The south had decided to secede upon finding out Abraham, a republican, had won the election of 1860. The south had decided a win for the Republican Party was a win for the abolitionist and they had to leave before their right to slavery was taken. In addition, the fugitive slave act of 1860, an act that provided southern slaveholders with legal weapons to capture slaves who had escaped to the free states, played an important role in the build up to the civil war. It was extremely unpopular in the north thus causing many indifferent northerners to become antislavery.While slavery tends to be the most well known cause of the civil war it is not the only cause; another cause of the civil war is state