The changed orientation was reflected in domestic political alignments. In the 1790s, different attitudes toward the French Revolution had been of basic importance in defining the political allegiances of Americans as either Federalists or Republicans. In the second party conflict that would emerge as Monroe’s consensus disintegrated, different attitudes toward westward expansion, Indian policy, and war against Mexico would be correspondingly fundamental. In the 1850s, a third party system would also emerge out of a problem created by westward expansion: the extension of slavery into the
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