How did the question of slavery emerge as a national issue? What compromises were brokered to deal with this issue? What drove it to continue to be debated by the federal government? Why did slavery re-emerge as a national political issue in the late 1840s? What reasons did opponents of slavery give for wanting to eliminate the institution, and what arguments did those who practiced slavery use to defend it? Could there have been a better answer to the problem of slavery than a bloody Civil War?
