What terrible event in the 1600s revealed the ferocity that existed just below the surface in Northern culture?

The Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution ended slavery in the United States.  Before that, the Emancipation Proclamation freed all slaves in states at war in 1863.

After the tariff crisis of the 1830s, southerners realized the north and west together could pass any manner of laws they chose.  That must have been a bit intimidating, but how did southerners respond? 

Why did the lecture argue that James Polk was a dangerous president?

Lectures argued that the following events were not of great significance and have been overrated in United States history – the War of 1812, the Revolution of 1800, the Caning of Charles Sumner.

Lectures noted that the Constitution of the Southern Confederacy was careful never to mention slavery.   This was so the southern nation could attract trade partners with nations that banned slavery.

So if the 1830s was the “Decade of Discovery,” what was the decade of expansion – the decade when the United States acquired and began to settle vast amounts of new territory?

What terrible event turned George Washington into the calm, remarkable leader beloved in the United States to this day?

Starting about 1848, a huge argument broke out in Congress about adding one particular western territory to the United States. Fighting over this territory grew so severe that Congress was gridlocked for months. What was the territory?  Why the argument?

When Alexander Hamilton said “I sincerely esteem it a system which without the finger of God never could have been suggested and agreed upon” he was writing in reference to