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The civil war and the reconstruction

By the middle of the 19lh century, Americans had greatly expanded westward, spreading their "Manifested Destiny" over the whole continent, and up to 1860, the proportion of Americans living west of the Appalachians grew from one quarter to one half. The process that had been set in motion by the Louisiana Purchase and annexation of Florida in 1819—1821 continued during the whole century.

The new territories were settled in the west, and when new frontier settlements were organized in the territory that had 60,000 free inhabitants and a governing body, it could be admitted to the Union "on an equal footing with the original states in all respects". Before the Louisiana Purchase four new states were admitted — Vermont (1791), Kentucky (1792), Tennessee (1796) and Ohio (1803). These states were the results of the first attempts to settle western frontiers, they (except Vermont, which was carved from original colonies) were settled by people from the original colonies (Ohio was carved from Pennsylvania's western frontier, Kentucky — from Virginia's, and Tennessee — from North Carolina's), so the patterns of living and settlement in the new states had much in common with original colonies.

Soon the earlier division into New England, Middle States and the South changed into the North (New England and Middle States), the South (old and new southern states) and the West (new states in the northwest). While the South was predominantly rural, with cotton plantations and farms, the West implemented manufactures and the North was characterized by growing industry, commerce and finance.

The main difference new states preserved was slavery — new northern states joined the Union as free states, while new southern states preserved and developed the slave-owning system of the Old South.

New States: Free or Slave?

The other big number of new states joined the Union between 1810 and 1820. These were Louisiana (1812), Indiana (1816), Mississippi (1817), Illinois (1818) and Alabama (1819). Three of them – Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama were slave states, Indiana and Illinois were free states. This division reflected the difference between the slave society of the South and the free society of the North it also provoked hot debates in the Senate and the House of Representatives.

As slavery now was an issue of fights and controversies between northerners and southerners, both sides understood the importance of maintaining an equal number of free and slave states in the Union as they had equal number of representatives in the Senate. However, population was growing faster in the North, which permitted northern states to have a clear majority in the House of Representatives.

The issue of slavery had already begun to divide the nation – northerners viewed slavery as a shameful institution, which hampered progressive development of the democratic society, while southerners understood slavery as an integral part of the plantation economy, when thousands of blacks were growing cotton, tobacco and rice.

In 1819, Missouri, which had 10,000 slaves, applied to enter the Union as a slave state. This admission could ruin the balance between free and slave states in the Senate and was opposed by northerners. The difficult situation was resolved by the so-called Missouri Compromise – a document accepted under the pressure from House Speaker Henry Clay. Now, to maintain the balance in the Senate (equal number of senators from free and salve states), new slave states had to enter the Union together with free states.

Following this scheme Missouri was finally admitted to the Union in 1821 as a slave state, while Maine was carved of the state of Massachusetts and joined the Union as a free state.

The authors of the document also restricted the rules of admitting new states – slavery was forever prohibited on the territory north of Missouri's southern boundary, now the territories north of 36° 30' could enter the Union as free states only.

Though the danger of quarrels over the issue of slavery had been removed from the agenda of the Congress, it was just a stopgap measure. Acquisitions of new lands and further westward expansion soon made the question of slavery unavoidable. It was finally settled in the Civil War.

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