indicates state with Laws Summary and Record. (Click a state on the map to view.) indicates state with In-Depth Historical Essay. (Click a state on the map to view.) This map depicts the slave and non-slaveholding states at the outbreak of the Civil War, along with the dates when each non-slaveholding state legally ended slavery. In the 1850s, the issue of slavery's spread into the western territories divided the nation politically and spawned new political parties, including the Republican Party--which was dedicated to the non-expansion of slavery westward. Southern whites bitterly contested the threat to slavery posed by northern "free soil" politicians, abolitionists, and militant anti-slavery advocates, such as John Brown. Much was at stake for whites and blacks in the nation in 1860, including the very future of slavery itself. Southern whites feared the outbreak of slave rebellions, and almost everyone in the nation talked seriously about the possibility of a civil war between the North and the South.