Since the beginning of its new nation, the United States had many differences between the Northern and Southern states. During the Constitutional Convention, they disagreed on how to determine their representation in the House based on population; southerners wanted to count their slaves and northerners did not, leading to the three-fifths compromise. Later in the Convention, concessions were made to the South that left Northerners uneasy, such as: a guarantee that the slave trade would not be interfered with by Congress until 1808 and that slave owners Slaves had the right to collect refugee slaves from anywhere. in the United States. Although many Northern delegates were disappointed with the rights granted to the South, they believed it was necessary for the good of the nation. This was necessary to form a strong central government and a union between the states. As the country began to grow and expand, we continued to see disagreements between the North and the South; the Missouri Territory requested statehood, the South wanted it admitted as a slave state and the North as a free state. Henry Clay ultimately proposed the Missouri Compromise, making Missouri a slave state and making Maine its own state entering the union as a free state. After this compromise, any state admitted to the union south of latitude 36° 30' would be a slave state and a state to the north would be free. The country was very divided at that time. Thomas Jefferson felt this was a threat to the Union. In 1821 he wrote: “I fear that not all see the point on our horizon which must burst upon us like a tornado, sooner or later. The line of division recently drawn between the different parts of our confederacy is such...... middle of paper ...... in addition to Dew's reasons for the Civil War, I believe Silbey also presented a excellent point. The North and South had been divided for years on many issues, but the majority of Congress had come together when necessary for the good of the Nation, until 1854. After Lincoln won the election By 1860, the Nation was divided by sectionalism. . Due to the division of the nation and southerners' paranoia about freeing slaves, I believe both issues were the causes that led to the Civil War. American Stories: A History of the United States. 2nd ed. Boston: Pearson Education, 2012. Print. Madaras, Larry and James M. SoRelle. Issue 14 “Was Slavery the Key Issue in the Sectional Conflict Leading to the Civil War?” » Take sides. 13th ed. Dubuque, IA: McGraw Hill Higher Education, 2009. 310-329. Print.