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How did Congress resolve the argument and disagreement that broke out over California’s attempt to join the United States?

Why did the Kansas-Nebraska Act go into effect?   Considering all the damage that resulted from this law, what was the purpose of this legislation?

A number of future Civil War soldiers and leaders fought in the Mexican-American War. 

Here’s the preamble of the Constitution of the Confederate States of America (the nation formed by the South after secession).  Given what we know about United States history since the nation’s earliest days, what about this statement should have alarmed southerners?   “We, the people of the Confederate States, each State acting in its sovereign and independent character, in order to form a permanent federal government, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity invoking the favor and guidance of Almighty God do ordain and establish this Constitution for the Confederate States of America.”

When southern states turned themselves into a Confederacy – a political system in which each state is sovereign – they were attempting an arrangement that had never before been tried in United States history.  

With the Gold Rush, California’s population rapidly swelled to nearly 100,000 people in about a year.  Accordingly, California petitioned to become a formal United States territory.  That’s a normal part of the process of becoming a state.  What happened when California made this completely reasonable request and why?

Who rules in a republic?

In 1832, South Carolina nullified the federal tariff and refused to collect the tax.  President Andrew Jackson threatened to respond with force.   A civil war might have broken out at this point.  Why didn’t it, according to the lectures?

What was the argument put forward the the “South Carolina Exposition and Protest?

So many people traveled the Oregon Trail that swales (ruts) from the trail are visible to this day.