States' Rights
Another major cause of the Civil War was the States' Rights. The states' rights doctrine, which stated that since that the states had formed the national government, state power should be greater than federal power.
John Brown
John brown was important to both States' Rights and slavery. He was an abolitionist from New England, but he moved to Kansas in 1855. On May 24, 1856, Brown and his men killed five men that were pro slavery, which was known as the Pottawatomie Massacre. He declared that his actions had been ordered by god. He later seized the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia, to encourage a slave revolt.
The Missouri Compromise
The Missouri Compromise tried helping with the debate over which powers rightly belonged to the states and which to the Federal Government, yet they succeeded only temporarily . It only established lands west of the Mississippi.