Sympathy can be defined as the feelings of pity or sorrow for someone else's misfortune, whereas having empathy is more of a mental trait that lets you identify with a person by an experience of feelings, thoughts, and attitudes of that person. Empathy is more thinking about the feeling then just considering it. Empathy is an essential tool for historians so that they have a deeper insight into the motives and thoughts of certain historical figures or actions made by the subject who is being studied. This is important so that they may understand why a certain person did something instead of judging them quickly and forming premature opinions. Without empathy, historians might have a skewed view on many topics which will cause them to have a narrow mind scape and prohibit them from being able to discover and dig deeper.

From the 1600s to the Civil War,  the U.S. grew from individual colonies to a larger, united country with a more defined constitution and government. However, the nation did face many challenges during the pre-civil war era facing massive population growth, tax raises, drastic constitutional changes, territorial struggles, as well as the tensions and law making surrounding slavery. Up till the civil war the nation stayed united through the Great Compromise which put many of the large problems surrounding slavery at bay, along with the the actual establishment of the United States of America which put the constitution in effect creating less room for major problems to surface.