What events lead to the outbreak of the civil war?

Answer 1

There weren't really events. The overriding factor was the unequal political power between the agrarian South and industrial North. Contrary to popular belief, slavery was a very small part of the war.

Answer 2

The heightened feelings when California was admitted to the USA as free soil, giving the North a huge advantage over the slave states.

This meant repealing the Missouri Compromise which had kept the peace since 1820, and replacing it with an awkward deal that didn't hold.

One of the gestures to appease the South was the tightening-up of the Fugitive Slave Act, allowing official slave-hunters to roam the North for runaways. This angered the growing Abolitionist movement, and provoked Harriet Beecher Stowe to write the best-selling 'Uncle Tom's Cabin'.

After this, nobody was really in the mood for logical debate. The stage was set for combat.

Answer 3

Confederate artillery firing on the Union garrison at Fort Sumter.

The fort had to be evacuated, Lincoln called for volunteers for the US Army, and four more states joined the Confederacy.

The two sides were drawn up, and the war was on.

Answer 4

The actual trigger was Lincoln's election as President in 1860, when the South knew that he would not allow any new slave-states.

It followed a decade of mounting conflict between the two sides, following the unpopular Compromise of 1850.