| | United States @ LaunchBase.com (Launch Base) (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-01) |
 | | As new territories were being incorporated, the nation was divided over the issue of states' rights, the role of the federal government, and, by the 1820s, the expansion of slavery, which had been legal in all thirteen of the colonies but was rarer in the north, where it was abolished by 1804. |
 | | The Northern states were opposed to the expansion of slavery whereas the Southern states saw the opposition as an attack on their way of life, since their economy was dependent on slave labor. |
 | | The economic history of the United States is a story of economic growth that began with marginally successful colonial economies and progressed to the largest industrial economy in the world in the 20th and early 21st century. |
| www.launchbase.com /encyclopedia/United_States (6373 words) |