There are several factors that contributed to the beginning of the American Civil War. Arguably, slavery is the biggest reason for the Civil War, with several reasons connected to it. While slavery is the primary cause, there are several secondary causes including free labor ideology, the Compromise of 1850, the Missouri Compromise, the Fugitive Slave Act, the Kansas-Nebraska Act, the Pottawatomie Massacre, the Dred Scott decision, John Brown’s raid, and the succession of the Southern states. To begin, slavery is the overarching cause of the American Civil War. All of the events above are due to it. Slavery itself is not the total cause of the Civil War, but the future of slavery, the tension will cause the question of whether the United States as a whole will become a free …show more content…
In this act, he hoped it would raise the morale of the slaves so there would be one final uprising to end slavery. Brown and his men captured the federal arsenal then counterattacked by a militia which then led the United States Marines to be called. Brown was captured and killed, but his capture of the arsenal led to further tension. Some could argue Brown was a freedom fighter, but the fact he attacked a United States arsenal before it was time to fight violence shows he was a domestic terrorist, no matter his intentions. Abraham Lincoln won the election in 1860, and since he ran on a free labor ideology, he was in favor of abolishing slavery. The South was extremely frightened and angry of having a president who was an abolitionist, and felt as if he would not represent them adequately. They believed he only represented the Northerners and would do nothing the South wanted. They believed it was a natural right to own slaves, and feared that their “basic rights” would be infringed upon. For these reasons, they succeeded from the United States, which was the final straw for the Civil War to