The short answer is slavery. The long answer is tensions involving slavery between Northern industrial states and Southern agrarian states over a long period. This act of liberty imprisonment wove its long impressionable fingers into political, geographical, economical, and moral facets of the emerging Union, constantly picking a fight between its supporters and rivals. It was a notable topic tossed to the side in every debate that dealt with the economy, states’ rights, and land expansion; as told by Andrew Jackson’s comments pertaining to the Missouri Compromise of 1820: “Considered it at once as the knell of the Union. It (slavery) is hushed indeed for the moment. But this is a reprieve only, not a final sentence. A geographical line, coinciding with a marked principle, moral and political, once conceived and help up to the angry passions of men, will never be obliterated; and every new irritation will mark it deeper and deeper.”
The short answer is slavery. The long answer is tensions involving slavery between Northern industrial states and Southern agrarian states over a long period. This act of liberty imprisonment wove its long impressionable fingers into political, geographical, economical, and moral facets of the emerging Union, constantly picking a fight between its supporters and rivals. It was a notable topic tossed to the side in every debate that dealt with the economy, states’ rights, and land expansion; as told by Andrew Jackson’s comments pertaining to the Missouri Compromise of 1820: “Considered it at once as the knell of the Union. It (slavery) is hushed indeed for the moment. But this is a reprieve only, not a final sentence. A geographical line, coinciding with a marked principle, moral and political, once conceived and help up to the angry passions of men, will never be obliterated; and every new irritation will mark it deeper and deeper.”