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1860 United States presidential election

The 1860 United States presidential election was the 19th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 6, 1860. In a four-way contest, the Republican Party ticket of Abraham Lincoln and Hannibal Hamlin[2] won a national popular plurality, a popular majority in the North where states already had abolished slavery, and a national electoral majority comprising only Northern electoral votes. Lincoln's election thus served as the main catalyst of the states that would become the Confederacy seceding from the Union. This marked the first time that a Republican was elected president. It was also the first presidential election in which both major party candidates were registered in the same home state; the others have been in 1904, 1920, 1940, 1944, and 2016.

1860 United States presidential election

← 1856 November 6, 1860 1864 →

303 members of the Electoral College
152 electoral votes needed to win
Turnout81.8%[1] 2.4 pp
 
Nominee Abraham Lincoln John C. Breckinridge
Party Republican Southern Democratic
Home state Illinois Kentucky
Running mate Hannibal Hamlin Joseph Lane
Electoral vote 180 72
States carried 18 11
Popular vote 1,865,908 848,019
Percentage 39.8% 18.1%

 
Nominee John Bell Stephen A. Douglas
Party Constitutional Union Democratic
Alliance Unionist
Home state Tennessee Illinois
Running mate Edward Everett Herschel V. Johnson[nb 1]
Electoral vote 39 12
States carried 3 1
Popular vote 590,901 1,380,202
Percentage 12.6% 29.5%

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Presidential Election results map. Red denotes states won by Lincoln/Hamlin, green by Breckinridge/Lane, orange by Bell/Everett, and blue by Douglas/Johnson. Numbers indicate electoral votes cast by each state.

President before election

James Buchanan
Democratic

Elected President

Abraham Lincoln
Republican

The United States had become increasingly sectionally divided during the 1850s, primarily over extending slavery into the western territories. The incumbent president, James Buchanan, like his predecessor, Franklin Pierce, was a Northern Democrat with Southern sympathies. Buchanan also adamantly promised not to seek re-election. From the mid-1850s, the anti-slavery Republican Party became a major political force, driven by Northern voter opposition to the Kansas–Nebraska Act and the Supreme Court's 1857 decision in Dred Scott v. Sandford. From the election of 1856, the Republican Party had replaced the defunct Whig Party as the major opposition to the Democrats. A group of former Whigs and Know Nothings formed the Constitutional Union Party, which sought to avoid disunion by resolving divisions over slavery with some new compromise.

The 1860 Republican National Convention in Chicago nominated Abraham Lincoln, a moderate former one-term Whig Representative from Illinois. Its platform promised not to interfere with slavery in the South but opposed extension of slavery into the territories. The 1860 Democratic National Convention adjourned in Charleston, South Carolina, without agreeing on a nominee, but a second convention in Baltimore, Maryland, nominated Illinois Senator Stephen A. Douglas. Douglas's support for the concept of popular sovereignty, which called for each territory's settlers to decide locally on the status of slavery, alienated many radical pro-slavery Southern Democrats, who wanted the territories, and perhaps other lands, open to slavery. With President Buchanan's support, Southern Democrats held their own convention, nominating Vice President John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky. The 1860 Constitutional Union Convention, which hoped to avoid the slavery issue entirely, nominated a ticket led by former Tennessee Senator John Bell.

Lincoln's main opponent in the North was Douglas, who won the popular vote in Missouri, electoral votes in New Jersey, and the second highest popular vote total nationally. Douglas was the only candidate in the 1860 election to win electoral votes in both free and slave states. In the South, Bell won three states and Breckinridge swept the remaining 11. Lincoln's election motivated seven Southern states, all voting for Breckinridge, to secede before the inauguration in March. The American Civil War began less than two months after Lincoln's inauguration, with the Battle of Fort Sumter; afterwards four further states seceded. Lincoln would go on to win re-election in the 1864 United States presidential election. The election was the first of six consecutive Republican victories. Despite Lincoln's commanding victory, this was the first election in American history in which the winner has failed to win his home county, with Lincoln narrowly losing Sangamon County to Douglas. However, he would win Gasconade County which, as of the 2020 United States presidential election, has voted Republican ever since, marking the beginning of the longest active voting streak for any party at the county level.

Nominations edit

The 1860 presidential election conventions were unusually tumultuous, due in particular to a split in the Democratic Party that led to rival conventions.

Republican nomination edit

1860 Republican Party ticket
Abraham Lincoln Hannibal Hamlin
for President for Vice President
 
 
U.S. Representative
for Illinois's 7th
(1847–1849)
U.S. Senator from Maine
(1848–1857, 1857–1861)
Campaign

Republican candidates:

  • Abraham Lincoln, former representative from Illinois
  • William Seward, senator from New York
  • Simon Cameron, senator from Pennsylvania
  • Salmon P. Chase, governor of Ohio
  • Edward Bates, former representative from Missouri
  • John McLean, associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court
  • Benjamin Wade, senator from Ohio
  • William L. Dayton, former senator from New Jersey

Republican Party candidates gallery edit

 
Chicago Wigwam, site of the Republican Convention

The Republican National Convention met in mid-May 1860 after the Democrats had been forced to adjourn their convention in Charleston. With the Democrats in disarray and a sweep of the Northern states possible, the Republicans felt confident going into their convention in Chicago. William H. Seward from New York was considered the front-runner, followed by Salmon P. Chase from Ohio, and Missouri's Edward Bates. Abraham Lincoln from Illinois, was lesser-known, and was not considered to have a good chance against Seward. Seward had been governor and senator of New York and was an able politician with a Whig background. Also running were John C. Frémont, William L. Dayton, Cassius M. Clay, and Benjamin Wade, who might be able to win if the convention deadlocked.[3]

As the convention developed, however, it was revealed that frontrunners Seward, Chase, and Bates had each alienated factions of the Republican Party. Seward had been painted as a radical, and his speeches on slavery predicted inevitable conflict, which spooked moderate delegates. He also was firmly opposed to nativism, which further weakened his position. He had also been abandoned by his longtime friend and political ally Horace Greeley, publisher of the influential New-York Tribune.[3]

Chase, a former Democrat, had alienated many of the former Whigs by his coalition with the Democrats in the late 1840s. He had also opposed tariffs demanded by Pennsylvania and even had opposition from his own delegation from Ohio.[citation needed] However, Chase's firm antislavery stance made him popular with the Radical Republicans. But what he offered in policy he lacked in charisma and political acumen.[3]

The conservative Bates was an unlikely candidate but found support from Horace Greeley, who sought any chance to defeat Seward, with whom he now had a bitter feud. Bates outlined his positions on the extension of slavery into the territories and equal constitutional rights for all citizens, positions that alienated his supporters in the border states and Southern conservatives, while German Americans in the party opposed Bates because of his past association with the Know Nothings.[3]

Into this mix came Lincoln. Lincoln was not unknown; he had gained prominence in the 1858 Lincoln–Douglas debates and had represented Illinois in the House of Representatives. He had been quietly eyeing a run since the debates, ensuring that they were widely published and that a biography of himself was published. He gained great notability with his acclaimed February 1860 Cooper Union speech, which may have ensured him the nomination although he had not yet announced his intentions to run. Delivered in Seward's home state and attended by Greeley, Lincoln used the speech to show that the Republican party was a party of moderates, not crazed fanatics, as Southerners and Democrats claimed. Afterward, Lincoln was in much demand for speaking engagements.[3][4] As the convention approached, Lincoln did not campaign actively, as the "office was expected to seek the man". So it did at the Illinois state convention, a week before the national convention. Young politician Richard Oglesby found several fence rails that Lincoln may have split as a youngster and paraded them into the convention with a banner that proclaimed Lincoln to be "The Rail Candidate" for president. Lincoln received a thunderous ovation, surpassing his and his political allies' expectations.[3] Lincoln's campaign managers had printed and distributed thousands of fake convention admission tickets to Lincoln supporters to ensure and increase the crowd's support.[5]

Even with such support from his home state, Lincoln faced a difficult task if he was to win the nomination. He set about ensuring that he was the second choice of most delegates, realizing that the first round of voting at the convention was unlikely to produce a clear winner. He engineered that the convention would happen in Chicago, which would be inherently friendly to the Illinois-based Lincoln. He also made sure that the Illinois delegation would vote as a bloc for him. Lincoln did not attend the convention in person and left the task of delegate wrangling to several close friends.[3]

The first round of voting predictably produced a lead for Seward, but not a majority, with Lincoln in second place. The second round eliminated most of the minor contenders, with voters switching mostly to Seward or Lincoln. The convention remained deadlocked, however, and skillful political maneuvering by Lincoln's delegate wranglers convinced some delegates to abandon Seward in favor of Lincoln. Lincoln's combination of a moderate stance on slavery, long support for economic issues, his western origins, and strong oratory proved to be exactly what the delegates wanted in a president. On the third ballot on May 18, Lincoln secured the presidential nomination overwhelmingly.[3][6] Senator Hannibal Hamlin from Maine was nominated for vice president, defeating Clay. Hamlin was surprised by his nomination, saying he was "astonished" and that he "neither expected nor desired it."[7]

The party platform[8] promised not to interfere with slavery in the states, but opposed slavery in the territories. The platform promised tariffs protecting industry and workers, a Homestead Act granting free farmland in the West to settlers, and the funding of a transcontinental railroad. There was no mention of Mormonism (which had been condemned in the Party's 1856 platform), the Fugitive Slave Act, personal liberty laws, or the Dred Scott decision.[9] While the Seward forces were disappointed at the nomination of a little-known western upstart, they rallied behind Lincoln, while abolitionists were angry at the selection of a moderate and had little faith in Lincoln.[10][11]

Democratic (Northern Democratic) Party nomination edit

1860 Democratic Party ticket
Stephen A. Douglas Herschel V. Johnson
for President for Vice President
 
 
U.S. Senator from Illinois
(1847–1861)
41st
Governor of Georgia
(1853–1857)
 
James Buchanan, the incumbent president in 1860, whose term expired on March 4, 1861

Northern Democratic candidates:

  • Stephen Douglas, senator from Illinois
  • James Guthrie, former treasury secretary from Kentucky
  • Robert Mercer Taliaferro Hunter, senator from Virginia
  • Joseph Lane, senator from Oregon
  • Daniel S. Dickinson, former senator from New York
  • Andrew Johnson, senator from Tennessee

Democratic Party candidates gallery edit

 
The South Carolina Institute located in Charleston. The Institute hosted the Democratic National Convention and December Secession Convention in 1860.[12]

At the Democratic National Convention held in Institute Hall in Charleston, South Carolina, in April 1860, 50 Southern Democrats walked out over a platform dispute, led by the extreme pro-slavery "Fire-Eater" William Lowndes Yancey and the Alabama delegation: following them were the entire delegations of Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina and Texas, three of the four delegates from Arkansas, and one of the three delegates from Delaware.

 
Douglas/Johnson campaign poster

Six candidates were running: Stephen A. Douglas from Illinois, James Guthrie from Kentucky, Robert Mercer Taliaferro Hunter from Virginia, Joseph Lane from Oregon, Daniel S. Dickinson from New York, and Andrew Johnson from Tennessee, while three other candidates, Isaac Toucey from Connecticut, James Pearce from Maryland, and Jefferson Davis from Mississippi (the future president of the Confederate States) also received votes.

Douglas, a moderate on the slavery issue who favored "popular sovereignty", was ahead on the first ballot, but was 56½ votes short of securing the nomination. On the 57th ballot, with Douglas still ahead, but 51½ votes short of the nomination, the exhausted and desperate delegates agreed on May 3 to cease voting and adjourn the convention.

While the Democrats convened again at the Front Street Theater in Baltimore, Maryland, on June 18, 110 Southern delegates (led by "Fire-Eaters") boycotted the convention or walked out after the convention informed them they would not adopt a resolution supporting extending slavery into territories whose voters did not want it.

While some considered Horatio Seymour a compromise candidate for the National Democratic nomination at the reconvening convention in Baltimore, Seymour wrote a letter to the editor of his local newspaper declaring unreservedly that he was not a candidate for either spot on the ticket. After two ballots - the 59th ballot overall - the remaining Democrats nominated Stephen A. Douglas from Illinois for president.[13] The election would now pit Lincoln against his longtime political rival, whom Lincoln had lost to in the Illinois senate race just two years earlier. That two candidates were from Illinois showed the importance of the West in the election.[3]

While Benjamin Fitzpatrick from Alabama was nominated for vice president, he refused the nomination.

After the convention concluded with no vice presidential nominee, Douglas offered the vice presidential nomination to Herschel V. Johnson from Georgia, who accepted.

Southern Democratic Party nomination edit

1860 Southern Democratic Party ticket
John C. Breckinridge Joseph Lane
for President for Vice President
 
 
14th
Vice President of the United States
(1857–1861)
U.S. Senator from Oregon
(1859–1861)

Southern Democratic candidates:

  • John C. Breckinridge, Vice President of the United States
  • Daniel S. Dickinson, former senator from New York
  • Robert Mercer Taliaferro Hunter, senator from Virginia
  • Joseph Lane, senator from Oregon
  • Jefferson Davis, senator from Mississippi

Southern Democratic Party candidates gallery edit

 
Maryland Institute Hall, Baltimore. The bolting delegates nominated Breckinridge before Richmond vote[14]

The delegates who walked out of the convention at Charleston reconvened in Richmond, Virginia on June 11. When the Democrats reconvened in Baltimore, they rejoined (except South Carolina and Florida, who had stayed in Richmond).

