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With Lincoln elected as president, senators were in a rush to form another compromise. The Senate held its meeting on December 20,1860, but events in two cities destroyed their hopes. In Illinois, a reporter asked Lincoln what he was going to do about slavery. Lincoln said that he wouldn't interfere with slavery in the South, but that he would not allow slavery in the territories. Meanwhile, in South Carolina, delegates voted to leave the Union, which prompted six more states to leave. The country was in a frenzy.
Source: https://www.thelibertyconservative.com/secession-is-going-mainstream/

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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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Since the election had four parties supporting a candidate, Lincoln easily won. Lincoln won oddly with just 40 percent of the votes, all of them in the North. He wasn't on the ballot in some Southern states. Southerners believed that Lincoln would make the South a minority and that they had no power. They foreshadowed that Congress would try to abolish slavery, which would destroy their lifestyle.
Source: https://socialistworker.org/2016/08/10/how-a-third-party-helped-to-end-slavery

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John Brown, an abolitionist, adopted an extreme plan to try to end slavery. He planned to seize the arsenal in Virginia and arm slaves with weapons. In 1859, when Brown launched his plan, all of his men were killed or captured and Brown was sentenced to death. White Southerners feared a slave rebellion, as Southern blood would be spilled.
Source: http://www.virginiamemory.com/blogs/out_of_the_box/2013/01/15/mapping-john-brown-how-one-mans-failed-rebellion-expanded-the-abolitionist-cause/

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Lincoln's opponent in the Senate race was Senator Stephen Douglas, who saw that there was no problem with a half-slave and half-free nation. Douglas argued that the Dred Scott decision had put slavery to rest, but Lincoln believed that slavery was a moral issue. Lincoln lost the election, but the debates were widely reported, making him well-known.
Source: http://www.american-historama.org/1860-1865-civil-war-era/lincoln-douglas-debates.htm

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In 1857, a former slave named Dred Scott had traveled to Wisconsin with his owner, but when he returned to Missouri, Scott went to court to win him freedom. He believed that his stay in Wisconsin made him free. There were many questions of the case, such as was Scott a citizen who had the right to bring a case to court and if his time in Wisconsin made him a free man. On March 6,1857, the court ruled that Scott could not sue for his freedom because he was not a citizen and that Scott was not a free man. The court supported their ruling by saying that no African American was an American citizen and that slaves were property, which meant that Congress had to give the slave-owner's property back. This angered many Northerners, as they were shocked by the "Assassination of a Race."
Source: https://www.sbrhsbreeze.org/news/opinion/2018/03/05/dred-scott-and-the-dredful-tales-of-slavery/

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The violence in Kansas angered many senators including Charles Sumner, who spoke to Congress that Senator Stephen Douglas had conspired with Southerners to make Kansas a slave state. Sumner wrote a speech that degraded many senators, including Andrew Butler. Two days later, Senator Butler's nephew, Preston Brooks, attacked Sumner in the Senate, beating him with a cane until his cane broke. This made Northerners furious, as they yet saw another example of the South being brutal, exactly what had happened in Kansas.
Source: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/tempers-ran-so-hot-congress-one-senator-was-nearly-beaten-death-180962111/

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After Kansas was created a territory, the North and the South both sent groups to support and nor support the slavery. The caused Kansas to have two competing governments; one for slavery and one against. On May 12,1856, proslavery settlers invaded an anti-slavery city and burned a hotel, looted several homes, and destroyed printing presses. This raid made many people angry including John Brown, who with his sons, hacked five men to death who supported slavery in Kansas.
Source: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/wealthy-activist-who-helped-turn-bleeding-kansas-free-180964494/

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The Nebraska-Kansas Act, created by Stephen A. Douglas, created two new territories called Nebraska and Kansas. It destroyed the Missouri Compromise and made it up to popular vote if slavery was allowed in these places. This Act made the North furious, as they saw visions of more slave territories added to the country. Douglas told people that these territories's climates were not suit for slavery, but many Northerners were not sure.
Source: http://www.abraham-lincoln-history.org/debates-on-the-kansas-nebraska-act/

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The Fugitive Slave Act caused both sides to be angry, as the Northerners didn't want to enforce the act, while the Southerners wanted the act to be stronger. Slaves started to flee to Canada, as runaway slaves had almost no legal rights. The Act also said that if you helped a slave, you could be jailed. Many people who followed the act were shouted at and called "Slave hunters." Only 299 slaves were recaptured during the 1850s.
Source: https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/fugitive-slave-acts

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A senator from Kentucky names Henry Clay came up with a compromise that would admit California into the Union as a free state. In return, the New Mexico and Utah territories could allow slavery, but the slave trade was eliminated in Washington D.C. In 1850, the compromise was accepted, also adding a stronger fugitive slave act, but Southerners were still wary. They simply talked about leaving the Union peacefully.
Source: http://www.ushistory.org/us/30d.asp

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With the territory gained from Mexico, Southerners tried to pass a bill that would extend the Missouri Compromise line all the way to the Pacific. This compromise was declined by the North. In 1849, California applied for an entry into the Union, but this was a big conflict. Admitting California as a free state would upset the balance of free and slave states.
Source: https://www.oercommons.org/courseware/module/15473/student/?task=2

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In 1846, President James Polk sent a bill to Congress asking for funds for war in Mexico, but another senator added a bill called the Wilmot Proviso. The Proviso stated that "neither slavery nor involuntary servitude shall ever exist" in the territory gained from the war. Southerners hated the amendment, but the bill was rejected by the Senate.
Source: http://www.ushistory.org/us/30a.asp

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Individual slaves continued to disobey their master by escaping to the North, and they received help from sympathetic Northerners. Slave owners were furious by slaves escaping and they demanded that Congress create a law that helped them get their slaves back.
Source: https://blog.newspapers.library.in.gov/fugitive-slaves-in-indiana/

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For a time, the disagreement over slavery was settled, but the force of the Second Great Awakening opened the matter again. Rather than create a solution to the problem, Congress in 1836, voted to set aside indefinitely all anti slavery petitions. This was called the "gag rule" by many abolitionists. Furthermore, many Southern states adopted strict laws, such as $5000 for the arrest of anybody "who shall utter, publish, or circulate" abolitionist ideas. Cartoons, like this one, appeared frequently in the North making fun of the "gag rule."
Source: http://www.nbclearn.com/portal/site/k-12/flatview?cuecard=1887

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The Missouri Compromise of 1820 introduced Missouri to the Union as a slave state and Maine as a free state. Congress also drew a line above the Arkansas Territory, which was the boundary of slavery.
Source: http://www.compromise-of-1850.org/missouri-compromise-1820/