# data[].attributes.body
Westward Expansion
Slavery
Industry vs. Farming
Abraham Lincoln
States Rights
Secession

# data[].attributes.body
Former U.S. president Thomas Jefferson believed that the nation's future depended on its westward expansion and purchased the Louisiana Territory. By 1840, millions of Americans had migrated westward in hopes of securing land. The belief that settlers were destined to expand west is called Manifest Destiny. Manifest Destiny was used to justify the war with Mexico in the 1840s which resulted in the U.S. gaining Texas and most of the South west.

# data[].attributes.body
By the end of the American Revolution, slavery in the North was dying out. Even in the South it was becoming less useful to farmers as tobacco prices fluctuated and began to drop. However, in 1793 Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin, making it possible for plantations to use the type of cotton most easily grown in the South.

# data[].attributes.body
The industrial revolution began in the North, during the first few decades of the 19th century. It brought about a machine age economy that relied on wage laborers, not slaves. At the same time, the warmer Southern states continued to rely on slaves for their farming economy and cotton production.

# data[].attributes.body
The struggle between the federal government and individual states over political power. This struggle focused heavily on the institution of slavery and whether the federal government had the right to regulate or even abolish slavery within an individual state

# data[].attributes.body
In the election in 1860 Abraham Lincoln won as Americas 16th President. Lincoln ran on a message of containing slavery and all new states were required to be free.

# data[].attributes.body
South Carolina was the first state to secede from the Union on December 20 1860, and was one of the founder members of the Confederacy. The bombardment of the beleaguered U.S. garrison at Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor on April 12, 1861 is normally reckoned as the first military engagement of the war.

# data[].attributes.body
Thomas, Lauren. "Prelude to the Civil War, 1840–1861." American History, ABC-CLIO, 2017, americanhistory.abc-clio.com/Topics/Display/12. Accessed 4 Dec. 2017.

Thomas, Lauren. "The Civil War, 1861–1865." American History, ABC-CLIO, 2017, americanhistory.abc-clio.com/Topics/Display/14. Accessed 4 Dec. 2017.

Thomas, Lauren. "Reconstruction, 1865–1877." American History, ABC-CLIO, 2017, americanhistory.abc-clio.com/Topics/Display/13. Accessed 5 Dec. 2017.