When the convention seated two replacement delegations on June 18, they walked out again or boycotted the convention, accompanied by nearly all other Southern delegates and erstwhile Convention chair Caleb Cushing, a New Englander and former member of Franklin Pierce's cabinet.

This larger group met immediately in Baltimore's Institute Hall, with Cushing again presiding. They adopted the pro-slavery platform rejected at Charleston, and nominated Vice President John C. Breckinridge for president, and Senator Joseph Lane from Oregon for vice president.[15]

Yancey and some (less than half) of the bolters - almost entirely from the Lower South - met on June 28 in Richmond, along with the South Carolina and Florida delegations, at a convention that affirmed the nominations of Breckinridge and Lane.[14]

Besides the Democratic Parties in the Southern states, the Breckinridge/Lane ticket was also supported by the Buchanan administration. Buchanan's own continued prestige in his home state of Pennsylvania ensured that Breckinridge would be the principal Democratic candidate in that populous state. Breckinridge was the last sitting vice president nominated for president until Richard Nixon in 1960.

Constitutional Union Party nomination edit

1860 Constitutional Union Party ticket
John Bell Edward Everett
for President for Vice President
 
 
U.S. Senator from Tennessee
(1847–1859)
U.S. Senator from Massachusetts
(1853–1854)
 

Constitutional Union candidates:

  • John Bell, former senator from Tennessee
  • Sam Houston, governor of Texas
  • John J. Crittenden, senator from Kentucky
  • Edward Everett, former senator from Massachusetts
  • William A. Graham, former senator from North Carolina
  • William C. Rives, former senator from Virginia
 
A Constitutional Union campaign poster, 1860, portraying John Bell and Edward Everett, respectively the candidates for president and vice president. Once Lincoln was inaugurated and called up the militia, Bell supported the secession of Tennessee. In 1863, Everett dedicated the new cemetery at Gettysburg.

The Constitutional Union Party was formed by remnants of both the defunct Know Nothing and Whig Parties who were unwilling to join either the Republicans or the Democrats. The new party's members hoped to stave off Southern secession by avoiding the slavery issue.[16] They met in the Eastside District Courthouse of Baltimore and nominated John Bell from Tennessee for president over Governor Sam Houston of Texas on the second ballot. Edward Everett was nominated for vice president at the convention on May 9, 1860, one week before Lincoln.[12][17]

John Bell was a former Whig who had opposed the Kansas–Nebraska Act and the Lecompton Constitution. Edward Everett had been president of Harvard University and Secretary of State in the Millard Fillmore administration. The party platform advocated compromise to save the Union with the slogan "The Union as it is, and the Constitution as it is."[18]

Liberty (Union) Party nomination edit

Liberty (Union) candidates:

  • Gerrit Smith, former representative from New York

Liberty Party (Radical Abolitionists, Union) candidates gallery edit

By 1860, very little remained of the Liberty Party, after most of its membership left to join the Free Soil Party in 1848 and nearly all of what remained of it joined the Republicans in 1854. The remaining party was also called the Radical Abolitionists.[19][20] A convention of one hundred delegates was held in Convention Hall, Syracuse, New York, on August 29, 1860. Delegates were in attendance from New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Michigan, Illinois, Ohio, Kentucky, and Massachusetts. Several of the delegates were women.

Gerrit Smith, a prominent abolitionist and the 1848 presidential nominee of the original Liberty Party, had sent a letter in which he stated that his health had been so poor that he had not been able to be away from home since 1858. Nonetheless, he remained popular in the party because he had helped inspire some of John Brown's supporters at the Raid on Harpers Ferry. In his letter, Smith donated $50 to pay for the printing of ballots in the various states.

There was quite a spirited contest between the friends of Gerrit Smith and William Goodell in regard to the nomination for the presidency. In spite of his professed ill health, Gerrit Smith was nominated for president and Samuel McFarland from Pennsylvania was nominated for vice president.[20]

In Ohio, Illinois, and Indiana, slates of presidential electors pledged to Smith and McFarland ran with the name of the Union Party. They received a total of 176 votes in the general election, 0.004% of the total.[21]

People's Party nomination edit

The People's Party was a loose association of the supporters of Governor Samuel Houston. On April 20, 1860, the party held what it termed a national convention to nominate Houston for president on the San Jacinto Battlefield in Texas. Houston's supporters at the gathering did not nominate a vice presidential candidate, since they expected later gatherings to carry out that function. Later mass meetings were held in northern cities, such as New York City on May 30, 1860, but they too failed to nominate a vice presidential candidate. Houston, never enthusiastic about running for the presidency, soon became convinced that he had no chance of winning and that his candidacy would only make it easier for the Republican candidate to win. He withdrew from the race on August 16, and urged the formation of a Unified "Union" ticket in opposition to Lincoln.[22][23]

Political considerations edit

In their campaigning, Bell and Douglas both claimed that disunion would not necessarily follow a Lincoln election. Nonetheless, loyal army officers in Virginia, Kansas and South Carolina warned Lincoln of military preparations to the contrary. Secessionists threw their support behind Breckinridge in an attempt either to force the anti-Republican candidates to coordinate their electoral votes or throw the election into the House of Representatives, where the selection of the president would be made by the representatives elected in 1858, before the Republican majorities in both House and Senate achieved in 1860 were seated in the new 37th Congress. Mexican War hero Winfield Scott suggested to Lincoln that he assume the powers of a commander-in-chief before inauguration. However, historian Bruce Chadwick observes that Lincoln and his advisors ignored the widespread alarms and threats of secession as mere election trickery.[citation needed]

Indeed, voting in the South was not as monolithic as the Electoral College map would make it seem. Economically, culturally, and politically, the South was made up of three regions. In the states of the Upper South, also known as the Border South (Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri), unionist popular votes were scattered among Lincoln, Douglas, and Bell, to form a majority in all four. In the Middle South states, there was a unionist majority divided between Douglas and Bell in Virginia and Tennessee; in North Carolina and Arkansas, the unionist (Bell and Douglas) vote approached a majority. Texas was the only Middle South state that Breckinridge carried convincingly. In three of the six Deep South states, unionists (Bell and Douglas) won divided majorities in Georgia and Louisiana or neared it in Alabama. Breckinridge convincingly carried only three of the six states of the Deep South (South Carolina, Florida, and Mississippi).[24] These three Deep South states included the four Southern states with the largest enslaved populations, and consequently the smallest enfranchised free white populations; together, they held only nine percent of Southern whites.[25]

Among the slave states, the three states with the highest voter turnouts voted the most one-sided. Texas, with five percent of the total wartime South's population, voted 75 percent Breckinridge. Kentucky and Missouri, with one-fourth the total population, voted 73 percent pro-union Bell, Douglas and Lincoln. In comparison, the six states of the Deep South making up one-fourth the Confederate voting population, split 57 percent Breckinridge versus 43 percent for the two pro-union candidates.[nb 2] The four states that were admitted to the Confederacy after Fort Sumter held almost half its population, and voted a narrow combined majority of 53 percent for the pro-union candidates.

In the eleven states that would later declare their secession from the Union and be controlled by Confederate armies, ballots for Lincoln were cast only in Virginia,[nb 3] where he received 1,929 votes (1.15 percent of the total). Unsurprisingly, the vast majority of the votes Lincoln received were cast in border counties of what would soon become West Virginia – the future state accounted for 1,832 of Lincoln's 1,929 votes.[28]

Lincoln received no votes at all in 121 of the state's then-145 counties (including 31 of the 50 that would form West Virginia), received a single vote in three counties and received ten or fewer votes in nine of the 24 counties where he polled votes. Lincoln's best results, by far, were in the four counties that comprised the state's northern panhandle, a region which had long felt alienated from Richmond, was economically and culturally linked to its neighbors Ohio and Pennsylvania and would become the key driver in the successful effort to form a separate state. Hancock County (Virginia's northernmost at the time) returned Lincoln's best result – he polled over 40% of the vote there and finished in second place (Lincoln polled only eight votes fewer than Breckinridge). Of the 97 votes cast for Lincoln in the state's post-1863 boundaries, 93 were polled in four counties along the Potomac River and four were tallied in the coastal city of Portsmouth.

One key difference between modern elections and those of the mid-nineteenth century is that at the time the state did not print and distribute ballots. In theory, any document containing a valid or at least non-excessive number names of citizens of a particular state (provided they were eligible to vote in the electoral college within that state) might have been accepted as a valid presidential ballot; however, what this meant in practice was that a candidate's campaign was responsible for printing and distributing their own ballots (this service was typically done by supportive newspaper publishers). Moreover, since voters did not choose the president directly, but rather presidential electors, the only way for a voter to meaningfully support a particular candidate for president was cast a ballot for citizens of his state who would have pledged to vote for the candidate in the Electoral College. In ten southern slave states, no citizen would publicly pledge to vote for Abraham Lincoln, so citizens there had no legal means to vote for the Republican nominee. In most of Virginia, no publisher would print ballots for Lincoln's pledged electors. While a citizen without access to a ballot for Lincoln could theoretically have still voted for him by means of a write-in ballot provided his state had electors pledged to Lincoln and the voter knew their identities, casting a ballot in favor of the Republican candidate in a strongly pro-slavery county would have incurred (at minimum) social ostracization (of course, casting a vote for Breckinridge in a strongly abolitionist county ran a voter the same risk).[citation needed]

In the four slave states that did not secede (Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland, and Delaware), Lincoln came in fourth in every state except Delaware (where he finished third). Within the fifteen slave states, Lincoln won only two counties out of 996, Missouri's St. Louis and Gasconade Counties. In the 1856 election, the Republican candidate for president had received no votes at all in twelve of the fourteen slave states with a popular vote (these being the same states as in the 1860 election, plus Missouri and Virginia).

Results edit

 
Inauguration of Abraham Lincoln
the Capitol, March 4, 1861
 
State election results
by Electoral College vote
 
  Presence of slavery
during the election

The election was held on Tuesday, November 6, 1860, and was noteworthy for the exaggerated sectionalism and voter enthusiasm in a country that was soon to dissolve into civil war. Voter turnout was 81.2%, the highest in American history up to that time, and the second-highest overall (exceeded only in the election of 1876).[29][30]

Since Andrew Jackson had won re-election in 1832, all six subsequent presidents had only won one term, while the last four of those had won with a popular vote under 51 percent.[31]

 
Results by county, with darker shades indicating larger percentages for the winning candidate. Red is for Lincoln (Republican), blue is for Douglas (Northern Democratic), green is for Breckinridge (Southern Democratic), yellow is for Bell (Constitutional Union), and purple is for "Fusion" (Non-Republican/Democratic Fusion). South Carolina had no popular vote.

Lincoln won the Electoral College with less than 40 percent of the popular vote nationwide by carrying states above the Mason–Dixon line and north of the Ohio River, plus the states of California and Oregon in the Far West. Unlike every preceding president-elect, Lincoln did not carry even one slave state; he instead carried all eighteen free states exclusively.

There were no ballots distributed for Lincoln in ten of the Southern states: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas. This withheld 61 potential electoral votes from Lincoln, a fifth of what was the total 303 available to the other candidates. In a similar divide between North and South electors, Breckenridge carried nine of the ten states that withheld Lincoln from the ballot, the exception being Tennessee.

Lincoln was therefore the second President-elect to poll no votes in some states which had a popular vote (the first was John Quincy Adams, who polled no ballots in the popular votes of two states in the election of 1824, the only other election in which there were four major candidates, none of whom distributed ballots in every state). It should be further noted that, prior to introduction of the secret ballot in the 1880s, the concept of ballot access did not exist in the sense it does today: there was no standardized state-issued ballot for a candidate to "appear" on. Instead, presidential ballots were printed and distributed by agents of the candidates and their parties, who organized slates of would-be electors publicly pledged to vote for a particular candidate. The 1824 and 1860 presidential elections were the only two prior to the introduction of the secret ballot where a winning candidate was so unpopular in a particular region that it was impossible to organize and print ballots for a slate of eligible voters pledged to vote for that candidate in an entire state.

Since 1860, and excluding unreconstructed Southern states in 1868 and 1872, there have been two occasions where a Republican presidential candidate failed to poll votes in every state[nb 4], while national Democratic candidates have failed to appear on all state ballots in three elections since the introduction of the secret ballot, though in all three, the Democratic candidate nonetheless won the presidency [nb 5], but none of them were off the ballot in as many states as Lincoln in 1860.

Lincoln won the second-lowest share of the popular vote among all winning presidential candidates in U.S. history.[nb 6] Lincoln's share of the popular vote would likely have been even lower if there had been a popular vote in South Carolina, though conversely it would likely have been marginally higher had he been on the ballot in all of the Southern states. The Republican victory resulted from the concentration of votes in the free states, which together controlled a majority of the presidential electors.[32]

Lincoln's strategy was deliberately focused, in collaboration with Republican Party Chairman Thurlow Weed, on expanding on the states Frémont won four years earlier: New York was critical with 35 Electoral College votes, 11.5 percent of the total, and with Pennsylvania (27) and Ohio (23) as well, a candidate could collect 85 votes, whereas 152 were required to win. The Wide Awakes young Republican men's organization massively expanded registered voter lists, and although Lincoln was not even on the ballot in most Southern states, population increases in the free states had far exceeded those seen in the slave states for many years before the election of 1860, hence free states dominated in the Electoral College.[33]

The split in the Democratic party is sometimes held responsible for Lincoln's victory[34] despite the fact that Lincoln won the election with less than 40% of the popular vote, as much of the anti-Republican vote was "wasted" in Southern states in which no ballots for Lincoln were circulated. Lincoln also won outright majorities in enough states, that if he lost all states that he took with pluralities, he would still have enough electoral votes to win.

