TIMELINE

1844

  • James Polk elected president

1845

  • Texas admitted into Union

1846

  • United States declares war on Mexico

  • Treaty with Britain divides Oregon Country

  • Wilmot Proviso approved by House but not by Senate

1847

  • American troops capture Mexico City

1848

  • Gold found in California

  • Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo transfers Mexican lands to United States

  • Free-Soil Party forms

1850

  • President Taylor dies

  • Millard Fillmore assumes presidency

  • Compromise of 1850 preserves Union

  • Northern abolitionists reject Fugitive Slave Act

1851

  • American (Know-Nothing) Party forms

1852

  • Harriet Beecher Stowe publishes Uncle Tom’s Cabin

1854

  • Ostend Manifesto urges seizure of Cuba

  • Kansas-Nebraska Act tests policy of popular sovereignty

  • Republican Party forms

1856

  • Turmoil in Kansas undermines popular sovereignty

  • James Buchanan elected president

1857

  • Dred Scott v. Sandford allows slavery in U.S. territories

1858

  • President Buchanan urges Congress to admit Kansas under the proslavery Lecompton constitution and seeks to buy and annex Cuba as a slave state

  • Abraham Lincoln debates Stephen Douglas for U.S. Senate seat

1859

  • John Brown raids federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry

1860

  • Abraham Lincoln elected president in four-way contest