| A | B |
|---|
| The Constitution lacking clear provision son the issue of slavery in the territories | The nation is constantly trying to determine the future of slavery in the territories from the Northwest Ordinance to the Dred Scott Case |
| The limited industry, large cities, and large numbers of slaves in the South discourage immigration | The South's population growth is much slower than the North |
| The North's population is growing much faster than the South's | To the South slavery must expand into the territories in order to increase the number of slave states in order to assist the North's advantage in the House of Representatives |
| The North seeing a disproportionate amount of power in the South and Southern aggressive attempts to expand slavery | The North's views of a "slaveholders' conspiracy" |
| Popular sovereignty | An increasingly unsuitable solution to the issue of slavery in the territories from the Compromise of 1850 to the Kansas-Nebraska Act |
| The California Gold Rush | Congress had to determine the status of slavery in the Mexican Cession much sooner than they anticipated |
| California calling for statehood as a free state | The Compromise of 1850 |
| The death of Zachary Taylor | Brought enough national unity to ensure the final passage of the Compromise of 1850 |
| The inability of Northern and Southern Whigs to agree over slavery in the territories and specifically the Kansas-Nebraska Act | The death of the Whig Party and the rise of the Republicans |
| The inability of the Know Nothings to deal with the most important issue of the era: slavery in the territories | The Republicans rather than the Know Nothings replaced the Whigs as the Democrats main rival |
| The preceding success of the Liberty and Free Soil Parties and the growing popularity of free soil, free labor ideology in the North | The Republican Party's anti-slavery platform is very popular in the North |
| Southerners looking to expand outside the United States | Filibusters in Nicaragua and the Ostend Manifesto |
| The desire to open Japan to American trade | Commodore Matthew Perry's expedition |
| The fear California would want to secede if they did not feel connected to the eastern parts of the United States | The importance of building a transcontinental railroad |
| The need to build a transcontinental railroad | The Gadsden Purchase and the Kansas-Nebraska Act |
| Stephen Douglas needing Southern support for a northern route for a transcontinental railroad | The Kansas-Nebraska Act repeals the Missouri Compromise |
| The Kansas-Nebraska Act | Angers the North, ends the Whig Party, and Bleeding Kansas |
| Kansas now open to popular sovereignty due to the Kansas-Nebraska Act | A miniature civil war between pro-slavery settlers from Missouri and abolitionists |
| The Underground Railroad's success and Northern "personal liberty laws" | The South's insistence for a stronger fugitive slave law |
| The Fugitive Slave Law | Angered the North and inspired Harriet Beecher Stowe to write Uncle Tom's Cabin |
| Hinton Helper seeing the slavery adversely impacted the nonslaveholding whites of the South | The Impending Crisis of the South (1857) was written and banned in the South |
| The Panic of 1857's different impacts on the North and South's respective economies | The South concluded it possessed a superior economy to the North |
| The Dred Scott Case | The Supreme Court polarized the North and South even more by ruling the territories could not prohibit slavery and that the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional |
| The Lincoln-Douglas Debates | Marked the national rise of Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas alienates the South with the Freeport Doctrine |
| John Brown wanting to lead a massive slave rebellion of slaves in Virginia | The raid on Harper's Ferry in 1859 |
| John Brown's execution for treason | The South was outraged because they believed the North seemingly made an insane lunatic who tried to lead a slave rebellion a martyr |
| Douglas' Freeport Doctrine during the Lincoln-Douglas Debates | The South could not stand behind Douglas in the 1860 Election and nominated their own Democratic candidate- John C. Breckinridge |
| Lincoln's strong showing in the North but not being on the ballot in the South | Lincoln won only 40% of the popular vote but won an easy electoral victory |
| Lincoln's easy victory and the Republican success in the 1860 Election | The South concluded it had lost its political power and the only choice was to secede |
| James Buchanan's lack of leadership during his lame duck period | Seven states of the Deep South seceded from the Union unmolested |