At most, a single opponent nationwide would have deprived Lincoln of only California, Oregon, and four New Jersey electors,[35] whose combined total of eleven electoral votes would have made no difference to the result since every other state won by the Republicans was won by a clear majority of the vote: in this scenario, Lincoln would have received 169 electoral votes, 17 more than the 152 required to win.

In the states of New York, Pennsylvania and New Jersey where anti-Lincoln votes were combined into fusion tickets, Lincoln still won two and split New Jersey. Despite this, a shift of 25,000 votes to the fusion ticket in New York would have left Lincoln with 145 electoral votes - seven votes short of winning the Electoral College - and forced a contingent election in the House of Representatives.[36][37] Of the five states that Lincoln failed to carry despite polling votes, he received 20 percent of the vote in only one (Delaware), and 10 percent of the vote in only one more (Missouri).

Like Lincoln, Breckinridge and Bell won no electoral votes outside of their respective sections. While Bell retired to his family business, quietly supporting his state's secession, Breckinridge served as a Confederate general. He finished second in the Electoral College with 72 votes, carrying eleven of fifteen slave states (including South Carolina, whose electors were chosen by the state legislature, not popular vote). Breckinridge stood a distant third in national popular vote at eighteen percent, but accrued 50 to 75 percent in the first seven states that would form the Confederate States of America. He took nine of the eleven states that eventually joined, plus the border slave states of Delaware and Maryland, losing only Virginia and Tennessee. Breckinridge received very little support in the free states, showing some strength only in California, Oregon, Pennsylvania and Connecticut.

Bell carried three slave states (Tennessee, Kentucky, and Virginia) and lost Maryland by only 722 votes. Nevertheless, he finished a remarkable second in all slave states won by Breckinridge or Douglas. He won 45 to 47 percent in Maryland, Tennessee and North Carolina and canvassed respectably with 36 to 40 percent in Missouri, Arkansas, Louisiana, Georgia, and Florida. Bell himself had hoped that he would take over the former support of the extinct Whig Party in free states, but the majority of this support went to Lincoln.[38] Thus, except for running mate Everett's home state of Massachusetts, and California, Bell received even less support in the free states than did Breckinridge, and consequently came in last in the national popular vote, at 12.62%.

Douglas was the only candidate who won electoral votes in both slave and free states (free New Jersey and slave Missouri). His support was the most widespread geographically; he finished second behind Lincoln in the popular vote with 29.52%, but last in the Electoral College. His 12 electoral votes are the lowest for a Democrat in history. Douglas attained a 28 to 47% share in the states of the Mid-Atlantic, Midwest, and Trans-Mississippi West, but slipped to 19 to 39% in New England. Outside his regional section, Douglas took 15 to 17% of the popular vote total in the slave states of Kentucky, Alabama, and Louisiana, then 10 percent or less in the nine remaining slave states. Douglas, in his "Norfolk Doctrine", reiterated in North Carolina, promised to keep the Union together by coercion if states proceeded to secede: the popular vote for Lincoln and Douglas combined was 69.17% of the turnout.

The 1860 Republican ticket was the first successful national ticket that did not feature a Southerner, and the election marked the end of Southern political dominance in the United States. Between 1789 and 1860, Southerners had been president for two-thirds of the era, and had held the offices of Speaker of the House and President pro tem of the Senate during much of that time. Moreover, since 1791, Southerners had comprised a majority of the Supreme Court.[39]

 

Electoral results
Presidential candidate Party Home state Popular vote(a) Electoral
vote
Running mate
Count Percentage Vice-presidential candidate Home state Electoral vote
Abraham Lincoln Republican Illinois 1,865,908 39.82% 180 Hannibal Hamlin Maine 180
John C. Breckinridge Southern Democratic Kentucky 848,019 18.10% 72 Joseph Lane Oregon 72
John Bell Constitutional Union Tennessee 590,901 12.61% 39 Edward Everett Massachusetts 39
Stephen A. Douglas Northern Democratic Illinois 1,380,202 29.46% 12 Herschel V. Johnson Georgia 12
Other 531 0.01% Other
Total 4,685,561 100% 303 303
Needed to win 152 152

Source (Popular Vote): Leip, David. "1860 Presidential Election Results". Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections. Retrieved July 27, 2005. Source (Electoral Vote): "Electoral College Box Scores 1789–1996". National Archives and Records Administration. Retrieved July 31, 2005.

(a) The popular vote figures exclude South Carolina where the Electors were chosen by the state legislature rather than by popular vote.

Popular vote
Lincoln
(b)
39.82%
Douglas
29.46%
Breckinridge
18.10%
Bell
12.61%
Others
0.01%
Electoral vote
Lincoln
(b)
59.41%
Breckinridge
23.76%
Bell
12.87%
Douglas
3.96%

(b) The option of Lincoln was absent from 20.13% of ballots across ten states. He was available to only 79.87% of the voters that were available to the other candidates.

Geography of results edit

Cartographic gallery edit

Results by state edit

Source: Data from Walter Dean Burnham, Presidential ballots, 1836–1892 (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1955) pp 247–57.

States/districts won by Douglas/Johnson
States/districts won by Breckinridge/Lane
States/districts won by Lincoln/Hamlin
States/districts won by Bell/Everett
Abraham Lincoln
Republican
Stephen Douglas
(Northern) Democratic
John Breckinridge
(Southern) Democratic
John Bell
Constitutional Union
Fusion
(Non-Republican)
(Democratic Fusion)
Margin State Total
State electoral
votes
# % electoral
votes
# % electoral
votes
# % electoral
votes
# % electoral
votes
# % electoral
votes
# % #
Alabama 9 no ballots 0001361813,618 15.11 - 0004866948,669 54.0 9 27,835 30.89 - no ballots -20,834 -23.11 90,122 AL
Arkansas 4 no ballots 5,357 9.89 - 28,732 53.06 4 20,063 37.05 - no ballots -8,669 -16.01 54,152 AR
California 4 38,733 32.32 4 37,999 31.71 - 33,969 28.35 - 9,111 7.60 - no ballots 734 0.61 119,827 CA
Connecticut 6 43,486 53.86 6 17,364 21.50 - 16,558 20.51 - 3,337 4.13 - no ballots 28,057 32.36 80,745 CT
Delaware 3 3,822 23.72 - 1,066 6.61 - 7,339 45.54 3 3,888 24.13 - no ballots -3,451 -21.41 16,115 DE
Florida 3 no ballots 223 1.7 - 8,277 62.23 3 4,801 36.1 - no ballots -3,476 -26.13 13,301 FL
Georgia 10 no ballots 11,581 10.85 - 52,176 48.89 10 42,960 40.26 - no ballots -9,216 -8.63 106,717 GA
Illinois 11 172,171 50.69 11 160,215 47.17 - 2,331 0.69 - 4,914 1.45 - no ballots 11,956 3.52 339,666 IL
Indiana 13 139,033 51.09 13 115,509 42.44 - 12,295 4.52 - 5,306 1.95 - no ballots 23,524 8.65 272,143 IN
Iowa 4 70,302 54.61 4 55,639 43.22 - 1,035 0.8 - 1,763 1.37 - no ballots 14,663 11.39 128,739 IA
Kentucky 12 1,364 0.93 - 25,651 17.54 - 53,143 36.35 - 66,058 45.18 12 no ballots 12,915 -8.83 146,216 KY
Louisiana 6 no ballots 7,625 15.10 - 22,681 44.90 6 20,204 40.0 - no ballots -2,477 -4.90 50,510 LA
Maine 8 62,811 62.24 8 29,693 29.42 - 6,368 6.31 - 2,046 2.03 - no ballots 33,118 32.82 100,918 ME
Maryland 8 2,294 2.48 - 5,966 6.45 - 42,482 45.93 8 41,760 45.14 - no ballots -722 -0.79 92,502 MD
Massachusetts 13 106,684 62.80 13 34,370 20.23 - 6,163 3.63 - 22,331 13.15 - no ballots 72,314 42.57 169,876 MA
Michigan 6 88,450 57.23 6 64,889 41.99 - 805 0.52 - 405 0.26 - no ballots 23,561 15.24 154,549 MI
Minnesota 4 22,069 63.53 4 11,920 34.31 - 748 2.15 - 50 0.01 - no ballots 10,149 29.22 34,787 MN
Mississippi 7 no ballots 3,282 4.75 - 40,768 59.0 7 25,045 36.23 - no ballots -15,723 -22.77 69,095 MS
Missouri 9 17,028 10.28 - 58,801 35.52 9 31,362 18.94 - 58,372 35.26 - no ballots -429 -0.26 165,563 MO
New Hampshire 5 37,519 56.90 5 25,887 39.26 - 2,125 3.22 - 412 0.62 - no ballots 11,632 17.64 65,943 NH
New Jersey 7 58,346 48.13 4[nb 7] no ballots 3[nb 8] no ballots - no ballots - 62,869[nb 9] 51.87 -[nb 10] -4,523 -3.74 121,215 NJ
New York 35 362,646 53.71 35 no ballots - no ballots - no ballots - 312,510 46.29 -[nb 11] 50,136 7.42 675,156 NY
North Carolina 10 no ballots 2,737 2.83 - 48,846 50.51 10 45,129 46.66 - no ballots -3,717 -3.85 96,712 NC
Ohio 23 221,809 51.24 23 187,421 43.30 - 11,303 2.61 - 12,193 2.82 - no ballots 34,388 7.94 432,862 OH
Oregon 3 5,344 36.20 3 4,131 27.99 - 5,074 34.37 - 212 1.44 - no ballots 270 1.83 14,761 OR
Pennsylvania 27 268,030 56.26 27 16,765 3.52 -[nb 12] no ballots 12,776 2.68 - 178,871[nb 13] 37.54 -[nb 14] 89,159 18.72 476,442 PA
Rhode Island 4 12,244 61.37 4 7,707[nb 15] 38.63 - no ballots no ballots no ballots 4,537 22.74 19,951 RI
South Carolina 8 no popular vote no popular vote no popular vote 8 no popular vote no popular vote - - - SC
Tennessee 12 no ballots 11,281 7.72 - 65,097 44.55 - 69,728 47.72 12 no ballots -4,631 -3.17 146,106 TN
Texas 4 no ballots 18 0.03 - 47,454 75.47 4 15,383 24.50 - no ballots -32,110 -50.97 63,004 TX
Vermont 5 33,808 75.86 5 8,649 19.41 - 1,866 4.19 - 217 0.49 - no ballots 25,159 56.45 44,566 VT
Virginia 15 1,887 1.13 - 16,198 9.71 - 74,325 44.54 - 74,481 44.63 15 no ballots -156 -0.09 166,891 VA
Wisconsin 5 86,113 56.59 5 65,021 42.73 - 887 0.58 - 161 0.11 - no ballots 21,092 13.86 152,179 WI
TOTALS: 303 1,855,993 39.65 180 1,006,583 21.50 12 673,701 14.39 72 590,268 12.61 39 554,250 11.84 0 4,681,335 US
TO WIN: 152

Close states edit

States where the margin of victory was under 1%:

  1. Virginia 0.09% (156 votes)
  2. Missouri 0.26% (429 votes)
  3. California 0.61% (734 votes)
  4. Maryland 0.79% (722 votes)

States where the margin of victory was under 5%:

  1. Oregon 1.83% (270 votes)
  2. Tennessee 3.17% (4,631 votes)
  3. Illinois 3.52% (11,956 votes)
  4. North Carolina 3.85% (3,717 votes)
  5. New Jersey 3.74% (4,523 votes)
  6. Louisiana 4.90% (2,477 votes)

States where the margin of victory was under 10%:

  1. New York 7.42% (50,136 votes) (tipping point state for Lincoln's victory)
  2. Ohio 7.94% (34,388 votes)
  3. Georgia 8.63% (9,216 votes)
  4. Indiana 8.65% (23,524 votes)
  5. Kentucky 8.83% (12,915 votes)

Trigger for the Civil War edit

Lincoln's victory and imminent inauguration as president was the immediate cause for declarations of secession by seven Southern states (South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas) from 20 December 1860 to 1 February 1861. They then formed the Confederate States of America. On 9 February 1861, Jefferson Davis was elected president of the Confederacy.

Several other states also considered declaring secession at the time:

  • Missouri convened a secession convention, which voted against secession and adjourned permanently.
  • Arkansas convened a secession convention, which voted against secession and adjourned temporarily.[42]
  • Virginia convened a secession convention, which voted against secession but remained in session.
  • Tennessee held a referendum on having a secession convention, which failed.
  • North Carolina held a referendum on having a secession convention, which failed.[43]

All of the secessionist activity was motivated by fear for the institution of slavery in the South. If the President (and, by extension, the appointed federal officials in the South, such as district attorneys, marshals, postmasters, and judges) opposed slavery, it might collapse. There were fears that abolitionist agents would infiltrate the South and foment slave insurrections. (The noted secessionist William Lowndes Yancey, speaking at New York's Cooper Institute in October 1860, asserted that with abolitionists in power, "Emissaries will percolate between master [and] slave as water between the crevices of rocks underground. They will be found everywhere, with strychnine to put in our wells."[44]) Less radical Southerners thought that with Northern antislavery dominance of the federal government, slavery would eventually be abolished, regardless of present constitutional limits.[45]

Bertram Wyatt-Brown argues that secessionists desired independence as necessary for their honor. They could no longer tolerate Northern state attitudes that regarded slave ownership as a great sin and Northern politicians who insisted on stopping the spread of slavery.[46][47][48]

Another bloc of Southerners resented Northern criticism of slavery and restrictions on slavery but opposed secession as dangerous and unnecessary. However, the "conditional Unionists" also hoped that when faced with secession, Northerners would stifle anti-slavery rhetoric and accept pro-slavery rules for the territories. It was that group that prevented immediate secession in Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas when Lincoln took office on 4 March 1861. He took no action against the secessionists in the seven "Confederate" states but also declared that secession had no legal validity and refused to surrender federal property in those states. (He also reiterated his opposition to slavery anywhere in the territories.) Preparing to form an army, on 6 March 1861 Davis called for 100,000 volunteers to serve for twelve months.[49] The political standoff continued until mid-April, when Davis ordered Confederate troops to bombard and capture Fort Sumter.

