During the 1850s, the United States of America was politically
divided when democrats advocating state’s rights and the right to slavery and
the Whigs who believed in strong government to protect Republican values. Both have argued on issues of on expansion
and slavery. Expansion at the time was accompanied by slavery. As new territories were added, arguments
would erupt on the issue of allowing slavery into new territories. The Kansas-Nebraska Act eventually pushed the
political divide on these issues even further.
Eventually it lead to the American Civil War.