Step 1 : Introduction to the question "What event was the main precipitating incident of the Civil War?"
...In mid-October 1859, abolitionist John Brown attempted to raid the U.S. arsenal in Harpers Ferry, Virginia, in an effort to establish an enslaved people uprising in the South. Brown ultimately failed, and when he was hanged later that year for his crime, he slipped the guard a piece of paper stating “…the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but with blood.” The famous raid inflamed the cause of abolitionists and enslavers alike, and led the country down the path to civil conflict.