Politically, the United States became increasingly unstable from 1776 to 1860 as a result of the challenge slavery and its expansion posed throughout the early history of the country. How did Americans struggle to strike a balance through various political measures? What concerns led both Northerners and Southerners to promote the expansion of their social systems in the West? Why was 1860 a tipping point in this struggle?

Slavery divided Americans from the beginning, but Americans demonstrated a shrewd ability to maintain unity in spite of division. In the 1770s, all of England’s North American colonies employed slave labor. Enslaved workers grew food, cultivated cash crops, worked in ports, and manufactured goods.. By November 1860, an opponent of slavery’s expansion arose from within the Republican Party. During the secession crisis that followed in 1860-1861, fears, nearly a century in the making, at last devolved into bloody war. (