A) The events strengthening the antislavery movement before the war were many and encompassed the political, economic and social spheres. Various political, economic and cultural variables prior to the Civil War effectively divided the American North from the South and led to increased hostilities. As a result of these contentious differences, the antislavery movement gained in size and momentum. While the South had been appeased to a degree on the issue through various government legislation (Dred-Scot, Kansas-Nebraska Act, Fugitive Slaw Laws, etc.), abolitionists like Lloyd Garrison, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and David Wilmot made their voices increasingly heard. Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin stands as a harsh moral indictment of the institution of slavery. Slaves were also responsible for increasing antislavery momentum in events like Nat Turner’s Rebellion, where rebellious slaves murder more than 50 white Southerners. Politically, territorial expansion exacerbated the conflict between antislavery advocates and proponents. Abraham Lincoln was adamantly opposed to extending slavery to the territories, an adamancy matched by Southerner Jefferson Davis’ determination to maintain the institution. Lincoln did not threaten to abolish slavery until after the Civil War had begun, but his views on territorial expansion frightened the South. Antislavery factions in the North in the form of abolitionists were responsible for increasing the fervor of the movement, a fervor that often overleapt Lincoln’s originally moderate views. As Angle maintains, about the eventual signer of the Emancipation Proclamation; “Abstractly, and from the standpoint of conscience, he abhorred slavery. But born in Kentucky, and surrounded as he was by slave-holding influences, absorbing their prejudices and following in their line of thought, it is not strange that he should fail to estimate properly the righteous indignation and unrestrained zeal o...