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A few weeks following the election, the conversation of secession filled the air. Senators who began feeling alarmed organized a committee to search for yet another compromise. On December 20, 1860, was when the Senate committee held its first meeting. When a reporter in Springfield, Illinois called on President-Elect Abraham Lincoln, and was asked whether he could support a compromise on slavery, Lincoln replied with a very clean and clear response. He would not interfere with slavery in the south. Also, he would support enforcement on the Fugitive Slave Act.
In short, in response to this question, he said "Let there be no compromise". In February of 1861, states joined together as the Confederate States of America.

Source: http://www.ushistory.org/us/32e.asp

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14.Abraham Lincoln is Elected as President

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14.Abraham Lincoln is Elected as President

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During the 1860 Presidential race, the Republicans were behind Lincoln while the Democrats were divided between Northerner and Southerner factions. Lincoln's competitions in this race were John C. Breckinridge of Tennessee and Stephan Douglas. The election became confusing because a group called the Constitutional Union Party nominated Breckinridge. Lincoln won the election with just 40% of the votes and all of them cast in the north. In ten of the southern states, he wasn't even on the ballot.

Source: http://civilwar.gratzpa.org/2011/03/election-of-1860-a-further-look-at-the-totals-by-counties/

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The spread of slavery went through politics causing Lincoln to fight in order to stop the spread. However, abolitionist John Brown took a more intense approach. Instead of waiting for Congress to act, Brown planned to snatch the federal arsenal [a place where weapons and ammunition are stored] at Harpers Ferry, Virginia. The reason behind Brown wanting to seize the weapons was to arm slaves for a rebellion that would potentially end slavery. In 1859, Brown launched his raid and it was bizarre. On the day of Brown's hanging, he left a note which wrote "I John Brown am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but with Blood." These words left and filled Southerners with fear but also uneasy because many Northerners viewed Brown as a hero.

Source: https://www.missedinhistory.com/podcasts/john-browns-raid-on-harpers-ferry.htm

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In the Senate race, Lincoln's opponent was Senator Stephan Douglas. There is no reason why the nation should go half slave and half free thought the Illinois senator. After Douglas, shared is opinion, Lincoln challenged him to debate the slavery issue and Douglas agreed to it. During the debates, Douglas argued that the Dred-Scott Decision has put slavery at rest. Of course, Lincoln disagreed. At the end of the long election, Lincoln lost, however the debates were highly reported in order to help him become a national figure. Yes the elections brought attention to the two men, but they also brought sharp focus to the moral issue of slavery. Compromises over slavery were becoming impossible because of the debates.

Source: http://www.cambridgeblog.org/2012/09/the-real-legacy-of-the-lincoln-douglas-debates/

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Slavery controversy altered from Congress to the Supreme Court in 1857. Years earlier the Court decided a case concerning Dred Scott, a Missouri slave, Scott traveled with his owner to Wisconsin, a state where slavery was banned due to the Missouri Compromise. Scott ended up returning to court in Missouri and winning his freedom. On the sixth of March in 1857, Chief Justice Taney delivered the Dred-Scott Decision. After Scott won his freedom, there were two Judicial bombshells. The first being that Scott could not had sued for his freedom because with a vote of five to four in Court, he was not a citizen. The second and last being that the Court rejected Scott's argument when he claimed that Wisconsin has made him a free man. Their reasoning was fairly simple as well. The Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional.

Source: https://learninglab.si.edu/collections/the-dred-scott-case/EEUmknPdMTAuCuy6

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Senator Charles Sumner was disturbed greatly due to all of the violence happening in Kansas. To Sumner, he had longly suspected that Senator Stephan Douglas had plotted with Southerners in order to make Kansas a slave state. Sumner made his voice become heard in a vehement speech titled "The Crime Against Kansas" In the speech, he uses harsh language and calls out Senator Douglas, as well. Even after this speech, however, the things Sumner wanted to accomplish still weren't crystal clear. Two days after the speech, South Carolina representative, Preston Brooks, physically attacked Sumner at the Senate. This included beaten him with a metal-tipped cane until it broke. Most Southerners viewed this beating as yet another example of Southern brutality.

Source: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/tempers-ran-so-hot-congress-one-senator-was-nearly-beaten-death-180962111/

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Many peaceful farmers looking for good farmland poured into Kansas after the Kansas-Nebraska Act was passed in 1854. However, some settlers moved up to the state to either support or oppose slavery. The argument about slavery became to violent, however. For example, armed invaders burned a hotel, looted several homes, and more of the antislavery government in Lawrence, Kansas. John Brown, a fiery abolitionist, was planning his own revenge on all of this. In Pottawatomie, Kansas, Brown and others dragged five men they felt suspicious about supporting slavery from their homes and hacked them to death with swords.

