Dred Scott was an African American slave that sued for his freedom, arguing that since he and his master had spent a lot of time in free territory before returning to Missouri, he was free. The decision was made by Roger B. Taney to deny him freedom because they stated that African Americans are not citizens, therefore they cannot sue in Federal Court. This decision raised tensions between the north and south and served as an eye-opener for the north as they soon realized that since congress has no power to limit the expansion of slavery, slavery could soon expand to the west.
Eli Whitney had a very large influence on the start of the civil war because of his invention, the cotton gin. The cotton gin revolutionized the entire cotton industry and instantly made it into a high-profit cash crop. By hand, it would take all day to produce two pounds of processed cotton. After the invention of the cotton gin, it would only take half an hour. This invention made many farms and plantations switch over to cotton, creating a higher demand for slaves as cheap labor to pick the cotton. This created a large contrast between the southern and northern economies and cultures and created a lot of tension and hatred between them.
Harper’s Ferry was a city in West Virginia where John Brown’s raid took place.  John Brown’s plans for the raid were to raid an armory, steal all of its weapons and arm the slaves, causing a revolution. This would have happened if Robert E. Lee, an extremely skilled general and tactician had not cornered John Brown and his group of abolitionists in a barn and forced them to surrender. Even though John Brown’s raid in Harper’s Ferry was a failure, the north treated him as a martyr, making them even angrier at the south. One of the motivations of John Brown’s raid was to get back at the pro-slavery activists for their violence in Lawrence, Kansas.  After thousand of pro-slavery activists started moving into Kansas to try and force it into a slave state, violence erupted in Lawrence. The “Border Ruffians” destroyed the Free State Hotel along with all the equipment and printing presses of two anti-slavery newspapers.
Henry Clay created the Compromise of 1850, a crucial document that contributed to the start of the Civil War. The Compromise of 1850 did so with its last statement: The Fugitive Slave Law. This law fined federal officials that did not arrest fugitive slaves. This law increased tensions between the north and south, made abolitionists even angrier, and showed that the federal government did, in fact, have a bias towards slavery.
John C. Calhoun contributed to the start of the civil war with his work on states vs. federal rights. In 1828, a new Tariff was introduced that was too high for South Carolina because they were in a time of economic downturn. Finally, activists began to suggest that the state of South Carolina should declare the tariff null and void. This issue of “nullification” causes John C. Calhoun to leave office as vice president and run for senate, where he could more easily defend nullification. Right after he resigned, Jackson put into effect the Tariff of 1832, which lowered the previous tariff, but not enough for South Carolina. South Carolina quickly nullified both the Tariff of 1828 and the Tariff of 1832, claiming that they were unconstitutional. Congress then passed a Force Bill, which authorized the president to use military force to get South Carolina to repeal their Nullification Ordinance, which they instantly did. This issue of state vs. federal rights created a lot of tension between states and the federal government and moved the southern states closer to the possibility of secession.