Question

How did westward expansion in the United States contribute to tensions between the North and the South before the Civil War?
A. It led to disputes over whether new states would allow slavery or not, increasing sectional conflict.
B. It created economic competition between the North and South over access to resources in new territories.
C. It led to the establishment of trade agreements that favored the South, angering the North.
D. It resulted in the South gaining more political power, weakening the North's influence.

Answer 1

A.

Westward expansion raised the central question of whether new territories and states would be slave or free. That dispute — addressed by the Missouri Compromise, the Compromise of 1850 (including the Fugitive Slave Act), the Kansas–Nebraska Act, and episodes like "Bleeding Kansas" — intensified sectional conflict between North and South.