Answer questions a and b on 1 and 2

1a The Democratic National Convention held in 1860 concluded without a nominee that was agreed by everyone:- later a second convention nominated Stephen A. Douglas for president. He was a supporter of the concept of popular sovereignty, alienated many Southern Democrats. This was the primary cause of the division in the party.

1b - The South was not very pleased with the result of the election: as Lincoln's election became evident, many states made clear their will to leave the Union before he took office the next March. The first one was, on December 20, 1860, South Carolina; by February 1, 1861, Florida, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas followed.

- Lincoln tried in many ways to reassure the south: his support to the Corwin Amendment - the amendment that would have protected slavery in states where it already existed and was a guarantee that Congress would not interfere with slavery without Southern consent - was a clear example of the fact that he was trying to keep the states as a one federal nation. 

2a The event that marked the beginning of the civil war was Firing on Fort Sumter in 1861. On April 12, the Confederate forces fired on Union troops, forcing them to surrender. Then, the war quickly escalates by gravity and importance, becoming a key conflict in the history of the United States as we know today.

2b What Lincon intended to say with that sentence was that both Democratic and Republican party have made big declarations of condemning of the war state, but the Democratic party was capable of going to war and ruin the country, instead of sitting at a table negotiating as it was done before many times before leading to war.