Source: http://www.sonofthesouth.net/leefoundation/civil-war/1863/september/quantrills-lawrence-kansas-raid.htm

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Early in 1853, Senator Stephan A. Douglas of Illinois wanted to purchase a railroad built to California. This territory lay north of the Missouri Compromise and Douglas's bill didn't say a word about slavery. However, Southerners in Congress agreed to help out only if Senator Douglas made a few adjustments -- and those adjustments had bad consequences. The Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 is "Douglas's final version of the bill". This act created two new territories, Kansas and Nebraska. The act also completely dissolved the Missouri Compromise. On a good note, the act was passed in 1854.

Source: https://www.sutori.com/item/untitled-c909-05b8

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Thanks to the Compromise of 1850, the debate on slavery controversy grew louder and louder each year. The Fugitive Slave Act stated that "a person arrested as a runaway slave had almost no legal rights." This act made many people in the North and South unhappy. Some runaway slaves decided to fly all the way to Canada instead of risking being caught by their owners while others decided to stay and fight. Also, this act said that "any person  who helped a slave escape, or even refused to aid slave catchers, could be jailed. The Northerners refused to support the act causing slaveholders to be infuriated.

Source: https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/fugitive-slave-acts

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Henry Clay, now a senator from Kentucky, came up with a plan to  put an end to the deadlock over the state of California. But, it wasn't that easy. If Clay wanted to get his plan through Congress, he was going to need some help from the senator of Massachusetts, Daniel Webster. Clay's new plan had something to please almost everyone. By admitting California as a free state to the Union, that would please the North, but it let Utah and New Mexico territories to think about if they should do what would please the south which was to allow slavery. Also, Clay's plan ended the slave trade in Washington, D.C. Lastly, his plan called for passage of a strong fugitive slave law. As said earlier, Clay needed Webster's help get his compromise past Congress and surely enough, he agreed. For nine frustrating months, Congress debated the Compromise of 1850. Finally in September 1850, Congress decided to adopt his plan.

Source: http://www.ushistory.org/us/30d.asp

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Southerners proposed a bill that would expend the Missouri Compromise line all the way to the Pacific as a compromise for the three year long debate about what to do about slavery in the territory that was gained from Mexico. On the south of the line, slavery would be allowed, but on the north of the line, slavery would be banned. This proposal was eventually rejected by Northerners in Congress. California applied for access to the Union as a free state late in 1849. In Congress, the Northerners greeted California with open arms, but on the other hand Southerners refused to accept California's request.

Source: http://georgiainfo.galileo.usg.edu/gastudiesimages/California%20Statehood%20Stamp.htm

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In 1846, Congress received a bill from President James Polk asking for funds for the war with Mexico. David Wilmont, Pennsylvania representative, added an amendment to the Bill of Rights that is known as the Wilmont Proviso. This amendment stated that "neither slave nor involuntary servitude shall ever exist". Southerners in Congress opposed Wilmont's amendment very much. The Wilmont Proviso passed the house, however was denied by the Senate.

Source: http://upfront.ngsgenealogy.org/2014/08/slave-and-free-states-us-through-history.html

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The last large-scale revolt was Nat Turner's Rebellion, however individual slaved proceeded to rebel by running away to freedom in the North. To slave holders, when they saw slaves running away, they saw it as a piece of their landing disappear into thin air. They thought they were no better than bank robbers. This bold action made slaveholders outraged causing them to demand that Congress pass a fugitive slave law in order to help them reclain their property.

Source: https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/fugitive-slave-acts

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In the 1820s and 1830s, leaders of the religious revival promised those who did the lord's work that God would bless them. Congress was told that they could not interfere with slavery in states but, abolitionists who flooded Congress with multiple slavery petitions, asked "Then what about the District of Columbia?" Rather than facing that question, Congress voted to table [to set aside] all antislavery petitions in 1836. Because this action gagged [silenced] all congressional debate over slavery, frantic abolitionists named this action the "gag act". John Quincy Adams proposed an amendment saying that nobody can be born into slavery after 1845, however Congress declined to consider his proposal.

Source: http://mrkash.com/activities/compromise.html

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In 1820, after Congress arrived back to Washington, Maine was requesting to enter the Union as a free state. Instead of risking the breakup of the Union, Congress ultimately accepted a compromise constructed by Representative Henry Clay of Kentucky. On the third of March, the Missouri Compromise of 1820 was passed. This compromise allowed
Maine as a free state & Missouri as a slave state.

Source: http://www.thomaslegion.net/transcriptofmissouricompromiseof1820.html