As the nation expanded west and new stars were added to the flag, a disturbing question kept recurring: would the new state enter the Union as a free state or a slave state? Slavery, the issue so carefully compromised at the Constitutional Convention, finally raised basic questions about American liberty that no compromise could resolve: Can human beings ever be property? Should slavery exist in a nation dedicated to freedom? Are all men created equal? When shots were fired at Fort Sumter in 1861, the line that separated the free states from the slave states became the line at which the fabric of our nation finally tore. Slavery was too important to the South and freedom too important to the North for any compromise to work. And each side thought the Constitution supported its views. It took the blood of 620,000 Americans to resolve the questions of liberty and equal rights that had been avoided back in 1787.