The most controversial issue that added to the fissure of the Union was slavery. The economy vessel of the agrarian south, "the cotton King", depended upon it, while high-minded industrial northerners condemned it. Decades earlier, the sectional tensions had been nakedly revealed in the Missouri Compromise and Texas annexation. By the 1850s, the problem was further sharpened.

One of the key factors of the slavery issue was whether or not to allow it to expand into new territories. Northern abolitionists argued that there was no Constitutional basis

for slavery, and that it should be disallowed in new territories. On the other hand, Southerners argued that the Constitution recognized slavery as an existing institution, and

therefore validated its existence. On the eve of the Civil War, it was clear that the Constitution had become a source of disun

The abolitionist ideals, which had been unpopular in the North in the earlier decades, were coming to be accepted by more and more northerners. William Lloyd Garrison waged a thirty-year war of words against slavery with his anti-slavery newspaper, The Liberator. He argued the North to secede from the evil South, the Constitution was condemned by him as "a covenant with death and an agreement with hell!" Conflicts were likely to erupt between the extremists of both the anti-slavery and pro-slavery sides. Bloody conflict broke out in Kansas-Nebraska when Senate Stephen Douglas introduced the act that left this area to be determined by popular sovereignty. This act had invalidated the Missouri Compromise since Kansas-Nebraska was north was 36 degree and 30, a place that should be free of slavery. The infuriated abolitionists sent weapons into that area. Bloody firing broke out in Kansas-Nebraska.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

The founding fathers had never taken into consideration this eventuality. There was no standing law or precedent about the legitimacy of secession. Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederacy argued that states have the right to secede. He argued that the federal government was nothing more than a way of standardizing trade and taxation among a conglomeration of consenting sovereign states. He argued that the structure of the Constitution placed beyond any pretense of doubt the reservation by the States of all their rights and powers. On the other hand, Union President Abraham Lincoln argued that territories that had been purchased, and assimilated into the nation, which included almost every existing state and t

Some common words found in the essay are:
Abraham Lincoln, , Article Section, North Northerners, Compromise Texas, Jefferson Davis, Blacks Boston, Utah Mexico, Lincoln South, Waldo Emerson, slave law, fugitive slave law, fugitive slave, president abraham lincoln, legal document, broke kansas-nebraska, mexico war, constitution recognized, tenth amendment, states-righters argued, federal government, abolitionists argued,
Approximate Word count = 1142
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)