Lincoln then called for troops to put down rebellion, which wiped out the possibility that the crisis could be resolved by compromise. Nearly all "conditional Unionists" joined the secessionists. The Virginia convention and the reconvened Arkansas convention both declared secession, as did the legislatures of Tennessee and North Carolina; all four states joined the Confederacy.

See also edit

Notes edit

  1. ^ Benjamin Fitzpatrick had originally been nominated to serve as Douglas' running mate; however, Fitzpatrick declined the nomination and Johnson was chosen instead.
  2. ^ "Deep South" here in presidential popular votes refers to Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana. It excludes South Carolina from the calculation, because in 1860 it chose presidential electors in the state legislature, without a popular vote.
  3. ^ Ballots were printed sheets, usually printed by the party, with the name of the candidate(s) and the names of presidential electors who were pledged to that presidential candidate. Voters brought the ballot to the polling station and dropped it publicly into the election box. In order to receive any votes, a candidate (or his party) had to have ballots printed and organize a group of electors pledged to that candidate. Except in some border areas, the Republican party did not attempt any organization in the South and did not print ballots there because almost no one was willing to acknowledge publicly they were voting for Lincoln for fear of violent retribution.[26][27]
  4. ^ In 1892, incumbent President Benjamin Harrison failed to poll votes in Florida because the state's Republicans supported Populist nominee James B. Weaver. In 1912, William Howard Taft was not on the ballot in South Dakota or California because the South Dakotan and Californian branches of Republican Party nominated Progressive candidate Theodore Roosevelt as the official Republican candidate.
  5. ^ In 1892, Grover Cleveland was not on the ballot in Colorado, Idaho, Kansas, North Dakota, or Wyoming, while neither Harry Truman in 1948 nor Lyndon Johnson in 1964 were on the ballot in Alabama.
  6. ^ John Quincy Adams, who won the 1824 presidential election in a vote of the House of Representatives, won 30.92% of the popular vote, or 10.44% less than that of Andrew Jackson. Lincoln's share of the popular vote in 1860 represents the lowest share received by any popular vote winner.
  7. ^ 4 of the electors pledged to Lincoln were elected since the Breckinridge and Bell electors finished behind all other candidates.[40]
  8. ^ The 3 Douglas electors were elected.[40]
  9. ^ The Fusion vote used here is the vote for the high elector on the slate, who was pledged to Douglas.[40]
  10. ^ The Fusion slate consisted of 3 electors pledged to Douglas, and 2 each to Breckinridge and Bell. Nonetheless, different electors appeared in some counties for Breckinridge and Bell, resulting in lower totals for them and a split electoral outcome. The 3 Douglas electors were elected and 4 of those pledged to Lincoln. The Breckinridge and Bell electors finished behind all other candidates.[40]
  11. ^ The slate of electors were pledged to 3 different candidates: 18 to Douglas, 10 to Bell, and 7 to Breckinridge.[40]
  12. ^ Not all of the Douglas supporters agreed to the Reading slate deal and established a separate Douglas only ticket. This slate comprised the 12 Douglas electoral candidates on the Reading ticket, and 15 additional Douglas supporters. This ticket was usually referred to as the Straight Douglas ticket. Thus 12 electoral candidates appeared on 2 tickets, Reading and Straight Douglas.[41]
  13. ^ This vote is listed under the Fusion column, not the Breckinridge column as many other sources do, because this ticket was pledged to either of two candidates based on the national result. Additionally, the slate was almost equally divided between the supporters of Breckinridge and Douglas.[41]
  14. ^ The Democratic Party chose its slate of electors before the National Convention in Charleston, SC. Since this was decided before the party split, both Douglas supporters and Breckinridge supporters claimed the right for their man to be considered the party candidate and the support of the electoral slate. Eventually, the state party worked out an agreement: if either candidate could win the national election with Pennsylvania's electoral vote, then all her electoral votes would go to that candidate. Of the 27 electoral candidates, 15 were Breckinridge supporters; the remaining 12 were for Douglas. This was often referred to as the Reading electoral slate, because it was in that city that the state party chose it.[41]
  15. ^ The Douglas ticket in Rhode Island was supported by Breckinridge and Bell supporters.[41]

References edit

  1. ^ "National General Election VEP Turnout Rates, 1789-Present". United States Election Project. CQ Press.
  2. ^ Burlingame, Michael (October 4, 2016). "Abraham Lincoln: Campaign and Elections". from the original on April 2, 2017. Retrieved July 13, 2021.
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Donald, David Herbert (1995). Lincoln. New York: Simon & Schuster. pp. 230–256. ISBN 0-684-80846-3. OCLC 32589068.
  4. ^ Holzer, Harold (November 7, 2006). Lincoln at Cooper Union: The Speech That Made Abraham Lincoln President. p. 1. ISBN 0-7432-9964-7. Retrieved March 12, 2016. [H]ad he not triumphed before the sophisticated and demanding audience he faced at New York's Cooper Union on February 27, 1860, Lincoln would likely never have been nominated, much less elected, to the presidency that November.
  5. ^ Lepore, Jill (2018). These Truths: A History of the United States. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. p. 287. ISBN 978-0-393-63524-9.
  6. ^ "Proceedings of the Republican national convention held at Chicago, May 16, 17 and 18, 1860 by Republican National Convention (2nd : 1860 : Chicago, Ill.): Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming: Internet Archive". Internet Archive. 1860. Retrieved December 28, 2020.
  7. ^ Foner (September 26, 2011). The Fiery Trial. W.W. Norton & Company. p. 140. ISBN 978-0-393-34066-2.
  8. ^ "Republican National Platform, 1860". Central Pacific Railroad Photographic History Museum. CPRR.org. April 13, 2003. Retrieved April 17, 2015.
  9. ^ Rhodes (1920) 2:420
  10. ^ Rhodes (1920) 2:429
  11. ^ Baum, Dale (1984). The Civil War Party System: The Case of Massachusetts, 1848–1876. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press. p. 49. ISBN 0-8078-1588-8.
  12. ^ a b Lossing, Benson John (1866). Pictorial history of the civil war in the United States of America, Volume 1. Poughkeepsie, NY: G.W. Childs. p. 29. Retrieved January 26, 2012.. Bolters met at St. Andrew's Hall.
  13. ^ Morris, Roy Jr. (2008). The Long Pursuit: Abraham Lincoln's Thirty-Year Struggle with Stephen Douglas for the Heart and Soul of America. HarperCollins. pp. 150–152. ISBN 978-0060852092.
  14. ^ a b Freehling, William W., The Road to Disunion: Secessionists Triumphant, Vol.2. Oxford University, 2007, p. 321
  15. ^ Heidler, p. 157. Baltimore's Institute Hall, not be confused with Charleston's Institute Hall also used by the walk-out delegations.
  16. ^ Schulten, Susan (November 10, 2010). "How (And Where) Lincoln Won". The New York Times.
  17. ^ The building had been the First Presbyterian Meeting House (Two Towers Church) on Fayette Street, between Calvert and North Street, demolished before 1866 and occupied by the United States Courthouse.
  18. ^ Getting the Message Out! Stephen A. Douglas January 20, 2015, at the Wayback Machine
  19. ^ , New York: Central Abolition Board, 1855, archived from the original on September 5, 2018, retrieved March 5, 2018
  20. ^ a b "RADICAL ABOLITION NATIONAL CONVENTION". Douglass' Monthly. October 1860. p. 352.
  21. ^ Dubin, Michael J. (2002). United States Presidential Elections, 1788-1860: The Official Results by County and State. Jefferson: McFarland & Company. p. 159. ISBN 9780786410170.
  22. ^ "POLITICAL MOVEMENTS.; THE HOUSTON MASS MEETING. Large Gathering of the People in Union-Square--Washington statue Illuminated. The Hero of San Jacinto Nominated for the Presidency. Speeches, Address, Resolutions, Music, Fireworks, Guns, and Fun". The New York Times. May 30, 1860.
  23. ^ "Letter from Sam Houston Withdrawing from the Canvass". The New York Times. September 3, 1860.
  24. ^ Hindley, Meredith (November–December 2010). "The Man Who Came in Second". Humanities. 31 (6). Retrieved March 13, 2020.
  25. ^ Freehling, William W., The Road to Disunion: Volume II. Secessionists Triumphant, 1854–1861, Oxford University Press, 2004, p. 447.
  26. ^ "Republican ballot 1860". Retrieved April 28, 2011.
  27. ^ "Election of 1860 – 'Read Your Ballot'". Retrieved April 28, 2011.
  28. ^ "Results by county in Virginia" (PDF).
  29. ^ The 1876 election had a turnout of 81.8%, slightly higher than 1860. Between 1828 and 1928: "Voter Turnout in Presidential Elections: 1828–2008". The American Presidency Project. UC Santa Barbara. Retrieved November 9, 2012.
  30. ^ Data between 1932 and 2008: (PDF). U.S. Census Bureau, Statistical Abstract of the United States: 2012. U.S. Census Bureau. Archived from the original (PDF) on October 24, 2012. Retrieved February 7, 2013.
  31. ^ "United States Presidential Election Results". uselectionatlas.org. Retrieved July 19, 2022. Only Franklin Pierce had achieved a statistical majority in the popular vote (50.83 percent).
  32. ^ Chadwick, Bruce. "Lincoln for President: an unlikely candidate, an audacious strategy, and the victory no one saw coming" (2009) Ch. 10 The Eleventh Hour. p. 289 ISBN 978-1-4022-2504-8
  33. ^ Ziegler-McPherson, Christina A.; Selling America : Immigration Promotion and the Settlement of the American Continent, 1607-1914, pp. 34-36 ISBN 1440842094
  34. ^ e.g., the 1912 Catholic Encyclopedia, vol, 15, p. 171
  35. ^ "New Jersey's Vote in 1860". NY Times. December 26, 1892.
  36. ^ Potter, The impending crisis, 1848–1861 (1976) p. 437
  37. ^ Luthin, The First Lincoln Campaign p. 227
  38. ^ Davies, Gareth and Zelizer, Julian E.; America at the Ballot Box: Elections and Political History, pp. 65-66 ISBN 0812291360
  39. ^ Murrin, John M.; Johnson, Paul E.; McPherson, James M.; Fahs, Alice; Gerstle, Gary; Rosenberg, Emily S.; Rosenberg, Norman L. (January 2011). Liberty Equality Power: A History of the American People, Volume I: To 1877 (6th ed.). Boston: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning. p. 403. ISBN 978-0-495-91587-4.
  40. ^ a b c d e Dubin, Michael J., United States Presidential Elections, 1788–1860: The Official Results by County and State, McFarland & Company, 2002, p. 187
  41. ^ a b c d Dubin, Michael J., United States Presidential Elections, 1788–1860: The Official Results by County and State, McFarland & Company, 2002, p. 188
  42. ^ Secession Convention Encyclopedia of Arkansas
  43. ^ Secession Vote and Realigned Allegiance North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources
  44. ^ Walther, Eric H. (2006). William Lowndes Yancey: The Coming of the Civil War. p. 262. ISBN 978-0-7394-8030-4.
  45. ^ Avery Craven, The Growth of Southern Nationalism, 1848–1861, 1953. ISBN 978-0-8071-0006-6, p. 391, 394, 396.
  46. ^ Decredico, Mary A. (2004). "Sectionalism and the Secession Crisis". In Boles, John B. (ed.). A Companion to the American South. p. 243. ISBN 9781405138307.
  47. ^ Wyatt-Brown, Bertram. Yankee Saints and Southern Sinners (1990)
  48. ^ Decredico, Mary A. (2004). "Sectionalism and the Secession Crisis". In Boles, John B. (ed.). A Companion to the American South. p. 240. ISBN 9781405138307.
  49. ^ " The Civil War, 1861". American Military History. U.S. Army Center of Military History. Archived from the original on 21 October 2016. Retrieved 3 July 2023.

