While the actions of abolitionists may have influenced public thinking and eventually contributed to societal shifts related to slavery, they did not directly precipitate the events that culminated in the American Civil War. The roots of the American Civil War are more broadly linked to long-standing conflicts concerning states' rights, economic disparity between free labour in the Northern states and agrarian-based slavery in the Southern states, and ultimately the question of expanding or preventing the propagation of slavery in newly accepted American territories and states.