In which we take a look at the Dred Scott case and the fiasco over the Lecompton Constitution, and show how the snowballing negative consequences from those events finally caused the Democratic Party to, once & for all, split along sectional lines. A unified Republican Party will take advantage of that split & win the presidency in 1860.

In which we discuss the three-way presidential contest of 1856 and its importance to the rise of the Republican Party. Plus, we see Abraham Lincoln start to position himself to be a leading national figure in the party.

In which we look at the brutal caning of Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts by Congressman Preston Brooks of South Carolina in May, 1856.

In which we talk about Stephen Douglas's sponsorship of the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, the ensuing violence in "Bleeding Kansas," & the rise of the Republican Party as a direct result of Northern outrage over the Kansas-Nebraska Act.