Further reading edit

  • Achorn, Edward (2023). The Lincoln Miracle: Inside the Republican Convention That Changed History. Atlantic Monthly Press
  • Carwardine, Richard (2003). Lincoln. Pearson Education Ltd. ISBN 978-0-582-03279-8.
  • Chadwick, Bruce (2010). Lincoln for President: An Unlikely Candidate, An Audacious Strategy, and the Victory No One Saw Coming. Sourcebooks, Inc. ISBN 978-1-4022-2858-2.
  • Decredico, Mary A. "Sectionalism and the Secession Crisis," in John B. Boles, ed., A Companion to the American South (2004) pp. 231-248, on the historiography of Southend motivations
  • Donald, David Herbert (1996) [1995]. Lincoln. New York: Simon and Schuster. ISBN 978-0-684-82535-9.
  • Egerton, Douglas (2010). Year of Meteors: Stephen Douglas, Abraham Lincoln, and the Election That Brought on the Civil War. Bloomsbury Press. ISBN 978-1-59691-619-7.
  • Fite, Emerson David. The Presidential Campaign of 1860 (1911). online
  • Foner, Eric (1995) [1970]. Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men: The Ideology of the Republican Party before the Civil War. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-509497-8.
  • Franson, Melissa. "Wide Awakes, Half Asleeps, Little Giants, and Bell Ringers: Political Partisanship in the Catskills of New York during the Elections of 1860 and 1862". New York History 102.1 (2021): 149–171. excerpt
  • Fuller, A. James, ed. (2013). The Election of 1860 Reconsidered. Kent State University Press online
    • Thomas E. Rodgers, "Saving the Republic: Turnout, Ideology, and Republicanism in the Election of 1860", in The Election of 1860 Reconsidered ch. 6.
  • Gabrial, B. "The Democrats Divide: Newspaper Coverage of the 1860 Presidential Conventions." in In The Antebellum Press (Routledge. 2019) pp. 201–211.
  • Goodwin, Doris Kearns (2002). Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln. New York: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0-684-82490-6.
  • Green, Michael S. (2011). Lincoln and the Election of 1860. SIU Press. ISBN 978-0-8093-8636-9.
  • Grinspan, Jon, "'Young Men for War': The Wide Awakes and Lincoln's 1860 Presidential Campaign," Journal of American History 96.2 (2009): .
  • Harris, William C. (2007). Lincoln's Rise to the Presidency. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas. ISBN 978-0-7006-1520-9.
  • Holt, Michael F. (1978). The Political Crisis of the 1850s.
  • Holt, Michael F. The Election of 1860: "A Campaign Fraught with Consequences (2017) online review
  • Holzer, Harold (2004). Lincoln at Cooper Union: The Speech That Made Abraham Lincoln President. Simon & Schuster. ISBN 978-0-7432-9964-0.
  • Johannsen, Robert W. (1973). Stephen A. Douglas. Oxford University Press.
  • Luebke, Frederick C. (1971). Ethnic Voters and the Election of Lincoln. Lincoln, University of Nebraska Press. ISBN 9780803207967.
  • Luthin, Reinhard H. (1944). The First Lincoln Campaign. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-8446-1292-8. along with Nevins, the most detailed narrative of the election
  • Nevins, Allan. Ordeal of the Union (8 volumes, Macmillan, 1947–1971), detailed scholarly coverage of every election, 1848 to 1864. See vol. 4 (1950) "The Emergence of Lincoln", vol. 2 "Prologue to Civil War 1857-1861", pp. 200-317 online
  • Nichols, Roy Franklin. The Disruption of American Democracy (1948), pp. 348–506, focused on the Democratic party online
  • Parks, Joseph Howard (1950). John Bell of Tennessee. Louisiana State University Press.
  • Potter, David M. (1976). The Impending Crisis, 1848–1861. HarperCollins. ISBN 978-0-06-131929-7.
  • Rhodes, James Ford (1912). History of the United States from the Compromise of 1850 to the Final Restoration of Home Rule at the South in 1877. Vol. II.
  • Rhodes, James Ford (1920). History of the United States from the Compromise of 1859 to the McKinley-Bryan Campaign of 1896.
  • Wells, Damon. Stephen Douglas: The Last Years, 1857–1861 (1971), online
  • Woods, Michael E. Arguing Until Doomsday: Stephen Douglas, Jefferson Davis, and the Struggle for American Democracy (UNC Press Books, 2020). online review

Primary sources edit

  • Chester, Edward W. A Guide to Political Platforms (1977), pp. 72–79 online
  • Porter, Kirk H. and Donald Bruce Johnson, eds. National Party Platforms, 1840-1964 (1965) online 1840-1956

External links edit

  • 1860 popular vote by counties
  • Abraham Lincoln: Original Letters and Manuscripts, 1860 May 11, 2014, at the Wayback Machine Shapell Manuscript Foundation
  • Report on 1860 Republican convention
  • Abraham Lincoln: A Resource Guide from the Library of Congress
  • Presidential Election of 1860: A Resource Guide from the Library of Congress
  • Election of 1860 in Counting the Votes October 3, 2017, at the Wayback Machine

