Why did the elections of 1856 and 1860 not only fail to resolve the sectional crisis over slavery, but make it worse?

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

The ideal answer should include:
- End of national consensus:
* 1856 election: new Republican Party made up of northern Whigs, Free-Soil Party supporters, northern reformers, and Whig merchants and industrialists; American Party supported nativism; Republicans carry most of the North in a "victorious defeat"
* 1860 election: Democrats split into southern and northern factions-nominate Breckinridge and Douglas; Republicans remain a northern party and not on the ballot in the South; a regional contest-Douglas versus Lincoln in the North, Bell versus Breckinridge in the South
- Demise of national institutions:
* 1856 election: end of the Second Party American System; rise of Republican Party viewed as a threat by the South, which in turn jeopardized national unity
* 1860 election: end of the Union as seven Southern states secede after Lincoln's election, followed by four others after the start of the Civil War
- Cultural conflicts:
* 1856 election: issue of slavery in Kansas and the Kansas-Nebraska Act forced Democrats to nominate James Buchanan, "a northern man with southern principles," as a compromise candidate; Republicans were either antislavery or opposed extension of slavery into the territories; American Party was anti-immigrant and anti-Catholic; Southerners viewed Republican Party as a threat to their vital interests
* 1860 election: northern Republicans and southern Democrats thought the worst of each other; Southern political candidates who favored "patriotic forbearance" if Lincoln won were defeated in local elections; Southerners shocked by Lincoln's victory and began to view themselves as a permanent minority in a system pledged to end slavery; Southern cooperationists who opposed immediate secession were intimidated into silence; Lincoln had to decide how to address secession, even if it meant a civil war