I need help with American History.?

Because of the compromises made in the decades leading up to the Civil War, there was a rough balance between states that were admitted to the Union as areas where slavery was illegal and areas were it was not. It became a lot more complicated as the expansion beyond the Mississippi began; people moving from slave-holding states into the newer states considered their slaves as possessions, just like horses, cattle, wagons and such. Just as you wouldn't expect the people in your new home to object to your bringing your livestock and household goods along, people who owned slaves couldn't understand why others didn't see their slaves in the same light. On the other hand, many people who had not grown up in places where slavery was not the norm saw the slaves as what they were: human beings with no rights apart from those their owners chose to grant. It's pretty plain that this frequently led to the fulfillment of the adage that "Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely." As always, there were some slave owners who treated their slaves with basic kindness, treated them like people instead of horses or cattle, and even freed their slaves during their lifetime or in their wills. Some even defied the laws of their various state and taught them to read and write and ensured that their former slaves would possess the necessary skills to prepare them for life after freedom. Of course, there were also the sort of slave holders who cared little or nothing for their slaves, the sort whose dogs and horses were treated far better than their bond people. Then, too, even the most kind and considerate slave owners often ran into financial trouble and the first thing to be sold was, normally, some slaves. This is the kind of situation in which slave families were often broken up, because the bottom line was that you could get more cash by selling a family of four or five individually than by selling them as a group. The Northern states were hotbeds of the Abolitionist movement, particularly in the cities of the Northeast such as Boston, New York, and Philadelphia, and as people from these areas began to move to newly opened territory in the West, they took their opinions with them, so naturally there were serious clashes between the slave owners and those from the Northeast. I'd tell you more, but I think you've got some ideas now for a launching pad. I'd also suggest that you look up "Bleeding Kansas" in a search engine. This situation really put the strife "on the front page," as it were. Also check out "Popular Sovereignty."

Well, compromise is basically when two or more groups agree on a solution that both of them can live with, but isn't perfect to either. In delaying the Civil War... Jeez, I haven't taken American History in forever, but I do believe that when adding states to the union, the North wanted free states, and the South wanted slave states, so a compromise would have been adding one slave state and one free state. I assume your essay is asking for that kind of information.