Who were 2 people that directly or indirectly influenced the emotional component before the actual civil war before it started though their beliefs and actions

Two main characters which directly or indirectly influenced the emotional component before the Civil War before it started were: Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas.

It all started with the Lincoln-Douglas debates, which were a sequence of seven public discussions held in 1858 between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas as they competed for the Illinois Senate seat. Lincoln was the Republican candidate a Senator Douglas was the current Democratic Party candidate.

The debates discussed the issue of slavery, how to deal with slavery, where slavery should be allowed, and its extension to territories such as Kansas. The Lincoln-Douglas debates converted Abraham Lincoln into a national figure conducted him to his election to the presidency in 1860, which also et the stage for the American Civil War.  By that time the nation was divided on questions of state's rights and slavery in the territories.

Stephen Douglas was a major supporter of the idea of Popular Sovereignty, which declared the right of the people living in a new territory to decide by vote weather or not slavery was permitted in that territory. On the other hand, this debates also allowed Abraham Lincoln to increase the particularly debatable result of the Dred Scott Decision, which said that a slave was not a citizen. Lincoln highlighted that slavery was morally incorrect but also accentuated that Republicans would only attack slavery where the United States Constitution allowed.