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The senate committee held its first meeting on December 20, 1860. When Lincoln was asked if he would support a compromise on slavery his answer was a clear no. Lincoln drew the line at letting Slavery into the territories.
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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With opposition divided in three ways Lincoln sailed to victory. However he only won the election with 40% of the votes, all casted in the North. In ten of the Sothern states Lincoln was not even on the ballot. For white southerners the election of 1860 delivered an unmistakable message. The south no longer had the power to shape national events or policies. They had a hard time believing that they were now minority. Southerners feared that congress would try to abolish slavery.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Lincoln#/media/File:Abraham_Lincoln_O-77_matte_collodion_print.jpg

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Abolitionist John Brown planned to seize the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia. Brown wanted to use weapons to arm slaves for a rebellion that would end slavery. Brown led his raid in 1859 and all of his men were either killed or captured during it. Brown himself was convicted of treason and was sentenced to die.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Brown%27s_raid_on_Harpers_Ferry#/media/File:Douglass_argued_against_John_Brown%27s_plan_to_attack_the_arsenal_at_Harpers_Ferry_-_NARA_-_559102.tif

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The Illinois senator saw no reason why have the nation could go half slave and half free. When Lincoln challenged Douglas to debate about the whole slavery issue Douglas agreed. Lincoln lost the election but the debates helped him become a national figure. His argument with Douglas also brought the moral issue of slavery into sharp focus.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LljCzkPasuk

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In 1857 the slave controversy shifted from congress to the Supreme Court. The court was about to decide a case concerning a Missouri slave named Dred-Scott. Many years earlier Scott had traveled with his owner to Wisconsin, where slavery was banned due to the Missouri Compromise. When he returned to Missouri Scott went to court to win his freedom he never got. He argued that his stay in Wisconsin made him a free man.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3-bKpfGR7I

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The violence greatly disturbed senator Sumner Charles of Massachusetts. To Sumner it was proof that Douglass had plotted a plan to make Kansas a slave state In 1856 Sumner voiced his suspicion in a speech called "The Crime Against Kansas". As the speech spread throughout the North Henry Wadsworth Longfellow congratulated Sumner on his brave actions.
http://www.civilwaronthewesternborder.org/sites/default/files/u120/THUMBNAIL001L%20%283%29.jpg

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After the Kansas-Nebraska Act, settlers poured into Kansas. Most were peaceful farmers looking for good farm land, however some moved to either support or oppose slavery. In the south, towns took up collections to send their young men to Kansas. In the north, abolitionists rose money to send weapons to antislavery settlers. This soon created to competing governments in the territory. Pro slavery and Antislavery.
https://www.nps.gov/common/uploads/teachers/assets/images/mwr/park/fosc/476DCABD-155D-4519-3EB15F93C987F748/476DCABD-155D-4519-3EB15F93C987F748.jpg

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Kansas-Nebraska Act created two territories. It also abolished the Missouri Compromise leaving it up to the settlers themselves to vote on whether to permit slavery in the two territories. Douglas called this policy popular sovereignty. This act worried the Northerners about slavery possibly coming there way.
http://www.studythepast.com/democracy/secessionimages/kansasnebraskaact.jpg

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People in the North and South were unhappy with the fugitive slave act. However, for different reasons the North did not want to enforce the act, and the South felt the act did not do enough to ensure the return of their escaped property. Under the Act, a person arrested as a run away slave had little to no legal. It also said that any person that helped a slave escape would be jailed.
http://api.ning.com/files/MRV8liL4jD5t0feK8elnX9NMXLQjS6mb8rUj2sAAbkA2fjNRxSMGcpmnyzfr41n9LIzXedZ4Yu30tUEHvnFnxhnVdXQE-MsN/caution.jpg

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Clay's new plan had a way to end the deadlock over California. It had something to please everyone, and began by admitting California to the union as a free state. In addition this plan ended slave trade in Washington DC. FInally, Clays plan called for a passage for a strong fugitive slave law. Hoping that the plan would end this crisis, Webster agreed to help get it passed in congress.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_Bra5yBh6M

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Southerners proposed a bill that would extend the Missouri Compromise line all the way to the Pacific. Slavery would be banned North of that line. However Northerners rejected this proposal. In late 1849, California applied to be a part of the union as a free state, and soon they were welcomed with open arms.
CA.gov

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David Wilmot added an amendment to the bill know as the Wilmot Proviso. This stated that neither slavery or involuntary survitude shall evr exist in any part of the territory that might be aquired by Mexico during the Mexican American War. Southerners strongly disgreed with Wilmots amendment. The argued that congress had no right to decide where slaveholders could take there property. The Proviso passed the House but was rejected by the Senate
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nd-JPPnWF9g

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A fugitive is a person who flees or tries to escape for example slavery. Nat Turner's rebellion was the last large scale revolt. However many individual slaves continued to rebel by running away to freedom in the North. These fugitives were often helped by sympathetic people from the North. To slaveholders the Northerners were no better than bank robbers and thought of slaves as valuable pieces of property, Every time a slave escaped it was like their land had vanished.
Source: https://newsone.com

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The "gag rule" silenced all congressional debate over slavery. In 1839 the gag rule prevented consideration of an anti slavery proposal by John Quincy Adams who was a member of congress. However abolitionists still attacked slavery in books, newspapers, and at public meetings. After Nat Turner's rebellion the resentment turned to fear, so the southern states adopted strict laws to control the movement of slaves.
Source: www.history.com

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The Missouri Compromise was an agreement made by Congress in 1820 under which Missouri was admitted to the union as a slave state and Maine was admitted as a free state. This way it maintained the delicate balance of power between slave and free states. The Compromise brought the union together however not many people were pleased.
Source:Emancipation Proclamation