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Many maintain that the primary cause of the war was the Southern states' desire to preserve the institution of slavery. Others minimize slavery and point to other factors, such as taxation or the principle of States' Rights

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In American political discourse, states' rights are political powers held for the state governments rather than the federal government according to the United States Constitution, reflecting especially the enumerated powers of Congress and the Tenth Amendment

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The addition of new land in the West renewed disputes over the expansion of slavery. Some leaders wanted popular sovereignty, the idea that political power belongs to the people, to decide on banning or allowing slavery.

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The secession of South Carolina was followed by the secession of six more states—Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas–and the threat of secession by four more—Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina

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The 1860 United States presidential election was the 19th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 6, 1860

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John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry was an effort by abolitionist John Brown, from October 16 to 18, 1859, to initiate a slave revolt in Southern states by taking over the United States arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia. It has been called the dress rehearsal for, or tragic prelude to, the Civil War

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The Lincoln–Douglas debates were a series of seven debates between Abraham Lincoln, the Republican Party candidate for the United States Senate from Illinois, and incumbent Senator Stephen Douglas, the Democratic Party candidate

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Three distinct political groups occupied Kansas: pro-slavery, Free-Staters and abolitionists. Violence broke out immediately between these opposing factions and continued until 1861 when Kansas entered the Union as a free state on January 29

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The Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 created the territories of Kansas and Nebraska, opening new lands for settlement, and had the effect of repealing the Missouri Compromise of 1820 by allowing white male settlers in those territories to determine through popular sovereignty whether they would allow slavery

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Fillmore endorsed the Compromise of 1850 and enforced the Fugitive Slave Law. This earned Fillmore Southern voter support and Northern voter opposition

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Abolitionist literature, art, and poetry depicted the life of the slave and became a political tool which the moral suasionists used effectively to sway sentiment toward their position

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Slavery, Ghosts, and Beloved: Crash Course Literature 214

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This controversial law allowed slave-hunters to seize alleged fugitive slaves without due process of law and prohibited anyone from aiding escaped fugitives or obstructing their recovery

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The Fugitive Slave Act of 1793: Crash Course Black American History #10

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The Dred Scott decision was the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling on March 6, 1857, that having lived in a free state and territory did not entitle an enslaved person

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The Dred Scott Decision: Crash Course Black American History #16