When the Party System Broke
Two more attempts, and a verdict
- The courts and national leaders made a variety of attempts to resolve the issue of slavery in the territories, including the Kansas-Nebraska Act, and the Dred Scott decision, but these ultimately failed to reduce conflict.
- Ultimately failed to reduce conflict is the CED's verdict on the whole sequence, including 5.4's Compromise of 1850.
- So the political causes of the war are not a series of blunders; they are the exhaustion of every available mechanism.
Select both attempts 5.6 adds to the Compromise of 1850.
The CED's verdict: they ultimately failed to reduce conflict.
The Second Party System ended
- The Second Party System ended when the issues of slavery and anti-immigrant nativism weakened loyalties to the two major parties and fostered the emergence of sectional parties, most notably the Republican Party in the North.
- Two issues did it: slavery and anti-immigrant nativism — 5.5's two halves acting together.
- Sectional parties is the fatal phrase: a party that exists in one region cannot lose an election gracefully in the other.
Select both issues that ended the Second Party System.
5.5's two halves acting together.
Why national parties had held the union together
- A party with voters in every region must produce positions every region can live with, so it suppresses sectional demands.
- 4.8's Democrats and Whigs did exactly that, which is why the boundary question could be argued about for decades.
- Remove the national parties and nothing between the regions absorbs the disagreement any more.
A failed attempt, a cause of the break, or the result?
Sort each element of the political crisis.
A sectional party is fatal to the union because it...
National parties had suppressed sectional demands.
A national party suppresses sectional demands; a sectional party cannot. The Second Party System ended when slavery and nativism fostered the emergence of sectional parties, most notably the Republican Party in the North — and once that happened, nothing between the regions absorbed the disagreement.
A judicial ruling on territorial slavery mattered because it...
4.2 established judicial primacy in interpretation.
A court decision that removed an option
- 4.2 established that the judiciary claims the final word on what the Constitution means.
- So a judicial ruling on slavery in the territories does not merely add an opinion; it closes off legislative solutions.
- That is why the CED lists a court decision beside an act of Congress as attempts that failed together.
Put the political chain to war in order.
The last link makes 5.7's election possible.
The political causes of the war
- The objective is the political causes of the Civil War — political, so the answer is about institutions and parties.
- The chain: territorial acquisition forces a binary question → compromise and court both fail → national parties break → sectional parties form.
- Four links, and the last one is what makes 5.7's election possible.
An organisation that needs votes in two places must find a sentence both will accept. Take away its need for the second place and the sentence disappears, along with the reason anyone was looking for it.
The courts and national leaders made a variety of attempts to resolve the issue of slavery in the territories, including the Kansas-Nebraska Act, and the Dred Scott decision, but these ultimately failed to reduce conflict. The Second Party System ended when the issues of slavery and anti-immigrant nativism weakened loyalties to the two major parties and fostered the emergence of sectional parties, most notably the Republican Party in the North.