| 1853 | Gadsden Purchase |
| 1854 | Kansas-Nebraska Act Republican Party formed |
| 1856 | Violence in Kansas Senator Sumner attacked in the Senate |
| 1858 | Lincoln-Douglas Debates |
| 1859 | John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry |
| 1860 | Democratic Party splits apart Abraham Lincoln elected 16th President of the United States Lower South secedes |
| 1861 | Confederate States of America formed Civil War begins at Fort Sumter Upper South secedes North is defeated at the first battle of Bull Run |
| 1862 | Battle of Antietam Morill Tariff, Homestead Act Emancipation Proclamation issued (effective January 1, 1863) |
| 1864 | Grant's wilderness campaign Sherman takes Atlanta Sherman's "March to the Sea" |
| 1865 | Sherman takes South and North Carolina Lee surrenders at Appomattox Court House Thirteenth Amendment abolishes slavery Lincoln assassinated Andrew Johnson becomes President KKK formed |
| 1867 | First Reconstruction Act launches Radical Reconstruction Alaska purchased |
| 1868 | Fourteenth Amendment guarantees Civil Rights Johnson impeached |
| 1870 | Fifteenth Amendment forbids denial of vote on racial grounds |
| 1870s | Terrorism against blacks in South, flourishing of Darwinism and ideas of racial inferiority |