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The 1860 United States presidential election was the 19th quadrennial presidential election held on Tuesday November 6 1860 In a four way contest the Republican Party ticket of Abraham Lincoln and Hannibal Hamlin 2 won a national popular plurality a popular majority in the North where states already had abolished slavery and a national electoral majority comprising only Northern electoral votes Lincoln s election thus served as the main catalyst of the states that would become the Confederacy seceding from the Union This marked the first time that a Republican was elected president It was also the first presidential election in which both major party candidates were registered in the same home state the others have been in 1904 1920 1940 1944 and 2016 1860 United States presidential election 1856 November 6 1860 1864 303 members of the Electoral College152 electoral votes needed to winTurnout81 8 1 2 4 pp Nominee Abraham Lincoln John C BreckinridgeParty Republican Southern DemocraticHome state Illinois KentuckyRunning mate Hannibal Hamlin Joseph LaneElectoral vote 180 72States carried 18 11Popular vote 1 865 908 848 019Percentage 39 8 18 1 Nominee John Bell Stephen A DouglasParty Constitutional Union DemocraticAlliance UnionistHome state Tennessee IllinoisRunning mate Edward Everett Herschel V Johnson nb 1 Electoral vote 39 12States carried 3 1Popular vote 590 901 1 380 202Percentage 12 6 29 5 Presidential Election results map Red denotes states won by Lincoln Hamlin green by Breckinridge Lane orange by Bell Everett and blue by Douglas Johnson Numbers indicate electoral votes cast by each state President before electionJames BuchananDemocratic Elected President Abraham LincolnRepublicanThe United States had become increasingly sectionally divided during the 1850s primarily over extending slavery into the western territories The incumbent president James Buchanan like his predecessor Franklin Pierce was a Northern Democrat with Southern sympathies Buchanan also adamantly promised not to seek re election From the mid 1850s the anti slavery Republican Party became a major political force driven by Northern voter opposition to the Kansas Nebraska Act and the Supreme Court s 1857 decision in Dred Scott v Sandford From the election of 1856 the Republican Party had replaced the defunct Whig Party as the major opposition to the Democrats A group of former Whigs and Know Nothings formed the Constitutional Union Party which sought to avoid disunion by resolving divisions over slavery with some new compromise The 1860 Republican National Convention in Chicago nominated Abraham Lincoln a moderate former one term Whig Representative from Illinois Its platform promised not to interfere with slavery in the South but opposed extension of slavery into the territories The 1860 Democratic National Convention adjourned in Charleston South Carolina without agreeing on a nominee but a second convention in Baltimore Maryland nominated Illinois Senator Stephen A Douglas Douglas s support for the concept of popular sovereignty which called for each territory s settlers to decide locally on the status of slavery alienated many radical pro slavery Southern Democrats who wanted the territories and perhaps other lands open to slavery With President Buchanan s support Southern Democrats held their own convention nominating Vice President John C Breckinridge of Kentucky The 1860 Constitutional Union Convention which hoped to avoid the slavery issue entirely nominated a ticket led by former Tennessee Senator John Bell Lincoln s main opponent in the North was Douglas who won the popular vote in Missouri electoral votes in New Jersey and the second highest popular vote total nationally Douglas was the only candidate in the 1860 election to win electoral votes in both free and slave states In the South Bell won three states and Breckinridge swept the remaining 11 Lincoln s election motivated seven Southern states all voting for Breckinridge to secede before the inauguration in March The American Civil War began less than two months after Lincoln s inauguration with the Battle of Fort Sumter afterwards four further states seceded Lincoln would go on to win re election in the 1864 United States presidential election The election was the first of six consecutive Republican victories Despite Lincoln s commanding victory this was the first election in American history in which the winner has failed to win his home county with Lincoln narrowly losing Sangamon County to Douglas However he would win Gasconade County which as of the 2020 United States presidential election has voted Republican ever since marking the beginning of the longest active voting streak for any party at the county level Contents 1 Nominations 1 1 Republican nomination 1 1 1 Republican Party candidates gallery 1 2 Democratic Northern Democratic Party nomination 1 2 1 Democratic Party candidates gallery 1 3 Southern Democratic Party nomination 1 3 1 Southern Democratic Party candidates gallery 1 4 Constitutional Union Party nomination 1 5 Liberty Union Party nomination 1 5 1 Liberty Party Radical Abolitionists Union candidates gallery 1 6 People s Party nomination 2 Political considerations 3 Results 3 1 Geography of results 3 1 1 Cartographic gallery 4 Results by state 4 1 Close states 5 Trigger for the Civil War 6 See also 7 Notes 8 References 9 Further reading 9 1 Primary sources 10 External linksNominations editThe 1860 presidential election conventions were unusually tumultuous due in particular to a split in the Democratic Party that led to rival conventions Republican nomination edit Main article 1860 Republican National Convention 1860 Republican Party ticketAbraham Lincoln Hannibal Hamlinfor President for Vice President nbsp nbsp U S Representativefor Illinois s 7th 1847 1849 U S Senator from Maine 1848 1857 1857 1861 CampaignRepublican candidates Abraham Lincoln former representative from Illinois William Seward senator from New York Simon Cameron senator from Pennsylvania Salmon P Chase governor of Ohio Edward Bates former representative from Missouri John McLean associate justice of the U S Supreme Court Benjamin Wade senator from Ohio William L Dayton former senator from New JerseyRepublican Party candidates gallery edit nbsp Former Representative Abraham Lincolnfrom Illinois nbsp Senator William H Seward from New York nbsp Senator Simon Cameronfrom Pennsylvania nbsp Governor Salmon P Chaseof Ohio nbsp Former Representative Edward Bates from Missouri nbsp Associate Justice John McLean nbsp Senator Benjamin Wade from Ohio nbsp Former Senator William L Dayton from New Jersey nbsp Chicago Wigwam site of the Republican ConventionThe Republican National Convention met in mid May 1860 after the Democrats had been forced to adjourn their convention in Charleston With the Democrats in disarray and a sweep of the Northern states possible the Republicans felt confident going into their convention in Chicago William H Seward from New York was considered the front runner followed by Salmon P Chase from Ohio and Missouri s Edward Bates Abraham Lincoln from Illinois was lesser known and was not considered to have a good chance against Seward Seward had been governor and senator of New York and was an able politician with a Whig background Also running were John C Fremont William L Dayton Cassius M Clay and Benjamin Wade who might be able to win if the convention deadlocked 3 As the convention developed however it was revealed that frontrunners Seward Chase and Bates had each alienated factions of the Republican Party Seward had been painted as a radical and his speeches on slavery predicted inevitable conflict which spooked moderate delegates He also was firmly opposed to nativism which further weakened his position He had also been abandoned by his longtime friend and political ally Horace Greeley publisher of the influential New York Tribune 3 Chase a former Democrat had alienated many of the former Whigs by his coalition with the Democrats in the late 1840s He had also opposed tariffs demanded by Pennsylvania and even had opposition from his own delegation from Ohio citation needed However Chase s firm antislavery stance made him popular with the Radical Republicans But what he offered in policy he lacked in charisma and political acumen 3 The conservative Bates was an unlikely candidate but found support from Horace Greeley who sought any chance to defeat Seward with whom he now had a bitter feud Bates outlined his positions on the extension of slavery into the territories and equal constitutional rights for all citizens positions that alienated his supporters in the border states and Southern conservatives while German Americans in the party opposed Bates because of his past association with the Know Nothings 3 Into this mix came Lincoln Lincoln was not unknown he had gained prominence in the 1858 Lincoln Douglas debates and had represented Illinois in the House of Representatives He had been quietly eyeing a run since the debates ensuring that they were widely published and that a biography of himself was published He gained great notability with his acclaimed February 1860 Cooper Union speech which may have ensured him the nomination although he had not yet announced his intentions to run Delivered in Seward s home state and attended by Greeley Lincoln used the speech to show that the Republican party was a party of moderates not crazed fanatics as Southerners and Democrats claimed Afterward Lincoln was in much demand for speaking engagements 3 4 As the convention approached Lincoln did not campaign actively as the office was expected to seek the man So it did at the Illinois state convention a week before the national convention Young politician Richard Oglesby found several fence rails that Lincoln may have split as a youngster and paraded them into the convention with a banner that proclaimed Lincoln to be The Rail Candidate for president Lincoln received a thunderous ovation surpassing his and his political allies expectations 3 Lincoln s campaign managers had printed and distributed thousands of fake convention admission tickets to Lincoln supporters to ensure and increase the crowd s support 5 Even with such support from his home state Lincoln faced a difficult task if he was to win the nomination He set about ensuring that he was the second choice of most delegates realizing that the first round of voting at the convention was unlikely to produce a clear winner He engineered that the convention would happen in Chicago which would be inherently friendly to the Illinois based Lincoln He also made sure that the Illinois delegation would vote as a bloc for him Lincoln did not attend the convention in person and left the task of delegate wrangling to several close friends 3 The first round of voting predictably produced a lead for Seward but not a majority with Lincoln in second place The second round eliminated most of the minor contenders with voters switching mostly to Seward or Lincoln The convention remained deadlocked however and skillful political maneuvering by Lincoln s delegate wranglers convinced some delegates to abandon Seward in favor of Lincoln Lincoln s combination of a moderate stance on slavery long support for economic issues his western origins and strong oratory proved to be exactly what the delegates wanted in a president On the third ballot on May 18 Lincoln secured the presidential nomination overwhelmingly 3 6 Senator Hannibal Hamlin from Maine was nominated for vice president defeating Clay Hamlin was surprised by his nomination saying he was astonished and that he neither expected nor desired it 7 The party platform 8 promised not to interfere with slavery in the states but opposed slavery in the territories The platform promised tariffs protecting industry and workers a Homestead Act granting free farmland in the West to settlers and the funding of a transcontinental railroad There was no mention of Mormonism which had been condemned in the Party s 1856 platform the Fugitive Slave Act personal liberty laws or the Dred Scott decision 9 While the Seward forces were disappointed at the nomination of a little known western upstart they rallied behind Lincoln while abolitionists were angry at the selection of a moderate and had little faith in Lincoln 10 11 Democratic Northern Democratic Party nomination edit This section needs additional citations for verification Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources in this section Unsourced material may be challenged and removed Find sources 1860 United States presidential election news newspapers books scholar JSTOR November 2023 Learn how and when to remove this template message Main article 1860 Democratic National Conventions 1860 Democratic Party ticketStephen A Douglas Herschel V Johnsonfor President for Vice President nbsp nbsp U S Senator from Illinois 1847 1861 41stGovernor of Georgia 1853 1857 nbsp James Buchanan the incumbent president in 1860 whose term expired on March 4 1861Northern Democratic candidates Stephen Douglas senator from Illinois James Guthrie former treasury secretary from Kentucky Robert Mercer Taliaferro Hunter senator from Virginia Joseph Lane senator from Oregon Daniel S Dickinson former senator from New York Andrew Johnson senator from TennesseeDemocratic Party candidates gallery edit nbsp Senator Stephen A Douglas from Illinois nbsp Former Treasury Secretary James Guthrie from Kentucky nbsp Senator Robert M T Hunter from Virginia nbsp Senator Joseph Lane from Oregon nbsp Former Senator Daniel S Dickinson from New York nbsp Senator Andrew Johnsonfrom Tennessee nbsp The South Carolina Institute located in Charleston The Institute hosted the Democratic National Convention and December Secession Convention in 1860 12 At the Democratic National Convention held in Institute Hall in Charleston South Carolina in April 1860 50 Southern Democrats walked out over a platform dispute led by the extreme pro slavery Fire Eater William Lowndes Yancey and the Alabama delegation following them were the entire delegations of Florida Georgia Louisiana Mississippi South Carolina and Texas three of the four delegates from Arkansas and one of the three delegates from Delaware nbsp Douglas Johnson campaign posterSix candidates were running Stephen A Douglas from Illinois James Guthrie from Kentucky Robert Mercer Taliaferro Hunter from Virginia Joseph Lane from Oregon Daniel S Dickinson from New York and Andrew Johnson from Tennessee while three other candidates Isaac Toucey from Connecticut James Pearce from Maryland and Jefferson Davis from Mississippi the future president of the Confederate States also received votes Douglas a moderate on the slavery issue who favored popular sovereignty was ahead on the first ballot but was 56 votes short of securing the nomination On the 57th ballot with Douglas still ahead but 51 votes short of the nomination the exhausted and desperate delegates agreed on May 3 to cease voting and adjourn the convention While the Democrats convened again at the Front Street Theater in Baltimore Maryland on June 18 110 Southern delegates led by Fire Eaters boycotted the convention or walked out after the convention informed them they would not adopt a resolution supporting extending slavery into territories whose voters did not want it While some considered Horatio Seymour a compromise candidate for the National Democratic nomination at the reconvening convention in Baltimore Seymour wrote a letter to the editor of his local newspaper declaring unreservedly that he was not a candidate for either spot on the ticket After two ballots the 59th ballot overall the remaining Democrats nominated Stephen A Douglas from Illinois for president 13 The election would now pit Lincoln against his longtime political rival whom Lincoln had lost to in the Illinois senate race just two years earlier That two candidates were from Illinois showed the importance of the West in the election 3 While Benjamin Fitzpatrick from Alabama was nominated for vice president he refused the nomination After the convention concluded with no vice presidential nominee Douglas offered the vice presidential nomination to Herschel V Johnson from Georgia who accepted Southern Democratic Party nomination edit Main article 1860 Democratic National Conventions 1860 Southern Democratic Party ticket John C Breckinridge Joseph Lanefor President for Vice President nbsp nbsp 14thVice President of the United States 1857 1861 U S Senator from Oregon 1859 1861 Southern Democratic candidates John C Breckinridge Vice President of the United States Daniel S Dickinson former senator from New York Robert Mercer Taliaferro Hunter senator from Virginia Joseph Lane senator from Oregon Jefferson Davis senator from MississippiSouthern Democratic Party candidates gallery edit nbsp Vice President John C Breckinridge nbsp Former SenatorDaniel S Dickinson from New York nbsp SenatorRobert M T Hunter from Virginia declined to be nominated nbsp Senator Joseph Lane from Oregon declined to be nominated nbsp Senator Jefferson Davis from Mississippi declined to be nominated nbsp Maryland Institute Hall Baltimore The bolting delegates nominated Breckinridge before Richmond vote 14 The delegates who walked out of the convention at Charleston reconvened in Richmond Virginia on June 11 When the Democrats reconvened in Baltimore they rejoined except South Carolina and Florida who had stayed in Richmond When the convention seated two replacement delegations on June 18 they walked out again or boycotted the convention accompanied by nearly all other Southern delegates and erstwhile Convention chair Caleb Cushing a New Englander and former member of Franklin Pierce s cabinet This larger group met immediately in Baltimore s Institute Hall with Cushing again presiding They adopted the pro slavery platform rejected at Charleston and nominated Vice President John C Breckinridge for president and Senator Joseph Lane from Oregon for vice president 15 Yancey and some less than half of the bolters almost entirely from the Lower South met on June 28 in Richmond along with the South Carolina and Florida delegations at a convention that affirmed the nominations of Breckinridge and Lane 14 Besides the Democratic Parties in the Southern states the Breckinridge Lane ticket was also supported by the Buchanan administration Buchanan s own continued prestige in his home state of Pennsylvania ensured that Breckinridge would be the principal Democratic candidate in that populous state Breckinridge was the last sitting vice president nominated for president until Richard Nixon in 1960 Constitutional Union Party nomination edit Main article 1860 Constitutional Union Convention 1860 Constitutional Union Party ticket John Bell Edward Everettfor President for Vice President nbsp nbsp U S Senator from Tennessee 1847 1859 U S Senator from Massachusetts 1853 1854 nbsp Constitutional Union candidates John Bell former senator from Tennessee Sam Houston governor of Texas John J