territorial acquisitions

The acquisition of vast new territories in the United States both helped and hurt the growing nation. However, in regards to the Missouri Compromise, the acquisition of Florida, and the fight over the admittance of Texas as a U.S. state, the nation was hurt through strained domestic tensions between the North and the South. The Missouri Compromise sought to keep the balance between North and South by allowing Missouri as a slave state and Maine as a free state while no slaves (except in Missouri) were allowed past the line of 36 30'. This "compromise" did little to ease the North-South conflicts; they both yielded and gained something, but the slavery issue was not resolved and tensions remained. The Florida Purchase Treaty of 1819, in which Spain ceded Florida to the U.S. in exchange for America's abandonment of claims in Texas, also underlined political seperations. Previously, the bands of indians, runaway slaves, and white outcasts that had fled from Florida into American territory while Spain was fighting South American rebels had created social rifts. Texan independance and admittance into the United States, which resulted from Texas-Mexican battles in the 1830s, eventually led to an increase in North-South conflicts. The Northerners opposed annexation of Texas because they viewed it as a conspiracy to bring new slave areas into the Union whereas the Southerners were anxious to integrate with Texas and accept the vast new amounts of land it held. These many conflicting factors between the North and the South at this time period were largely due to acquisition of new states and westward expansion. Becuase the North and South states could not agree upon the balance between slave and free states, the topic was left unsolved and neither side was staisfied--which boosted tensions even more. All of these conflicts and regional tensions continued to grow until an outlet was found in the civil War.