Winter. Margaret Garner, a woman escaping from slavery with her children, reaches Cincinnati, Ohio, and is about to be recaptured when she tries to kill her children rather than have them live as slaves. She kills her daughter, but her sons are only injured. Abolitionists seek to have her tried in Ohio so as to prevent her return to slavery, but with the provisions of the Fugitive Slave Law she is returned to Kentucky. The incident later becomes the basis for Toni Morrison's novel Beloved. (Read an 1891 account of the incident compiled from abolitionist sources.)
19-20 May. After delivering his anti-slavery speech "The Crime Against Kansas" and attacking Senator Andrew Pickens Butler of South Carolina by name, Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner is attacked and beaten with a cane by Preston S. Brooks, Butler's nephew, two days later on the floor of the Senate.
21 May. After the burning of the Free State Hotel and the looting of Lawrence, Kansas by pro-slavery forces, abolitionist John Brown kills 5 pro-slavery men at Pottawotamie Creek on May 24, executing them with broadswords. Kansas becomes known as "Bleeding Kansas" because of clashes between pro- and anti-slavery forces.
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