Slavery was THE great debate of the 1850's as was the question of continuing a union that threatened the lives and property of the South. It caused Lincoln's election in 1860 and fueled the movement to secession and war. Slavery was the dividing point over which there was a limit to the compromises that could be effected. It clearly drove the decade as it had shaped the whole century.
John Brown’s raid on the federal armory at Harper’s Ferry, Virginia (now West Virginia)
