US Civil War — short-term causes and the war's outcome

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California entered as a free state; the rest of the Mexican Cession used popular sovereignty; a tougher Fugitive Slave Act was passed. It bought time but angered both sides.

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The idea that settlers in a territory should vote to decide for themselves whether to allow slavery there, rather than Congress deciding.

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Let Kansas and Nebraska choose slavery by popular sovereignty, scrapping the 1820 Missouri Compromise line and triggering 'Bleeding Kansas'.

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Violent conflict (1854–59) between pro-slavery and free-soil settlers competing to control Kansas, including rival legislatures and John Brown's Pottawatomie killings.

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The Supreme Court ruled Scott, an enslaved man, had no right to sue because Black Americans were not citizens, and that Congress could not ban slavery in the territories.

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It struck down the idea of any compromise limiting slavery's spread, convincing the North that a 'Slave Power' controlled the government.

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Brown tried to seize a federal arsenal to arm an enslaved uprising; he failed and was executed, but the South saw it as proof the North wanted a race war.

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Lincoln, who opposed slavery's expansion, won without a single Southern electoral vote, convincing the Deep South that its interests could never be protected in the Union.

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Compromise of 1850 to Kansas–Nebraska Act (1854) to Bleeding Kansas to Dred Scott (1857) to Harpers Ferry (1859) to Lincoln's election (Nov 1860) to South Carolina secedes (Dec 1860).

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Bigger population, more factories and railways, a navy, and an existing government and currency — decisive over a long war.

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Fighting defensively on home ground, strong military tradition and experienced officers, and only needing to survive, not conquer.

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Freed enslaved people in Confederate states, reframed the war as a fight against slavery, deterred British/French intervention, and opened the Union army to Black soldiers.