The questions was whether or not slavery would exist in the new territories that the US gained during the era of Manifest Destiny. The federal government tried to find a solution to this issue for a significant amount of the early to mid 1800’s. Despite deals like the Missouri Compromise, Compromise of 1850, and the Kansas Nebraska Act, the government was unable to find a permanent solution that would make both the North and South satisfied.
The fourteenth point proposed what was to become the League of Nations to guarantee the “political independence and territorial integrity [of] great and small states alike.” Though Wilson's idealism pervades the Fourteen Points, he also had more practical objectives in mind.
