The Coming of Civil War

Compromise of 1850

During the Gold Rush in California there were lots of people immigrating to the new state acquired from Mexico. In 1850 the many pat immigrated there adjured that California should be acknowledged to the United States as a free state but this change would disturb the balance between the free states and slave states in the Senate. Henry Clay proposed a plan, five separate laws which two of them favored the North and two others the South.

Kansas-Nebraska Act

In 1854 the senator Stephen Douglas introduced the Kansas-Nabraska Act. It called for the creation of two territories which were eventually the ones sited. It also said that the people that lived in these territories have the right to vote if slavery would be allowed there or not. Kansas and Nebraska were in the boundaries of the Missouri Compromise and for this to work Douglas called to repeal the Missouri Compromise. Southerners were happy because they knew that they had a chance that the two territories could vote for slave state and the Northern democrat were angered and tried to repel the act.

Presidential Election 1860

In the 1860 the government knew that the Northerners would not accept leadership by a Southerner and a Southerner would not listen to an antislavery leader from the north.The democratic party met in 1860 to nominate the probable candidates for presidency. The party broke into two because of the different opinions of the North and the South sates relating to slavery. Delegates from the southern states left the convention and nominated John C. Breckinridge while the northern delegates nominated Stephen Douglas who supported popular sovereignty.

Some moderate Southerners met as well to form their own party. the belonged to the Whig and other American parties. These southerners with some politicians from the Border States formed the Constitutional Union Party. When the Republican party united they nominated Abraham Lincoln.