Following Bleeding Kansas the country went into severe economic panic. The Panic of 1837 saw a dramatic drop in wheat prices and the country was producing more than the world demanded. This panic enraged the Northerners because this panic caused major devastation in the West but did very little damage in the South. The South felt that there was going to be a boom in demand for cotton in Europe. The North still enraged opposed economic and political concessions to the South.
Cotton is King.
This show that sectional tensions had grown great. The final major political event before the war was the Dred Scott Decision in 1857. By ruling that the Missouri Compromise was illegal was the final straw in political, economic, and social differences. In conclusion the economic differences between the North and the South were so great that they led to severe political differences that split the country. Since the North was a rising industrial empire and the was conformable in their agrarian society their political needs were irreconcilable.