Financial crash of 1857 1. Over speculation on railroads and land 2. Inflation due to California "gold rush" 3.

Overproduction of grain -as a result industrial north was hardest hit -southerners boasted that "King cotton" was superior to the flawed northern economy (depression proof) Lincoln- Douglas debates - republican Abraham Lincoln challenges Stephen Douglas for the Illinois senate in 1858 -conduct 7 debates sound the state most famous in Freeport -in the debate Lincoln asks Douglas can a territory exclude slavery, before it becomes a state -if yes, he supports popular sovereignty and opposes Dred Scott -if no, he opposes popular sovereignty, the basis of his career -he accepted Dred Scott, but Territories might effectively discourage slavery if it failed to pass laws that would keep the slaves under control slavery could not exist where police regulations didn't support it -won him the senate, cost him the south and any chance of being president in 1860 John Brown and Harpers Ferry -Brown and his followers leave Kansas for Virginia in 1859 -plan is to kill all white southerners, free the slaves and become their king -attacks the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia -needed weapons for his slave army -is captured by lieutenant colonel Robert E. Lee and a group of US marines -he and 6 of his followers are hanged for their part in the attack -he had been financed by northern abolitionist, to southerners he represented all northerners Election of 1860 -1860 at the democratic convention several southern states adopt the Alabama platform -the south would not endorse or vote for a candidate that did not fully support Dred Scott -the rest of the convention rejects this and the Deep South walks out -the democrats adjourn without nominating a nominee -they reconvene in Baltimore, the southern dems nominate John Breckinridge of Tennessee, northern dems Stephen Douglas -the constitutional party nominate John Bell- they stood for the constitution and enforcement of laws Election of 1860 -republicans were going to nominate William Seward but he was viewed as too radical -turn to Abraham Lincoln --platform -non-extension of slavery (for free spoilers) -protective tariff (for the no. Industrialists)

-government aid to build a pacific railroad (for the northwest) -internal improvements (for the west) at federal expense -free homesteads for the public domain (for farmers) -Lincoln wins with the splitting of the Democratic Party -viewed by the south as a radical abolitionist bent on destroying the south