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How the Dred Scott Decision Affected the U.S. Election of 1860: Media

The Dred Scott decision of 1857 put a match to the tinderbox of sectional conflict over the future of slavery and helped shape the subsequent presidential election.

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Constitutional convention in Kansas Territory, December 1855
Constitutional convention in Kansas Territory, December 1855; from Leslie's Illustrated...
Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.