Evaluate the extent to which the mexican-american war (1846–1848) marked a turning point in the debate over slavery in the united states, analyzing what changed and what stayed the same from the period before the war to the period after it.

The Mexican-American War has put the slavery question into a fiercer debate. The independent Republic of Texas was anti-slavery, but would like to join the United States. However, there is a question in the United States whether absorbed territory would be a slave or free state. The Americans emerged victorious in the war, and Texas became a part of the United States and became a slave state, further inflaming tensions between the North and the South that culminated into American Civil War.