One of the nightmares of the authors of the constitution was that political parties might form, thereby creating tensions that could result in civil war. despite the best efforts of the founding fathers, parties formed rather quickly, yet the "nightmare" did not happen—the early republic’s political system proved to have a remarkable amount of flexibility. this flexibility had all but disappeared by the 1850s—the system was brittle, compromise impossible, and, with the election of lincoln, it broke. why did the two-party system work as well as it did in the 1790s? why did it continue to function during the turbulent jacksonian period of the 1820s and 1830s? why had the system’s flexibility disappeared by the late-1850s? your answer should cite specific facts and details drawn from lectures and assigned readings