and internal improvements. Slavery and the Civil War Slavery had been present in North America since colonial times, but it did not become a major political issue in the United States until the 1830s. National political ideology was not as influential during this period, with sectional politics between the northern and southern states driving political activity. All of the northern states had abolished slavery by 1805, but it was still widely practiced in the southern states until the Civil War (1861–1865). Abolitionism had been present in the United States since the country's foundation, but this period of sectionalism brought it into the mainstream, and by the 1840s slavery had become the nation's primary political issue. The Republican Party was formed after the collapse of the Whig Party in the 1850s to reflect the political ideologies of the northern states. It immediately replaced the Whig Party as a major political party, supporting social mobility, egalitarianism, and limitations on slavery. The two major political factions of the Republican Party were the Radical Republicans, who supported total abolition of slavery and strong action against the secessionist states, and the moderates, who supported concessions with the southern states. At the same time, some nationalist Americans advocated expansionism and manifest destiny, seeking to acquire additional territory. Many of these individuals wished for additional territory to create additional slave states. Secessionism became prominent in South Carolina during the Nullification crisis in 1832. Secessionists opposed the protectionist tariffs of 1828 and 1832, threatening to secede if the federal government attempted to enforce them. Secession and military conflict were averted by a compromise tariff in 1833. The secessionist movement in South Carolina grew more popular in the 1850s as the issue of slavery became more contentious. In 1861, fearing that the federal government would restrict or abolish slavery, South Carolina was the first of 11 states to secede from the United States and form the Confederate States of America, prompting the Civil War. Democrats in the northern states were split between the War Democrats that supported military action to prevent secession and the Copperheads that opposed military action. During the Reconstruction era from 1865 to 1877, politics focused on resolving the issues of the Civil War. The ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery in the United States, and ideologies based on the issue of slavery were made irrelevant. The Radical Republicans supported liberal reforms during Reconstruction to