What+Caused+the+Civil+War?

The wedge between the South and the North was gradually driven between the two regions throughout the mid-1800s. The impending eruption of civil war was the elephant in the room that nobody wanted to talk about. The compromises only prolonged the state of denial our country was in. Once the Kansas-Nebraska Act was passed, and the events that followed occured, there was no denying the need for war any longer. The Kansas-Nebraska act opened new territory up for dispute between the two regions. Whether the territory would belong to the North or the South was left up to popular sovereignty. Obviously the slave states were prepared to fight dirty for this territory because of their loss of a majority in the Senate. They didn't care that slavery couldn't prosper in Kansas. The possibility of gaining a new state could have been very good for the South and given them a voice once again, which is all they cared about. The Southerners thought that the Northerners were in "bad form" when they tried to admit Kansas as a free state. It was an unspoken rule that when a free state came into the Union, a slave state was admitted as well to keep the balance. Since California had just been admitted as a free state, the South thought that it was their right to have Kansas as a slave state, and that the North was just being power-hungry. Gaining Kansas was extremely important for the South. So, pro-slaveryites from Missouri, or "border ruffians", went into Kansas illegally and voted for a slavery government. This action enraged the Northerners and led to BLEEDING KANSAS. Bleeding Kansas was a series of widespread fighting between pro-slaveryites and anti-slaveryites that lived in Kansas. The pro-slaveryites had their own "slave" government, located in Topeka, Kansas; whereas the anti-slaveryites had their own "free" government, located in Lawrence, Kansas. The pro-slaveryites even went to the extent of burning down Lawrence to the ground. The federal government had to send troops to keep the two sides apart. Bleeding Kansas was a result of the Kansas-Nebraska act. It was the first all-out fight between the two regions over slavery. It forshadowed the inevitable war.