After the Mexican War, the slavery issue that was put down for a while came back with full force. With a lot of land in the West the discussion of whether slavery should be allowed in these new territories came.
- The first argument against allowing slavery in the new states were that this would unbalance the number of states that allowed slavery and those which did not.
- The second argument that lay underneath all this discussion was a struggle for power between North and South, the region which won the discussion would be more powerful in the political game.
- The third argument was protecting white workers, which would lose space in those new territories if slavery was accepted, this would cause degradation of white labor and the reduction of its value.
