It can be argued that the road to the Civil War began before the United States was officially founded. The seeds of the conflict lay in the different paths that the North and the South were already traveling at the time of the Revolution, with the major fault line being the issue of slavery. The historical documents and writings included in this book mark important points on the path starting with the Missouri Compromise to the Civil War's conclusion. These documents display how slavery became the overriding domestic conflict of the first half of the 19th Century and show the different ways that Congress tried to resolve the future of slavery in an expanding nation. The speeches of several key politicians and writers are included to provide insight into rhetoric of the time. From the Missouri Compromise to the Surrender at Appomattox contains very little commentary by its editors, other than to frame the documents in their historical context. Instead it is designed to let the documents speak for themselves.