There are many reasons that the Civil War started; These are a few events that actually led to the American Civil War. The first event was in California, 1850, when the settlers of California requested to enter the union as a free state. The state of California wished to join the union as a free state, which would change the ratio of free to slave states in the union. This controversy was discussed in Congress and it became a point of contention. “Senator Foote from Mississippi and Senator Benton from Missouri began fiercely arguing. The argument reached a climax when Foote rose, grabbed his pistol, and aimed it at Benton. (BYU.IS)” The northerners thought that California should enter the union as a free state because most of the state was …show more content…
The main reason that this event is one that led to the civil war is because this is the point in time where the south started to entertain the idea of seceding from the union. The next event is actually a result of the proceedings in California 1850; The Compromise of 1850 came as a result of Congress trying to calm the junction between the states. The fugitive slave act was one part of the compromise of 1850, and was enforced throughout the entirety of the United States but it mostly affected the courts and people in the north. “The Fugitive Slave Act explicitly required all Northerners to return runaway slaves to their owners. If a person aided fugitive slaves, the government fined him or her one thousand dollars and put him or her in jail. The act even called for the organization of special courts to handle runaway cases. Judges received ten dollars for each runaway slave they returned to the South and five dollars for each slave they set free. (BYU.IS)” The northerners were, by law, required to return the escaped slaves; this caused many to rebel by forming things like the underground …show more content…
Many Northerners refused to follow the law, which led to resistance and further separation between the north and south. The Dred Scott v. Sandford case is another major event that resulted in the Civil War. The first lawsuits were filed by Dred Scott and his family in 1846 in the St. Louis Circuit Courts against Irene Emerson for their freedom. The trials went all the way to the Supreme Court, where Scott lost in a ruling against him by Chief Justice Roger Taney. The ruling made by Chief Justice Roger Tainey changed what Congress was saying that they had power over when it came to slaves. “In addition, he wrote that the Fifth Amendment protected slave owner rights because enslaved workers were their legal property. The decision also argued that the Missouri Compromise legislation — passed to balance the power between slave and non-slave states — was unconstitutional. In effect, this meant that Congress had no power to prevent the spread of slavery. (History.com)” Many Abbolists and Northerners alike were enraged by the reasoning for the ruling of the Dred Scott