ections grew perceptibly after 1820, the year of the Missouri Compromise. Difficulties over the tariff and troubles over internal improvements were also involved, but the territorial issue nearly always loomed largest. In the North moral indignation increased with the rise of the abolition in the 1830s. Since slavery was inadaptable to much of the territorial lands, which eventually would be admitted as free states, the South became more anxious about maintaining its position as an equal in the Union. Southerners thus strongly supported the annexatio
             ...