In 1846, the enslaved Dred Scott and his wife Harriet sued for their freedom on the basis that they had been taken by their enslaver to the free territory of Wisconsin where they had lived at Fort Snelling and then brought back to a slave state. What appeared at first to be an easy case for the Scotts to win turned into a pivitol pre-Civil War case as the Supreme Court ruled that not only were enslaved people not citizens of the United States, Congress had no authority to ban slavery in a federal territory. Further dividing a nation for which slavery had become one of the most important political question of the day.

Issued by President Lincoln in the midst of the Civil War, this proclamation freed all slaves in states engaged in open rebellion against the United States. Notably, the proclamation did not free slaves in states that did not side with the Confederacy.

A resource guide from the Library of Congress on African American Women Authors from the Civil War era

A Library of Congress guide to primary source documents related to the Emancipation Proclamation

A Library of Congress guide to finding and accessing articles related to the Emancipation Proclamation in the Chronicling America digital newspaper archive

A Library of Congress guide to finding resources on John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry in the Chronicling America digital newspaper archive

A Library of Congress guide to resources on Harriet Tubman

The Library of Congress' guide to using the Chronicling America digital newspaper archive to find articles related to Harriet Tubman

A Library of Congress guide to resources on the U.S. Civil War