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Defined
Sectionalism is loyalty to the interests of your own region or section of the country, rather than the nation as a whole.
Historical examples
In the United States, sectionalism demonstrated its growing influence when Missouri applied for statehood in 1817. Those living in the section of the Louisiana Purchase that would become Missouri wanted slavery to be legal in the state. However, if this happened, there would be twelve states that allowed slavery and only eleven that did not. This would upset the balance of power in the United States Congress between the slave states and the non-slave states.
The Missouri Compromise
The Missouri Compromise solved the problem and restored balance in the Congress by adding two new states to the Union, Maine and Missouri. Maine would be a state where slavery was illegal and Missouri would be a state where it was legal. Thus each section maintained its desired character.
The Civil War
In the United States from the early 1800s up to the American Civil War in the 1860s, there was the sectionalist crisis where advocates of sectionalism (mostly in the South) led by former Vice President and South Carolina senator John C. Calhoun believed that state legislatures could deny enforcement of Federal law if they felt it violated the United States Constitution. Many feared that if individual states could "pick and choose" Federal laws that it would be the end of the Union.
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