Crittenden senator from Kentucky Edward Everett former senator from Massachusetts William A Graham former senator from North Carolina William C Rives former senator from Virginia nbsp Former Senator John Bell of Tennessee nbsp Governor Sam Houston of Texas nbsp Senator John J Crittenden from Kentucky nbsp Former Senator Edward Everett from Massachusetts nbsp Former Senator William A Graham from North Carolina nbsp Former Senator William C Rives from Virginia nbsp A Constitutional Union campaign poster 1860 portraying John Bell and Edward Everett respectively the candidates for president and vice president Once Lincoln was inaugurated and called up the militia Bell supported the secession of Tennessee In 1863 Everett dedicated the new cemetery at Gettysburg The Constitutional Union Party was formed by remnants of both the defunct Know Nothing and Whig Parties who were unwilling to join either the Republicans or the Democrats The new party s members hoped to stave off Southern secession by avoiding the slavery issue 16 They met in the Eastside District Courthouse of Baltimore and nominated John Bell from Tennessee for president over Governor Sam Houston of Texas on the second ballot Edward Everett was nominated for vice president at the convention on May 9 1860 one week before Lincoln 12 17 John Bell was a former Whig who had opposed the Kansas Nebraska Act and the Lecompton Constitution Edward Everett had been president of Harvard University and Secretary of State in the Millard Fillmore administration The party platform advocated compromise to save the Union with the slogan The Union as it is and the Constitution as it is 18 Liberty Union Party nomination edit Liberty Union candidates Gerrit Smith former representative from New YorkLiberty Party Radical Abolitionists Union candidates gallery edit nbsp Former Representative Gerrit Smith from New YorkBy 1860 very little remained of the Liberty Party after most of its membership left to join the Free Soil Party in 1848 and nearly all of what remained of it joined the Republicans in 1854 The remaining party was also called the Radical Abolitionists 19 20 A convention of one hundred delegates was held in Convention Hall Syracuse New York on August 29 1860 Delegates were in attendance from New York Pennsylvania New Jersey Michigan Illinois Ohio Kentucky and Massachusetts Several of the delegates were women Gerrit Smith a prominent abolitionist and the 1848 presidential nominee of the original Liberty Party had sent a letter in which he stated that his health had been so poor that he had not been able to be away from home since 1858 Nonetheless he remained popular in the party because he had helped inspire some of John Brown s supporters at the Raid on Harpers Ferry In his letter Smith donated 50 to pay for the printing of ballots in the various states There was quite a spirited contest between the friends of Gerrit Smith and William Goodell in regard to the nomination for the presidency In spite of his professed ill health Gerrit Smith was nominated for president and Samuel McFarland from Pennsylvania was nominated for vice president 20 In Ohio Illinois and Indiana slates of presidential electors pledged to Smith and McFarland ran with the name of the Union Party They received a total of 176 votes in the general election 0 004 of the total 21 People s Party nomination edit nbsp Governor Sam Houston of TexasThe People s Party was a loose association of the supporters of Governor Samuel Houston On April 20 1860 the party held what it termed a national convention to nominate Houston for president on the San Jacinto Battlefield in Texas Houston s supporters at the gathering did not nominate a vice presidential candidate since they expected later gatherings to carry out that function Later mass meetings were held in northern cities such as New York City on May 30 1860 but they too failed to nominate a vice presidential candidate Houston never enthusiastic about running for the presidency soon became convinced that he had no chance of winning and that his candidacy would only make it easier for the Republican candidate to win He withdrew from the race on August 16 and urged the formation of a Unified Union ticket in opposition to Lincoln 22 23 Political considerations editIn their campaigning Bell and Douglas both claimed that disunion would not necessarily follow a Lincoln election Nonetheless loyal army officers in Virginia Kansas and South Carolina warned Lincoln of military preparations to the contrary Secessionists threw their support behind Breckinridge in an attempt either to force the anti Republican candidates to coordinate their electoral votes or throw the election into the House of Representatives where the selection of the president would be made by the representatives elected in 1858 before the Republican majorities in both House and Senate achieved in 1860 were seated in the new 37th Congress Mexican War hero Winfield Scott suggested to Lincoln that he assume the powers of a commander in chief before inauguration However historian Bruce Chadwick observes that Lincoln and his advisors ignored the widespread alarms and threats of secession as mere election trickery citation needed Indeed voting in the South was not as monolithic as the Electoral College map would make it seem Economically culturally and politically the South was made up of three regions In the states of the Upper South also known as the Border South Delaware Maryland Kentucky and Missouri unionist popular votes were scattered among Lincoln Douglas and Bell to form a majority in all four In the Middle South states there was a unionist majority divided between Douglas and Bell in Virginia and Tennessee in North Carolina and Arkansas the unionist Bell and Douglas vote approached a majority Texas was the only Middle South state that Breckinridge carried convincingly In three of the six Deep South states unionists Bell and Douglas won divided majorities in Georgia and Louisiana or neared it in Alabama Breckinridge convincingly carried only three of the six states of the Deep South South Carolina Florida and Mississippi 24 These three Deep South states included the four Southern states with the largest enslaved populations and consequently the smallest enfranchised free white populations together they held only nine percent of Southern whites 25 Among the slave states the three states with the highest voter turnouts voted the most one sided Texas with five percent of the total wartime South s population voted 75 percent Breckinridge Kentucky and Missouri with one fourth the total population voted 73 percent pro union Bell Douglas and Lincoln In comparison the six states of the Deep South making up one fourth the Confederate voting population split 57 percent Breckinridge versus 43 percent for the two pro union candidates nb 2 The four states that were admitted to the Confederacy after Fort Sumter held almost half its population and voted a narrow combined majority of 53 percent for the pro union candidates In the eleven states that would later declare their secession from the Union and be controlled by Confederate armies ballots for Lincoln were cast only in Virginia nb 3 where he received 1 929 votes 1 15 percent of the total Unsurprisingly the vast majority of the votes Lincoln received were cast in border counties of what would soon become West Virginia the future state accounted for 1 832 of Lincoln s 1 929 votes 28 Lincoln received no votes at all in 121 of the state s then 145 counties including 31 of the 50 that would form West Virginia received a single vote in three counties and received ten or fewer votes in nine of the 24 counties where he polled votes Lincoln s best results by far were in the four counties that comprised the state s northern panhandle a region which had long felt alienated from Richmond was economically and culturally linked to its neighbors Ohio and Pennsylvania and would become the key driver in the successful effort to form a separate state Hancock County Virginia s northernmost at the time returned Lincoln s best result he polled over 40 of the vote there and finished in second place Lincoln polled only eight votes fewer than Breckinridge Of the 97 votes cast for Lincoln in the state s post 1863 boundaries 93 were polled in four counties along the Potomac River and four were tallied in the coastal city of Portsmouth One key difference between modern elections and those of the mid nineteenth century is that at the time the state did not print and distribute ballots In theory any document containing a valid or at least non excessive number names of citizens of a particular state provided they were eligible to vote in the electoral college within that state might have been accepted as a valid presidential ballot however what this meant in practice was that a candidate s campaign was responsible for printing and distributing their own ballots this service was typically done by supportive newspaper publishers Moreover since voters did not choose the president directly but rather presidential electors the only way for a voter to meaningfully support a particular candidate for president was cast a ballot for citizens of his state who would have pledged to vote for the candidate in the Electoral College In ten southern slave states no citizen would publicly pledge to vote for Abraham Lincoln so citizens there had no legal means to vote for the Republican nominee In most of Virginia no publisher would print ballots for Lincoln s pledged electors While a citizen without access to a ballot for Lincoln could theoretically have still voted for him by means of a write in ballot provided his state had electors pledged to Lincoln and the voter knew their identities casting a ballot in favor of the Republican candidate in a strongly pro slavery county would have incurred at minimum social ostracization of course casting a vote for Breckinridge in a strongly abolitionist county ran a voter the same risk citation needed In the four slave states that did not secede Missouri Kentucky Maryland and Delaware Lincoln came in fourth in every state except Delaware where he finished third Within the fifteen slave states Lincoln won only two counties out of 996 Missouri s St Louis and Gasconade Counties In the 1856 election the Republican candidate for president had received no votes at all in twelve of the fourteen slave states with a popular vote these being the same states as in the 1860 election plus Missouri and Virginia Results edit nbsp Inauguration of Abraham Lincolnthe Capitol March 4 1861 nbsp State election resultsby Electoral College vote nbsp Presence of slavery during the election The election was held on Tuesday November 6 1860 and was noteworthy for the exaggerated sectionalism and voter enthusiasm in a country that was soon to dissolve into civil war Voter turnout was 81 2 the highest in American history up to that time and the second highest overall exceeded only in the election of 1876 29 30 Since Andrew Jackson had won re election in 1832 all six subsequent presidents had only won one term while the last four of those had won with a popular vote under 51 percent 31 nbsp Results by county with darker shades indicating larger percentages for the winning candidate Red is for Lincoln Republican blue is for Douglas Northern Democratic green is for Breckinridge Southern Democratic yellow is for Bell Constitutional Union and purple is for Fusion Non Republican Democratic Fusion South Carolina had no popular vote Lincoln won the Electoral College with less than 40 percent of the popular vote nationwide by carrying states above the Mason Dixon line and north of the Ohio River plus the states of California and Oregon in the Far West Unlike every preceding president elect Lincoln did not carry even one slave state he instead carried all eighteen free states exclusively There were no ballots distributed for Lincoln in ten of the Southern states Alabama Arkansas Florida Georgia Louisiana Mississippi North Carolina South Carolina Tennessee and Texas This withheld 61 potential electoral votes from Lincoln a fifth of what was the total 303 available to the other candidates In a similar divide between North and South electors Breckenridge carried nine of the ten states that withheld Lincoln from the ballot the exception being Tennessee Lincoln was therefore the second President elect to poll no votes in some states which had a popular vote the first was John Quincy Adams who polled no ballots in the popular votes of two states in the election of 1824 the only other election in which there were four major candidates none of whom distributed ballots in every state It should be further noted that prior to introduction of the secret ballot in the 1880s the concept of ballot access did not exist in the sense it does today there was no standardized state issued ballot for a candidate to appear on Instead presidential ballots were printed and distributed by agents of the candidates and their parties who organized slates of would be electors publicly pledged to vote for a particular candidate The 1824 and 1860 presidential elections were the only two prior to the introduction of the secret ballot where a winning candidate was so unpopular in a particular region that it was impossible to organize and print ballots for a slate of eligible voters pledged to vote for that candidate in an entire state Since 1860 and excluding unreconstructed Southern states in 1868 and 1872 there have been two occasions where a Republican presidential candidate failed to poll votes in every state nb 4 while national Democratic candidates have failed to appear on all state ballots in three elections since the introduction of the secret ballot though in all three the Democratic candidate nonetheless won the presidency nb 5 but none of them were off the ballot in as many states as Lincoln in 1860 Lincoln won the second lowest share of the popular vote among all winning presidential candidates in U S history nb 6 Lincoln s share of the popular vote would likely have been even lower if there had been a popular vote in South Carolina though conversely it would likely have been marginally higher had he been on the ballot in all of the Southern states The Republican victory resulted from the concentration of votes in the free states which together controlled a majority of the presidential electors 32 Lincoln s strategy was deliberately focused in collaboration with Republican Party Chairman Thurlow Weed on expanding on the states Fremont won four years earlier New York was critical with 35 Electoral College votes 11 5 percent of the total and with Pennsylvania 27 and Ohio 23 as well a candidate could collect 85 votes whereas 152 were required to win The Wide Awakes young Republican men s organization massively expanded registered voter lists and although Lincoln was not even on the ballot in most Southern states population increases in the free states had far exceeded those seen in the slave states for many years before the election of 1860 hence free states dominated in the Electoral College 33 The split in the Democratic party is sometimes held responsible for Lincoln s victory 34 despite the fact that Lincoln won the election with less than 40 of the popular vote as much of the anti Republican vote was wasted in Southern states in which no ballots for Lincoln were circulated Lincoln also won outright majorities in enough states that if he lost all states that he took with pluralities he would still have enough electoral votes to win At most a single opponent nationwide would have deprived Lincoln of only California Oregon and four New Jersey electors 35 whose combined total of eleven electoral votes would have made no difference to the result since every other state won by the Republicans was won by a clear majority of the vote in this scenario Lincoln would have received 169 electoral votes 17 more than the 152 required to win In the states of New York Pennsylvania and New Jersey where anti Lincoln votes were combined into fusion tickets Lincoln still won two and split New Jersey Despite this a shift of 25 000 votes to the fusion ticket in New York would have left Lincoln with 145 electoral votes seven votes short of winning the Electoral College and forced a contingent election in the House of Representatives 36 37 Of the five states that Lincoln failed to carry despite polling votes he received 20 percent of the vote in only one Delaware and 10 percent of the vote in only one more Missouri Like Lincoln Breckinridge and Bell won no electoral votes outside of their respective sections While Bell retired to his family business quietly supporting his state s secession Breckinridge served as a Confederate general He finished second in the Electoral College with 72 votes carrying eleven of fifteen slave states including South Carolina whose electors were chosen by the state legislature not popular vote Breckinridge stood a distant third in national popular vote at eighteen percent but accrued 50 to 75 percent in the first seven states that would form the Confederate States of America He took nine of the eleven states that eventually joined plus the border slave states of Delaware and Maryland losing only Virginia and Tennessee Breckinridge received very little support in the free states showing some strength only in California Oregon Pennsylvania and Connecticut Bell carried three slave states Tennessee Kentucky and Virginia and lost Maryland by only 722 votes Nevertheless he finished a remarkable second in all slave states won by Breckinridge or Douglas He won 45 to 47 percent in Maryland Tennessee and North Carolina and canvassed respectably with 36 to 40 percent in Missouri Arkansas Louisiana Georgia and Florida Bell himself had hoped that he would take over the former support of the extinct Whig Party in free states but the majority of this support went to Lincoln 38 Thus except for running mate Everett s home state of Massachusetts and California Bell received even less support in the free states than did Breckinridge and consequently came in last in the national popular vote at 12 62 Douglas was the only candidate who won electoral votes in both slave and free states free New Jersey and slave Missouri His support was the most widespread geographically he finished second behind Lincoln in the popular vote with 29 52 but last in the Electoral College His 12 electoral votes are the lowest for a Democrat in history Douglas attained a 28 to 47 share in the states of the Mid Atlantic Midwest and Trans Mississippi West but slipped to 19 to 39 in New England Outside his regional section Douglas took 15 to 17 of the popular vote total in the slave states of Kentucky Alabama and Louisiana then 10 percent or less in the nine remaining slave states Douglas in his Norfolk Doctrine reiterated in North Carolina promised to keep the Union together by coercion if states proceeded to secede the popular vote for Lincoln and Douglas combined was 69 17 of the turnout The 1860 Republican ticket was the first