4. Secessionist Movement
The growing secessionist movement in the United States during the 1850's would make for an extremely interesting movie. The secessionist movement lead directly into the American Civil War and there is an abundance of ways the movie could be made. The main casuses of secessionism was the debate between the north and south over issues such as slavery, states rights, sectionalism, protectionism, and a series of territorial crises. The movie could go deep into the political debates between north and south or it could portray the series of events that are commonly associated to the era such as the publication of Uncle Tom's Cabin, the contentious election of 1860, the raiding of Harper's Ferry by John Brown in 1859. By focusing on the causes of the Civil War instead of portraying it, a film about the secessionist movement would be a very different kind of war movie in that it would be more a war of ideas than an actual war.