When the constitution was being forged, there was much discussion about what exactly the nation was to be. Later, when the northern states decided that slavery was to be illegal, southern states were concerned about how they would continue to run their plantations. The issue of states’ rights was one of the largest concerns during the time before the civil war broke out. Southern states wanted to decide for themselves if slavery was to be legal;they were not allowing northern states to make such decisions for them. People from the North found the practice to be so reprehensible that they wanted to force the South to stop the practice. While slavery was a significant reason for the civil war, states’ rights divided the nation.
