For the US, those questions arose in the 1840s and 1850s, when the urgent need for a union to secure independence had faded, causing issues and conflicts that had been papered over to resurface. In particular, slavery was allowed in some states, but prohibited in others, and the 1787 compromise to count each slave as three-fifths of a person when determining a state’s population for representation and taxation was fraying.
美国在19世纪40年代和50年代出现了上述问题，当时独立联盟的必要性已逐渐减退，于是重新出现了之前被掩盖的冲突和问题。特别是某些州允许奴隶制存在，但其他州则严令禁止，而1787年在确定州代表及税收人口时将每名奴隶算作五分之三人的妥协日益暴露出问题。工业化北部和农业化南部之间的经济差异意味着就各州权利展开的讨论同时关乎生活和生计。因此爆发了一场恐怖的战争，美国打败了分离的南部联邦，并强制推行其联盟愿景。