Select the correct text in the passage. Which sentence of the text highlights the Southern states’ beliefs on the value of slavery? In the decades leading up to the 1860s, several arguments arose about the rights of individual states versus the national government. One of these arguments was about states' rights, with appeals for and against slavery at its core. Southern states did not want to give up their perceived right to enslave people for economic purposes. Northern states demanded that slavery be abolished and that newly admitted states to the Union would be free states. The North’s position was viewed by the South as an attempt to weaken their political and economic power as well as their general way of life. This fear eventually led to the Southern states seceding from the Union and the start of one of the most momentous events in U. S. history—the Civil War.