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On December 20, 1860, Lincoln spoke to a reporter about his stance on slavery, where he stated that slavery in the South would not be interfered with but slavery will not be allowed in any new territories.  All these events must've finally severed the strands that were barely holding the nation together as on the same day in Charleston, South Carolina, it was decided by delegates that South Carolina would leave the Union, and afterwards, six other Southern states seceded from the Union as well.

source: https://www.americanhistoryusa.com/great-mistake-why-did-south-secede-1860/

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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 divided competition, Lincoln won the 1860 presidential race with a 40 percent vote.  However, as his votes were all cast in the North, this made Southerners realize and be fearful that they were not the majority, that they were outnumbered in population and overpowered legally by the North.

source: http://www.historycentral.com/elections/1860.html

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John Brown, a radical abolitionist, launched his unsuccessful raid on the federal arsenal in Virginia in order to get weapons and ammunition to prepare for a rebellion to end slavery.  He was caught and sentenced to death, but this event made Southerners realize that they were the ones in danger if a slave rebellion was to happen.

source: http://www.ushistory.org/us/32c.asp

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Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas, nominees to run for Senate, debated whether the nation could survive in its divided state of half-free and half-slave states or not, and whether slavery was a moral or legal issue. Lincoln argued that the government couldn't keep the strained peace in its divided state, and that slavery was a moral issue, but he lost the election. However, his argument about slavery being a moral issue was brought into light.

source: https://www.cnn.com/videos/tv/2016/03/04/lincoln-douglas-heavyweight-orig.cnn/video/playlists/race-to-the-white-house--original-series/

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Lincoln and Douglas: The title match of titans

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Dred Scott, a Missouri slave who traveled with his owner to Wisconsin, went to court to fight for his freedom, as Wisconsin was a free state.  It was decided that Scott would remain as a slave even in a free state as slaves were considered property, and this angered many Northerners.

source: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4p2932.htmlhttp://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4p2932.html

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Senator Sumner of Massachusetts prepared a speech about Senator Douglas, Senator Butler, and other Southerners, insulting and accusing them for the conflict in Kansas.  Reactions throughout the North and the South were caused when Butler's nephew, Preston Brooks, retaliated by attacking Sumner with his cane.

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

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Proslavery and antislavery settlers were in conflict over whether Kansas would be made into a free state or a slave state.  This conflict became violent when Lawrence, Kansas was invaded and raided by proslavery settlers from Missouri, and this enraged the North.

source: https://www.kshs.org/p/kansas-territory-an-annotated-bibliography/14684

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Senator Douglas proposed the Nebraska-Kansas Act of 1854, an act that created Kansas and Nebraska from the Great Plains, and it was passed in 1854. The people living in the region would decide whether the two new states would be slave states or not.

source: http://wps.pearsoncustom.com/wps/media/objects/5407/5537171/atlas/atl_ah3_m009.html

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The Fugitive Slave Act, an act that classified escaped slaves as fugitives and made it illegal for anyone to help a slave escape, was passed along with the Compromise of 1850.  Neither the North nor the South were happy with this act, as Northerners disagreed with it and refused to enforce the act, and Southerners thought that this act wasn't enough to get their escaped slaves back.

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

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Henry Clay, a senator from Kentucky and the creator of the Missouri Compromise, offered a new compromise, one to satisfy both sides.  He offered admitting California as a free state for the North and for the South, letting the New Mexico and Utah territories to determine whether slavery would be allowed in the regions or not.  It also ended any other slave trade in Washington, D.C., but let slaveholders keep the slaves they already owned.  Congress debated this compromise for nine months and they accepted it in the end when Southerners realized that the South's secession could cause an indescribable civil war over slavery.

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

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Congress was caught in a stalemate: Northerners wanted California to be admitted to the Union as a free state but Southerners did not agree with California being admitted at all.  They also struggled with either making slavery legal in the Mexican Cession like Southerners wanted or making the entire area free.

source: https://cnx.org/contents/SLz5FtH7@4/The-Compromise-of-1850

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Along with the bill sent for funds in the war with Mexico was the Wilmot Proviso. The Wilmot Proviso asked Congress to outlaw slavery in new territories added from the Mexican-American War, but it got rejected by the Senate.

source: http://www.americaslibrary.gov/aa/polk/aa_polk_wilmot_1_e.html

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Some escaped slaves ran away from enslavement, and were known as fugitive slaves.  They were helped by abolitionists and people in the North in their escape, but to slaveholders they were criminals, and they pushed Congress to pass a law to hunt down their former slaves.

source: www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/map-showing-routes-of-the-underground-railroad-used-by-news-photo/694437640.

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Abolitionists were not happy about Missouri being admitted as a slave state.  In the 1830's, abolitionists protested slavery to Congress but were quickly silenced by the gag rule-a rule to stop congressional debate over slavery.

source: http://www.abolitionseminar.org/did-abolitionists-cause-the-civil-war/

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Missouri was in question of either being admitted as a slave state or a free state.  The Missouri Compromise of 1820 admitted Missouri as a slave state but made Maine enter as a free state so that the number of slave and free states in the Union would be equal.

Key:

Purple: slave states

Green: free states