The Manifest Destiny And Gold Rush In California

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In 1861, the bloodiest war fought on American soil started. Different opinions from the north and south clashed and dispersed to the west. The movement of people and ideas westward created new tensions over the topic of slavery as well as new ways to ignore the ever-growing conflict that it was. These new developments influenced the opinion of the public and caused dispute, ultimately leading to the start of the Civil War. The Manifest Destiny and Gold Rush in California were some of the first times people started feeling the need to move west. Westward movers advocated that God was with them on their journey and it was "destiny" to expand across the entire continent of North America. This expansion gave way to new areas of slavery, such as California. Califonia is split in half by the Missouri …show more content…

Another territory affected by the compromise is the Kansas-Nebraska territory. New states cause an unbalance in the Senate with one view of slavery overpowering the other. The Lincoln-Douglas Debates were one of the turning points in the events leading to the start of the war. The debates set an outline for the new ways that the future leaders were going to handle slavery. Lincoln expressed that he wanted slavery to stay where it was, but Douglas thought the states should be able to choose if they had slavery or not using a system called popular sovereignty. Popular sovereignty was a way for Douglas to lay out a clear path for the railroad dream he had through the Kansas-Nebraska territory. He wanted Chicago to become busy with economic growth and as well as a new center for business. This new railroad would bring in