The document summarizes the increasing political and social divisions between the North and South in the decades leading up to the American Civil War from 1850-1860. Key issues like the expansion of slavery into new territories and the harsh fugitive slave laws exacerbated tensions. The Kansas-Nebraska Act and Dred Scott decision further polarized sections. Abraham Lincoln's election in 1860 as the first Republican president prompted seven southern states to secede and form the Confederate States of America, pushing the nation into civil war.