Dashed left edge = started before May 1854 ·
Dashed right edge = ongoing beyond May 1854
Events in May 1854 1
1854Kansas-Nebraska Act signedUS law allows popular sovereignty on slaveryPresident Franklin Pierce signed the Kansas-Nebraska Act, letting settlers in the new territories decide by popular vote whether to permit slavery. The act repealed the Missouri Compromise line and intensified sectional conflict that led toward the American Civil War.