Existing comment:
1854 -- Kansas-Nebraska Act. Congress attempts to settle the sectional balance through "popular sovereignty" -- permitting the residents of Kansas and Nebraska to determine their status as slave or free states. This leads to bloody conflict between antislavery and proslavery forces.
1854 -- Republican Party Created. The Whig Party disintegrates, severing the thread that bound white North and South. The Republican Party is established to oppose the further spread of slavery.
1854 -- Travel restrictions from Harpers Ferry. "No colored person, free or slave, will be permitted to pass on the B&O R.R. unless some good and respectable white person vouches for them..."
1856 -- Republicans run for President. John C. Fremont is defeated in the first presidential stand-off between Republicans and Democrats.
1856 -- Negro restrictions in Charles Town. "No more than five negroes shall at any time stand together on a sidewalk ... and negroes shall never stand on a sidewalk to the inconvenience of white persons having to passby..." |