In which John Green teaches you about the election of 1860. As you may remember from last week, things were not great at this time in US history. The tensions between the North and South were rising, ultimately due to the single issue of slavery. The North wanted to abolish slavery, and the South wanted to continue with it. It seemed like a war was inevitable, and it turns out that it was. But first, the nation had to get through this election. You'll learn how the bloodshed in Kansas and the truly awful Kansas-Nebraska Act led directly to the decrease in popularity of Stephen Douglas, the splitting of the Democratic party, and the unlikely victory of a relatively inexperienced politician from Illinois, Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln's election would lead directly to the secession of several southern states, and thus to the Civil War. John will teach you about all this, plus Dred Scott, Roger Taney, and John Brown.

Hey teachers and students - Check out CommonLit's free collection of reading passages and curriculum resources to learn more about the events of this episode. The Lincoln and Douglass debates of the 1850s fueled the argument over state's rights to decide on slavery and culminated when the two ran against one another in the Election of 1860: https://www.commonlit.org/text....s/the-election-of-18
In response to Lincoln's election, the South seceded from the Union and the Civil War began: https://www.commonlit.org/texts/the-south-secedes

Learn more about the Dred Scott Decision in Crash Course Black American History #16: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9VffLWl8asY

Chapters:
Introduction: The Civil War 00:00
The Fugitive Slave Law 0:45
Railroads 2:26
The Kansas-Nebraska Act 3:04
How the Republican Party Formed 3:54
Public Opinion on Free vs. Slave States 4:22
The New Republican Party Gains Traction 5:45
How Kansas Became a State 6:31
The Dred Scott Decision 7:32
Mystery Document 9:14
John Brown & Harpers Ferry 10:25
The Election of 1860 11:13
The Start of the Civil War 12:14
Credits 13:40