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On December 20, 1860, South Carolina seceded from the Union and were followed by six other states. Together they formed the Confederate States of America. The "United" States of America was no longer united.
Source: http://thempfa.org

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During the presidential election of 1860, Lincoln was running against 3 other candidates and won. Proslavery Southerners knew that they were no longer in power and that Lincoln was probably going to abolish slavery.
Source: http://kalw.org

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John Brown believed that the only way to abolish slavery was to be violent. He wanted to arm slaves with weapons so they could rebel. Brown planned to take all the weapons from the federal arsenal in Virginia. Although his plan didn't work and all men involved were captured including Brown himself, the act did scare some Southerners.
Source: http://www.loudounhistory.org

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When running against Douglas, Abraham Lincoln had many debates. Lincoln, and many Northerners, believed that slavery was an immoral thing to do while Douglas argued that the Dred-Scott Decision had put the slavery debate to rest. Other Southerners saw no issue in having on half of the Union free and the other half practice slavery. Although Lincoln lost the election, his speeches shined a bright light on what slavery really was.
Source: https://historynewsnetwork.org

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Dred-Scott used to live with his slaveowner in Missouri but then moved to Wisconsin with his slaveowner. When they moved back to Missouri, Dred-Scott claimed to the Supreme Court that him living in Wisconsin made his no longer a slave The Supreme Court ruled the Dred-Scott Decision which stated that he could never be a citizen and that the Missouri Compromise was not constitutional. Southerners believed that the slavery issue was officially solved in their favor while Northerners felt outraged and that the decision was unjust.
Source: https://constitutioncenter.org

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Senator Charles Sumner was deeply bothered by the attacks in Kansas because it helped him realize that Senator Stephen Douglas helped the Southerners attack Lawrence. Sumner then wrote and delievered a strong and passionate speech about what Douglas had did. Southerners were outraged, and two days after Sumner's speech was delievered, Preston Brooks, a southern representative, attacked Sumner with his cane leaving him unconsicious.
Source: http://www.ushistory.org

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An abundance of people began settling into Kansas, northerners and southerners, and tensions soon turned violent because of the conflict of slavery. Know as the Sack of Lawrence, proslavery citizens attacked Lawrence, Kansas, an antislavery town. Through anger, an antislavery man named John Brown took revenge by killing 5 proslavery citizens.
Source: https://historiek.net

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Senator Stephen A. Douglas proposed the Nebraska-Kansas Act which created the states Nebrask and Kansas along with getting rid of the Missouri Compromise of 1820 by leaving slavery up to the state itself. Many Northerners disliked the act because slavery was in question in the new territories. Douglas attempted to relax their terrors by saying that slave labor was not fit with the new territories' land, but after further look at the geography, he was no longer certain.
Source: http://www.ushistory.org

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The Fugitive Slave Act was almost impossible to enforce because many Northerners refused to help capture slaves. Southerners were also unhappy since their runaway slaves were not guaranteed to be returned. Other slaves fled to Canada or decided to not listen to the law and continue to live in the North.
Source: http://digitalcollections.archives.nysed.gov

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A Kentucky senator named Henry Clay created a compromise both pleased abolitionists in the North and slaveholders in the South. The compromise made California a free state, but left the Mexico and Utah territories undecided and possibly open to slavery. In addition, a fugitive law would be passed for the slaveholders to reown previous slaves who ran away. It took nine long months of debating before Clay's idea had been put into action.
Source: http://www.ushistory.org

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When California applied to join the Union as a free state, Northerners welcomed the new state, and Southerners rejected California, for they believed that another free state added would create an unequal representation in Congress between free and slave states. The disagreement made California's status deadlocked.

Source: https://www.slideshare.net

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After 10 years of the "Gag Rule" in place, President James Polk requested from Congress money for a war against Mexico. Congress added the Wilmot Proviso which stated that the land aquired must not practice slavery. Some southerners were mad because they believed that Congress didn't have the right to declare where slaveholders could or could not live.
Source: http://upfront.ngsgenealogy.org

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Even though not many slaves revolted, some slaves decided to run away with the help of some Northerners. Slave owners viewed the act as a robbery of their property and requested Congress to pass a law forbidding slaves to run away.
Source: http://www.thefacultylounge.org

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A great deal of abolitionist petitions were flowing into Congress and they couldn't do anything about it so Congress decided to ignore all abolition petitions. This infuriated many antislavery supporters and called the silence the "Gag Rule" because it gagged, or muted the peoples' protests. In the South, whites deeply disliked anyone who spoke out about antislavery so much that there was a five thousand dollar reward for the catching that act.
Source: http://recordsofrights.org

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To stop a war from happening between the North and South, the Missouri Compromise, stating that Maine would be added to the US as a free state and that Missouri would be added as a slave state, was created. Even though this was a "compromise", it didn't satisfy many people. Those in the South didn't like the fact that slavery was abolished on future states, and the North considered those who voted Missouri as a slave state to be betrayers.
Source: http://www.compromise-of-1850.org