Why were free states and slave states dividing the nation over slavery?

Why were free states and slave states dividing the nation over slavery?

It had many causes, but there were two main issues that split the nation: first was the issue of slavery, and second was the balance of power in the federal government. The South was primarily an agrarian society. The North, and many people in the South, also felt that slavery should be abolished for moral reasons.

Why did new problems about the spread of slavery come up after the Missouri Compromise?

Southerners who opposed the Missouri Compromise did so because it set a precedent for Congress to make laws concerning slavery, while Northerners disliked the law because it meant slavery was expanded into new territory. Sandford, which ruled that the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional.

What is King’s argument about the expansion of slavery?

King believed that federal regulation trumped the interests of local slaveholders. If the power to create the laws of a new state were left to slaveholders, slavery as an institution would never fade away.

What was the difference between a Free State and a slave state?

In the history of the United States of America, a slave state was a U.S. state in which the practice of slavery was legal at a particular point in time. A free state was one in which slavery was prohibited. Slavery was an issue that divided the country. It was one of the primary causes of the American Civil War.

What did the constitution say about slavery in the territories?

The Constitution contained no direct allusion to slavery in the territories; the new states and territories clauses did not refer to it, although the fugitive slave clause permitted recapture of fugitives only from the states, not the territories.

How did the expansion of slavery affect the United States?

However by the late 1840s, several events occurred that upset the balance: the U.S. added new territory as a result of the Mexican war, and the question of whether that territory would be slave or free arose again. California, beneficiary of an increased population because of the gold rush—petitioned Congress to enter the Union as a free state.

Where was slavery allowed in the United States?

The First Congress reenacted this ban, but in legislation for the area southwest of the Ohio River it omitted the exclusion of slavery, so that slavery was free to penetrate into the territories ceded by Virginia, New York, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia.