1. Chapter Summary Section 1: Growing Tensions Over Slavery
Westward expansion reopened the issue of slavery and how to keep the balance of power between free and slave-holding states. Senator Henry Clay proposed a series of compromises to resolve the crisis. 1

2. Chapter Summary (continued)
Section 2: Compromises Fail
The Compromise of 1850 and then the Kansas-Nebraska Act attempted to settle the slavery question, but the issue of popular sovereignty only increased the tensions between the North and the South. 2

3. Chapter Summary (continued)
Section 3: The Crisis Deepens
A new antislavery party was formed, the Supreme Court ruled on the Dred Scott case, and John Brown led a raid to protest slavery. Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas engaged in a series of debates about slavery. 3

4. Chapter Summary (continued)
Section 4: The Coming of the Civil War
After Lincoln won the presidential election of 1860, southerners felt they had lost representation in the national government. Several southern states seceded from the Union. The Civil War began when Confederate troops fired on Fort Sumter. 4

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