Question

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Discuss the relationship between territorial expansion and the rise of sectional tensions in the U.S. prior to the Civil War. Discuss the importance of Manifest Destiny and the spread of the institution of slavery in your answer.

Answer 1

Territorial expansion is directly related to sectional tensions in the antebellum period. Beginning with the Missouri Compromise in 1820, there was a tenuous balance between slave and free states. At the heart of territorial expansion was the question of whether new states would be admitted as either slave or free. This culminated in the Compromise of 1850 and the Kansas Nebraska Act which instituted the policy of popular sovereignty to determine whether a state would enter the Union as either slave or free.

Explanation: The debate characterized the admission of new states was linked to Slavery and Manifest Destiny.