Unfortunately the federal government did not attempt to establish a satisfactory currency system. In 1837 and again in 1857 the country was visited by a financial panic due in a large measure to extravagant speculation, much of which would have been impossible had the issue of money been properly regulated. On the whole the period from 1830 to 1860 was one of great prosperity and contentment. The wealth of the nation grew enormously and for the most part it was equally distributed, there being few paupers and still fewer very rich individuals. The twenty years following 1840 have been called the "golden age" of American history, and as far as concerns the diffusion of material comforts they certainly deserve the name. Notwithstanding the great material prosperity however, the flames of sectionalism, which had blazed forth during the contest over the adoption of the "American System" remained unquenched even after the question of protection had ceased to be an important political issue. Filled with animosity engendered by the thought that the economic progress of the North had been effected at the expense of the South, and fearful that the fulminations of the abolitionists and the successful efforts of the Northern political leaders to restrict the territorial expansion of slavery only foretold an ultimate intention of destroying that institution altogether, the Southern partisans decided to sever the political bonds between the two sections, the economic institutions of which differed so widely, and to establish a separate state whose political ideals would conform to its economic and social predilections. This decision the Southerners stood ready to enforce by an appeal to arms; the people of the North, preferring "to accept war rather than let the nation perish," made ready to prevent the proposed dissolution of the Union; and the era of general happiness and comfort ended amid the preparations for the impending struggle. III 1860-1900