My topic is how President Lincoln’s election led to the Civil War. The Civil War was a significant point in American history because it was a major step towards equality for all people in the nation. I chose to research Lincoln’s impact on the Civil War, because according to some people, the emancipation of the slaves and the Civil War were major turning point in American history. Lincoln had a strong influence and was able to make people believe in the change and he is still well known for it today. A question I wanted to answer was, what motivated Abraham Lincoln to change hundreds of years of tradition and how his actions were causes of the Civil War. The focus of my first weeks research was to find main causes of the Civil War and how Lincoln’s presidency created major conflict between pro and anti slavery. I attempted to answer this by researching Lincoln’s political views before and during his presidency. I found a website that provided information given from the famous historian Eric Foner's book, The Fiery Trial. This website was useful for finding sources and information on the stages of Lincoln’s politics. By using The Fiery Trial, I found another Foner book called Forever Free, the Story of Emancipation and Reconstruction that gave more detail on the culture of the country during the 1860’s and also on some of Lincoln’s actions and rulings that caused the civil war to begin. While looking over my sources, I noticed a major cause to the civil war was the Kansas-Nebraska Act. The document provided primary information on what the problem America was facing and how Congress planned on approaching it. While reading, I learned that the Kansas- Nebraska Act repealed the Missouri Compromise. These documents helped to give me a better understanding of some of the political causes of the Civil War. These few weeks of research were focused on building a basic timeline of political causes and learning the position America was in during the 1860’s. To further my research on the politics of Abraham Lincoln, I found the book Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin. The book provided explicit information on congress’ plans to manage slavery. This got me thinking what were Lincoln’s thoughts and contribution to congress. I looked up Lincoln’s politics and I found a website with a timeline of his political career. The website did not seem trust worthy, but the website had a copyright and that provided information to find the book The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, edited by Roy P. Basler and Lincoln Day by Day edited by Earl Miers. I took notes on the information provided on the website and looked over the books provided. Overall, my research was broad, but allowed me to find small details that could help support my argument.