would convince me, that whatever of high hope, (as I think there is) there may be in this, in the long run, its sudden execution is impossible…What then? Free them all, and keep them among us as underlings? Is it quite certain that this betters their condition? I think I would not hold one in slavery, at any rate; yet the point is not clear enough for me to denounce people upon. What next? Free them, and make them politically and socially, our equals? My own feelings will not admit of this; and if mine would, we well know that those of the great mass of white people will not. … We can not, then, make them equals. It does seem to me that systems of gradual emancipation might be adopted; but for their tardiness in this, I will not undertake to judge our brethren of the south.

Station 7: The Dred Scott Case

Station 8: John Brown’s raid on Harper’s Ferry (1859)

John Brown attempted to start a slave rebellion in 1859 by raiding the arsenal (weapons storage) at Harper’s Ferry. It failed, and he was sentenced to hang.

Station 9: the election of 1860