Expansionist Tension
From 1800 to 1850 territorial expansion tore the United States apart. Territorial expansion itself was not a debated issue. Spurred by the concept of Manifest Destiny, almost everyone believed that America should extend from sea to shining sea and maybe even farther. But it was the issue of the expansion of slavery into the new territories that pitted the North against the South and split our nation apart.
The first real crisis over territorial expansion took place in 1819-1821 over the admission of the state of Missouri. The proposed state of Missouri was the first (beside Louisiana itself) to be carved out of the Louisiana Purchase. It lay out of the jurisdiction of the Northwest Ordinance, which prohibited slavery in the Northwest Territories, and had a long tradition of slavery. Therefore, in 1817 Missouri applied to the Union as a slave state. The extension of slavery so far north and the threat of further expansion of slavery into all new territories......
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