When key points actually lead to the civil war happening? Seems to of been because of overstepping powers of the federal government onto the southern states.

Well no, not at all. The reverse is much closer to the truth, with the slave states using their plurality control of the federal government's numerous veto points to force through legislation continually expanding slavery, up to and including forcing allegedly free states to enforce slavery within their bounds. When antebellum Southerners are talking about state's rights, they mean one thing: slavery.. That they admit to this even when addressing their opposition to even theoretically neutral innovations in federal power like the national bank rather seals the deal. They were prepared to prosecute that case with a maximum of authoritarianism, up to and including seeking to ban antislavery literature and compel northern whites in free states to help them kidnap people back into slavery. They were prepared to force slavery on new territories by literal, violent brute force including the assault and murder of white men.

A full record of all this would be most of the political history of the United States to 1860, but high points include the Missouri Controversy, the Nullification Controversy, the Mail Controversy, the Gag Rule controversy, Texas Annexation, the Mexican War, the Crisis of 1850 that resulted from it, the Kansas-Nebraska Act, Bleeding Kansas, the Caning of Charles Sumner, the Dred Scott case, the collapse of the Whig party and rise of the Republicans, John Brown's attack on Harper's Ferry, attempts to annex further parts of Mexico and/or Cuba, and more. Any of these could be a fair amount of writing and so far as I'm able I'm willing to go there, but you've asked a sweeping question so I'm going to try to get to all your points to some degree and we can always loop back on follow-ups.

How different was the 2 economy's? Did they both rely on eachother to survive to a degree?

Both the free and enslaving states were primarily agricultural, with most people engaged in farming of some kind or trades related directly to it. The North is somewhat more industrialized than the South, but not so much so as to alter that dynamic. Cotton grown with the stolen lives and labor of enslaved people fed the mills of New England as much as those of Liverpool, probably more so since raw cotton had tariff protection in the US. Shipping it employed a portion of the New England, and elsewhere on the east coast, merchant fleet. Hemp and tobacco grown with enslaved labor were also readily consumed throughout the nation. The enslaving states got in on consuming Yankee wares as well. It was far more profitable in the cotton states to grow cotton than basic supplies like wheat or other foodstuffs, which were brought in from the Midwest in particular to supply the needs of the Lower Mississippi. From the Northeast, the South got more textile goods including specifically low quality clothing for enslaved people. Overall, there's about as much economic integration as one would expect given the era and the transport infrastructure.

Did Lincoln only freed the slaves when he realized he was losing the war? His quote "If I could save the union without freeing any slaves, I would" also the Lincoln/Douglas debates make me question it.

No. Lincoln was committed to ending slavery from fairly early in his public life, but until the war he was firmly of the position that slavery must end very slowly and with the full consent and compensation of the enslavers. This makes him a quite relatively conservative antislavery politician, but by no means out in the wilderness on the issue. In his letter to Horace Greeley, he expressed his consistently-held position that his primary duty as president was the preservation of the American state. He fought a war to suppress treason in defense of slavery and save white male democracy in the United States, with the elimination of slavery being first dismissed as rendering reunion impossible -and probably driving more enslaving states to turn traitor- and then come to by various steps as a necessity of winning the war. However, Lincoln reached that point somewhat in advance of public moves. He discussed emancipation with others and was advised that any proclamation to that effect would look desperate and be impotent until the United States had at least a somewhat plausible victory to hang it on, which was secured at Antietam.

Because of the industrial revolution, was slavery already on its way of being phased out?

No, there's no particular reason to think that industrialization is incompatible with enslaved labor. Enslaved people worked at the quite modern Tredegar Iron Works in Richmond. Enslavers discussed their explotation in mines in the American West. Furthermore, the cotton, sugar, hemp, and tobacco that enslaved people grew, harvested, and processed did not evaporate at the end of slavery. Enslaved labor, because the people enslaved have no rights their enslavers are bound to respect, can be put to virtually any task up to and including skilled trades. It was reasonably common for enslavers to increase the value of their human property by having them taught an in-demand trade like blacksmithing or carpentry (for men) or sewing and spinning (for women). Enslaved people even served in theoretically "white" roles by acting as clerks in businesses, though that's certainly rarer than the trades because it requires the whites to accept that they're literate and that's actually illegal in many states. We can't rewind history and do it differently, but there's not much reason to assume that absent the Civil War American slavery doesn't last indefinitely. Certainly the commitment of white Americans to exploiting black lives did not vanish.

European countries were thinking about being involved (France and GB). Was this an added reason why Lincoln wanted to paint this as a moral war? So keep foriegn nations out of it all?

It's true that Lincoln was apprehensive, and the traitors hopeful, about foreign intervention. Both parties made some efforts to secure the outcome they preferred, but genuine British abhorrence of enslaving and French desire to act only in concert with the British were more decisive. Nor was the decision for emancipation made expressly to deter foreign influence, though I'm sure Lincoln didn't mind that as a bonus. Rather it was dictated by the realities in the US, including that the traitorous states had within their bounds an immense resource in enslaved people which they readily tapped for their own war effort. -I must emphasize that this is in the form of laboring in support of the war rather than as soldiers; those telling you that the Confederacy was served by legions of black men are lying.- It's an outgrowth of the earlier policies toward contraband labor and acts of Congress approving the confiscation of enslaved people from enslavers in rebellion, abetted to the point of being virtually dictated by Black Americans' determination to be free and willingness to fight whether whites recognized and acknowledged them as partners or not.

There were many things that combined to cause the Civil War, but the root of the entire thing was slavery. There's plenty that can be said about it, but our FAQ is a great place to start.