Abraham Lincoln, while campaigning for the U.S. Senate from Illinois, made a now-famous speech on June 16, 1858 in which, citing the irreconcilable North-South division of America on the eve of the civil war, said, " a nation divided against itself cannot stand "; The Dred Scott decision by the U.S. Supreme Court in the prior year 1857, is regarded by many historians to be the tipping point to the Civil War, because the ruling dictated that a slave was the property of the owner, even if that slave stepped onto free soil. Anti-slavery abolitionists were outraged that a slave on free territory could now be forcibly removed by the law of the land, back to his or her owner in a slave state.

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