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The Kansas-Nebraska Act, created by Stephen Douglas in an attempt to encourage westward expansion and create the frameworks for a transcontinental railroad, set up the Kansas and Nebraska territories, repealed the Missouri Compromise, and created a gateway for more use of popular sovereignty. The Act led to the Bloody-Kansas incident and stirred political conflict within each territory.
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The Republican Party was on a high rise throughout the 1850s. Its primary purpose was to resist and combat against the expansion of slavery into westward territories. It was created mainly in part to the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which allowed for the debate of allowing slavery between the people themselves. The party dominated the North, and further grew tensions between the North and the South primarily in the political department surrounding Congress and the presidency.
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The Lincoln-Douglas Debates were a series of political debates between Republican Abraham Lincoln and Democratic Stephen Douglas for the spot of a U.S. Senator representing Illinois. Slavery was a heated topic in these debates, and became the reason as to why the Democrats split into two separate parties. Douglas ended up winning the Senator position, but also ended up with extremely divided support that would follow him into the Presidential Election of 1860.
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John Brown conducted a weapons raid on a federal arsenal in Harpers Ferry, Virginia on October 16th, 1859. The goal of the raid was to initiate a slave revolt and spread across the south, where slaves were given weapons to fight back against their oppressors. The raid ultimately failed, and John Brown was convicted and to be executed for treason. The raid was considered a prelude in itself to the Civil War due to the event heavily intensifying tensions between the North and the South.
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John Brown was an abolitionist leader often thought to be a fanatic, sometimes even by his own supporters. He believed he was doing the work of God by attempting to aid the slaves against their oppressors. Brown conducted the raid on the federal arsenal in Harpers Ferry, Virginia, and was caught and convicted for treason because of it. His sentence was death, and his execution split the United States even more-so because depending on perspective, he was viewed as either a terrorist, or a martyr.