Manifest Destiny was the vigorous force of nationalism that led the United States on a path of territorial expansion and war. The ramifications of the Mexican War included a new set of troubling and divisive questions. Through the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, the United States acquired vast new territories. The ultimate question would center on the status of slavery in these newly organized territories. Ironically, the relentless westward expansion that seemed to bring the nation together inevitably reinstated bitter controversies that haunted the Union's stability. Despite tedious efforts, compromises on the contentious issue of slavery have failed to produce a lasting resolution that could ease sectoral tensions. The “impending crisis” of the mid-19th century caustically perpetuated the Union's sectional discord. Consequently, the Kansas-Nebraska controversy along with the ambiguous notion of "popular sovereignty" generated such internal animosity that it tore America in two, ultimately paving the way for civil war. Significantly, the impasse over slavery greatly increased political tumult to such a degree that sectional crises and unpleasant interpretations ultimately rendered the Constitution tainted by its inability to preserve the disintegrating Union from secession and the civil war. Nevertheless, the Constitution ultimately succeeded in rightly saving the Perpetual Union. In the early 1850s, a series of sectional conflicts invigorated political pressure to resolve the plight of slavery in the far western territories. Southerners feared that admitting California and other Western territories as free states would upset the balance of representation (Doc. A...... middle of paper ......g war The Constitution's flaws lay in its indeterminacy. The Fugitive Slave Clause and the Three-Fifths Compromise appeared to recognize slavery. Comparatively, Northerners and Southerners had fundamentally different interpretations of the Constitution. and what the Framers had designated was quite evident at the executive and legislative level. The United States would have to wait until 1865-1870 for the Reconstruction Amendments to be ratified, putting a constitutional end to the impulses that gave rise to such. upheavals in the mid-19th century failed to prevent the outbreak of civil war, it ultimately provided Abraham Lincoln with the imperative tools to quell insurrection and thus protect the perpetual Union...