Step-by-step explanation:
The issue of slavery had a significant effect on politics in the 1850s by creating divisions that ended the Whig Party and split the Democratic Party. The question of whether slavery should be allowed or prohibited in new territories and states became a central issue in American politics, leading to a series of contentious debates and legislative battles. The Democratic Party, which had previously been a coalition of Northern and Southern Democrats, split along regional lines over the issue of slavery, with Southern Democrats advocating for its expansion and Northern Democrats opposing it. The Whig Party, which had struggled to maintain a cohesive position on slavery, disintegrated as a political force, with many former Whigs joining the new Republican Party, which was formed in 1854 explicitly to oppose the expansion of slavery. The issue of slavery thus became a defining and divisive issue in American politics in the 1850s, setting the stage for the sectional conflict that would eventually lead to the Civil War.