successful national ticket that did not feature a Southerner and the election marked the end of Southern political dominance in the United States Between 1789 and 1860 Southerners had been president for two thirds of the era and had held the offices of Speaker of the House and President pro tem of the Senate during much of that time Moreover since 1791 Southerners had comprised a majority of the Supreme Court 39 nbsp Electoral results Presidential candidate Party Home state Popular vote a Electoralvote Running mateCount Percentage Vice presidential candidate Home state Electoral voteAbraham Lincoln Republican Illinois 1 865 908 39 82 180 Hannibal Hamlin Maine 180John C Breckinridge Southern Democratic Kentucky 848 019 18 10 72 Joseph Lane Oregon 72John Bell Constitutional Union Tennessee 590 901 12 61 39 Edward Everett Massachusetts 39Stephen A Douglas Northern Democratic Illinois 1 380 202 29 46 12 Herschel V Johnson Georgia 12Other 531 0 01 Other Total 4 685 561 100 303 303Needed to win 152 152Source Popular Vote Leip David 1860 Presidential Election Results Dave Leip s Atlas of U S Presidential Elections Retrieved July 27 2005 Source Electoral Vote Electoral College Box Scores 1789 1996 National Archives and Records Administration Retrieved July 31 2005 a The popular vote figures exclude South Carolina where the Electors were chosen by the state legislature rather than by popular vote Popular voteLincoln b 39 82 Douglas 29 46 Breckinridge 18 10 Bell 12 61 Others 0 01 Electoral voteLincoln b 59 41 Breckinridge 23 76 Bell 12 87 Douglas 3 96 b The option of Lincoln was absent from 20 13 of ballots across ten states He was available to only 79 87 of the voters that were available to the other candidates Geography of results edit Cartographic gallery edit nbsp Vector Map of presidential election results by county nbsp Map of presidential election results by county nbsp Map of Republican presidential election results by county nbsp Map of Northern Democratic presidential election results by county nbsp Map of Southern Democratic presidential election results by county nbsp Map of Constitutional Union presidential election results by county nbsp Map of Fusion slate presidential election results by county nbsp Cartogram of presidential election results by county nbsp Cartogram of Republican presidential election results by county nbsp Cartogram of Northern Democratic presidential election results by county nbsp Cartogram of Southern Democratic presidential election results by county nbsp Cartogram of Constitutional Union presidential election results by county nbsp Cartogram of Fusion slate presidential election results by countyResults by state editSource Data from Walter Dean Burnham Presidential ballots 1836 1892 Johns Hopkins University Press 1955 pp 247 57 States districts won by Douglas JohnsonStates districts won by Breckinridge LaneStates districts won by Lincoln HamlinStates districts won by Bell EverettAbraham LincolnRepublican Stephen Douglas Northern Democratic John Breckinridge Southern Democratic John BellConstitutional Union Fusion Non Republican Democratic Fusion Margin State TotalState electoralvotes electoralvotes electoralvotes electoralvotes electoralvotes electoralvotes Alabama 9 no ballots 00013618 13 618 15 11 00048669 48 669 54 0 9 27 835 30 89 no ballots 20 834 23 11 90 122 ALArkansas 4 no ballots 5 357 9 89 28 732 53 06 4 20 063 37 05 no ballots 8 669 16 01 54 152 ARCalifornia 4 38 733 32 32 4 37 999 31 71 33 969 28 35 9 111 7 60 no ballots 734 0 61 119 827 CAConnecticut 6 43 486 53 86 6 17 364 21 50 16 558 20 51 3 337 4 13 no ballots 28 057 32 36 80 745 CTDelaware 3 3 822 23 72 1 066 6 61 7 339 45 54 3 3 888 24 13 no ballots 3 451 21 41 16 115 DEFlorida 3 no ballots 223 1 7 8 277 62 23 3 4 801 36 1 no ballots 3 476 26 13 13 301 FLGeorgia 10 no ballots 11 581 10 85 52 176 48 89 10 42 960 40 26 no ballots 9 216 8 63 106 717 GAIllinois 11 172 171 50 69 11 160 215 47 17 2 331 0 69 4 914 1 45 no ballots 11 956 3 52 339 666 ILIndiana 13 139 033 51 09 13 115 509 42 44 12 295 4 52 5 306 1 95 no ballots 23 524 8 65 272 143 INIowa 4 70 302 54 61 4 55 639 43 22 1 035 0 8 1 763 1 37 no ballots 14 663 11 39 128 739 IAKentucky 12 1 364 0 93 25 651 17 54 53 143 36 35 66 058 45 18 12 no ballots 12 915 8 83 146 216 KYLouisiana 6 no ballots 7 625 15 10 22 681 44 90 6 20 204 40 0 no ballots 2 477 4 90 50 510 LAMaine 8 62 811 62 24 8 29 693 29 42 6 368 6 31 2 046 2 03 no ballots 33 118 32 82 100 918 MEMaryland 8 2 294 2 48 5 966 6 45 42 482 45 93 8 41 760 45 14 no ballots 722 0 79 92 502 MDMassachusetts 13 106 684 62 80 13 34 370 20 23 6 163 3 63 22 331 13 15 no ballots 72 314 42 57 169 876 MAMichigan 6 88 450 57 23 6 64 889 41 99 805 0 52 405 0 26 no ballots 23 561 15 24 154 549 MIMinnesota 4 22 069 63 53 4 11 920 34 31 748 2 15 50 0 01 no ballots 10 149 29 22 34 787 MNMississippi 7 no ballots 3 282 4 75 40 768 59 0 7 25 045 36 23 no ballots 15 723 22 77 69 095 MSMissouri 9 17 028 10 28 58 801 35 52 9 31 362 18 94 58 372 35 26 no ballots 429 0 26 165 563 MONew Hampshire 5 37 519 56 90 5 25 887 39 26 2 125 3 22 412 0 62 no ballots 11 632 17 64 65 943 NHNew Jersey 7 58 346 48 13 4 nb 7 no ballots 3 nb 8 no ballots no ballots 62 869 nb 9 51 87 nb 10 4 523 3 74 121 215 NJNew York 35 362 646 53 71 35 no ballots no ballots no ballots 312 510 46 29 nb 11 50 136 7 42 675 156 NYNorth Carolina 10 no ballots 2 737 2 83 48 846 50 51 10 45 129 46 66 no ballots 3 717 3 85 96 712 NCOhio 23 221 809 51 24 23 187 421 43 30 11 303 2 61 12 193 2 82 no ballots 34 388 7 94 432 862 OHOregon 3 5 344 36 20 3 4 131 27 99 5 074 34 37 212 1 44 no ballots 270 1 83 14 761 ORPennsylvania 27 268 030 56 26 27 16 765 3 52 nb 12 no ballots 12 776 2 68 178 871 nb 13 37 54 nb 14 89 159 18 72 476 442 PARhode Island 4 12 244 61 37 4 7 707 nb 15 38 63 no ballots no ballots no ballots 4 537 22 74 19 951 RISouth Carolina 8 no popular vote no popular vote no popular vote 8 no popular vote no popular vote SCTennessee 12 no ballots 11 281 7 72 65 097 44 55 69 728 47 72 12 no ballots 4 631 3 17 146 106 TNTexas 4 no ballots 18 0 03 47 454 75 47 4 15 383 24 50 no ballots 32 110 50 97 63 004 TXVermont 5 33 808 75 86 5 8 649 19 41 1 866 4 19 217 0 49 no ballots 25 159 56 45 44 566 VTVirginia 15 1 887 1 13 16 198 9 71 74 325 44 54 74 481 44 63 15 no ballots 156 0 09 166 891 VAWisconsin 5 86 113 56 59 5 65 021 42 73 887 0 58 161 0 11 no ballots 21 092 13 86 152 179 WITOTALS 303 1 855 993 39 65 180 1 006 583 21 50 12 673 701 14 39 72 590 268 12 61 39 554 250 11 84 0 4 681 335 USTO WIN 152 Close states edit States where the margin of victory was under 1 Virginia 0 09 156 votes Missouri 0 26 429 votes California 0 61 734 votes Maryland 0 79 722 votes States where the margin of victory was under 5 Oregon 1 83 270 votes Tennessee 3 17 4 631 votes Illinois 3 52 11 956 votes North Carolina 3 85 3 717 votes New Jersey 3 74 4 523 votes Louisiana 4 90 2 477 votes States where the margin of victory was under 10 New York 7 42 50 136 votes tipping point state for Lincoln s victory Ohio 7 94 34 388 votes Georgia 8 63 9 216 votes Indiana 8 65 23 524 votes Kentucky 8 83 12 915 votes Trigger for the Civil War editSee also Origins of the American Civil War and Presidency of James Buchanan Secession Lincoln s victory and imminent inauguration as president was the immediate cause for declarations of secession by seven Southern states South Carolina Mississippi Florida Alabama Georgia Louisiana and Texas from 20 December 1860 to 1 February 1861 They then formed the Confederate States of America On 9 February 1861 Jefferson Davis was elected president of the Confederacy Several other states also considered declaring secession at the time Missouri convened a secession convention which voted against secession and adjourned permanently Arkansas convened a secession convention which voted against secession and adjourned temporarily 42 Virginia convened a secession convention which voted against secession but remained in session Tennessee held a referendum on having a secession convention which failed North Carolina held a referendum on having a secession convention which failed 43 All of the secessionist activity was motivated by fear for the institution of slavery in the South If the President and by extension the appointed federal officials in the South such as district attorneys marshals postmasters and judges opposed slavery it might collapse There were fears that abolitionist agents would infiltrate the South and foment slave insurrections The noted secessionist William Lowndes Yancey speaking at New York s Cooper Institute in October 1860 asserted that with abolitionists in power Emissaries will percolate between master and slave as water between the crevices of rocks underground They will be found everywhere with strychnine to put in our wells 44 Less radical Southerners thought that with Northern antislavery dominance of the federal government slavery would eventually be abolished regardless of present constitutional limits 45 Bertram Wyatt Brown argues that secessionists desired independence as necessary for their honor They could no longer tolerate Northern state attitudes that regarded slave ownership as a great sin and Northern politicians who insisted on stopping the spread of slavery 46 47 48 Another bloc of Southerners resented Northern criticism of slavery and restrictions on slavery but opposed secession as dangerous and unnecessary However the conditional Unionists also hoped that when faced with secession Northerners would stifle anti slavery rhetoric and accept pro slavery rules for the territories It was that group that prevented immediate secession in Virginia North Carolina Tennessee and Arkansas when Lincoln took office on 4 March 1861 He took no action against the secessionists in the seven Confederate states but also declared that secession had no legal validity and refused to surrender federal property in those states He also reiterated his opposition to slavery anywhere in the territories Preparing to form an army on 6 March 1861 Davis called for 100 000 volunteers to serve for twelve months 49 The political standoff continued until mid April when Davis ordered Confederate troops to bombard and capture Fort Sumter Lincoln then called for troops to put down rebellion which wiped out the possibility that the crisis could be resolved by compromise Nearly all conditional Unionists joined the secessionists The Virginia convention and the reconvened Arkansas convention both declared secession as did the legislatures of Tennessee and North Carolina all four states joined the Confederacy See also edit1860 61 United States House of Representatives elections 1860 61 United States Senate elections American election campaigns in the 19th century Electoral history of Abraham Lincoln First inauguration of Abraham Lincoln John Hanks History of the United States 1849 1865 History of the United States Democratic Party History of the United States Republican Party Third Party SystemNotes edit Benjamin Fitzpatrick had originally been nominated to serve as Douglas running mate however Fitzpatrick declined the nomination and Johnson was chosen instead Deep South here in presidential popular votes refers to Georgia Florida Alabama Mississippi and Louisiana It excludes South Carolina from the calculation because in 1860 it chose presidential electors in the state legislature without a popular vote Ballots were printed sheets usually printed by the party with the name of the candidate s and the names of presidential electors who were pledged to that presidential candidate Voters brought the ballot to the polling station and dropped it publicly into the election box In order to receive any votes a candidate or his party had to have ballots printed and organize a group of electors pledged to that candidate Except in some border areas the Republican party did not attempt any organization in the South and did not print ballots there because almost no one was willing to acknowledge publicly they were voting for Lincoln for fear of violent retribution 26 27 In 1892 incumbent President Benjamin Harrison failed to poll votes in Florida because the state s Republicans supported Populist nominee James B Weaver In 1912 William Howard Taft was not on the ballot in South Dakota or California because the South Dakotan and Californian branches of Republican Party nominated Progressive candidate Theodore Roosevelt as the official Republican candidate In 1892 Grover Cleveland was not on the ballot in Colorado Idaho Kansas North Dakota or Wyoming while neither Harry Truman in 1948 nor Lyndon Johnson in 1964 were on the ballot in Alabama John Quincy Adams who won the 1824 presidential election in a vote of the House of Representatives won 30 92 of the popular vote or 10 44 less than that of Andrew Jackson Lincoln s share of the popular vote in 1860 represents the lowest share received by any popular vote winner 4 of the electors pledged to Lincoln were elected since the Breckinridge and Bell electors finished behind all other candidates 40 The 3 Douglas electors were elected 40 The Fusion vote used here is the vote for the high elector on the slate who was pledged to Douglas 40 The Fusion slate consisted of 3 electors pledged to Douglas and 2 each to Breckinridge and Bell Nonetheless different electors appeared in some counties for Breckinridge and Bell resulting in lower totals for them and a split electoral outcome The 3 Douglas electors were elected and 4 of those pledged to Lincoln The Breckinridge and Bell electors finished behind all other candidates 40 The slate of electors were pledged to 3 different candidates 18 to Douglas 10 to Bell and 7 to Breckinridge 40 Not all of the Douglas supporters agreed to the Reading slate deal and established a separate Douglas only ticket This slate comprised the 12 Douglas electoral candidates on the Reading ticket and 15 additional Douglas supporters This ticket was usually referred to as the Straight Douglas ticket Thus 12 electoral candidates appeared on 2 tickets Reading and Straight Douglas 41 This vote is listed under the Fusion column not the Breckinridge column as many other sources do because this ticket was pledged to either of two candidates based on the national result Additionally the slate was almost equally divided between the supporters of Breckinridge and Douglas 41 The Democratic Party chose its slate of electors before the National Convention in Charleston SC Since this was decided before the party split both Douglas supporters and Breckinridge supporters claimed the right for their man to be considered the party candidate and the support of the electoral slate Eventually the state party worked out an agreement if either candidate could win the national election with Pennsylvania s electoral vote then all her electoral votes would go to that candidate Of the 27 electoral candidates 15 were Breckinridge supporters the remaining 12 were for Douglas This was often referred to as the Reading electoral slate because it was in that city that the state party chose it 41 The Douglas ticket in Rhode Island was supported by Breckinridge and Bell supporters 41 References edit National General Election VEP Turnout Rates 1789 Present United States Election Project CQ Press Burlingame Michael October 4 2016 Abraham Lincoln Campaign and Elections Archived from the original on April 2 2017 Retrieved July 13 2021 a b c d e f g h i Donald David Herbert 1995 Lincoln New York Simon amp Schuster pp 230 256 ISBN 0 684 80846 3 OCLC 32589068 Holzer Harold November 7 2006 Lincoln at Cooper Union The Speech That Made Abraham Lincoln President p 1 ISBN 0 7432 9964 7 Retrieved March 12 2016 H ad he not triumphed before the sophisticated and demanding audience he faced at New York s Cooper Union on February 27 1860 Lincoln would likely never have been nominated much less elected to the presidency that November Lepore Jill 2018 These Truths A History of the United States New York W W Norton amp Company p 287 ISBN 978 0 393 63524 9 Proceedings of the Republican national convention held at Chicago May 16 17 and 18 1860 by Republican National Convention 2nd 1860 Chicago Ill Free Download Borrow and Streaming Internet Archive Internet Archive 1860 Retrieved December 28 2020 Foner September 26 2011 The Fiery Trial W W Norton amp Company p 140 ISBN 978 0 393 34066 2 Republican National Platform 1860 Central Pacific Railroad Photographic History Museum CPRR org April 13 2003 Retrieved April 17 2015 Rhodes 1920 2 420 Rhodes 1920 2 429 Baum Dale 1984 The Civil War Party System The Case of Massachusetts 1848 1876 Chapel Hill The University of North Carolina Press p 49 ISBN 0 8078 1588 8 a b Lossing Benson John 1866 Pictorial history of the civil war in the United States of America Volume 1 Poughkeepsie NY G W Childs p 29 Retrieved January 26 2012 Bolters met at St Andrew s Hall Morris Roy Jr 2008 The Long Pursuit Abraham Lincoln s Thirty Year Struggle with Stephen Douglas for the Heart and Soul of America HarperCollins pp 150 152 ISBN 978 0060852092 a b Freehling William W The Road to Disunion Secessionists Triumphant Vol 2 Oxford University 2007 p 321 Heidler p 157 Baltimore s Institute Hall not be confused with Charleston s Institute Hall also used by the walk out delegations Schulten Susan November 10 2010 How And Where Lincoln Won The New York Times The building had been the First Presbyterian Meeting House Two Towers Church on Fayette Street between Calvert and North Street demolished before 1866 and occupied by the United States Courthouse Getting the Message Out Stephen A Douglas Archived January 20 2015 at the Wayback Machine Proceedings of the Convention of Radical Political Abolitionists held at Syracuse N Y June 26th 27th and 28th 1855 New York Central Abolition Board 1855 archived from the original on September 5 2018 retrieved March 5 2018 a b RADICAL ABOLITION NATIONAL CONVENTION Douglass Monthly October 1860 p 352 Dubin Michael J 2002 United States Presidential Elections 1788 1860 The Official Results by County and State Jefferson McFarland amp Company p 159 ISBN 9780786410170 POLITICAL MOVEMENTS THE HOUSTON MASS MEETING Large Gathering of the People in Union Square Washington statue Illuminated The Hero of San Jacinto Nominated for the Presidency Speeches Address Resolutions Music Fireworks Guns and Fun The New York Times May 30 1860 Letter from Sam Houston Withdrawing from the Canvass The New York Times September 3 1860 Hindley Meredith November December 2010 The Man Who Came in Second Humanities 31 6 Retrieved March 13 2020 Freehling William W The Road to Disunion Volume II Secessionists Triumphant 1854 1861 Oxford University Press 2004 p 447 Republican ballot 1860 Retrieved April 28 2011 Election of 1860 Read Your Ballot Retrieved April 28 2011 Results by county in Virginia PDF The 1876 election had a turnout of 81 8 slightly higher than 1860 Between 1828 and 1928 Voter Turnout in Presidential Elections 1828 2008 The American Presidency Project UC Santa Barbara Retrieved November 9 2012 Data between 1932 and 2008 Table 397 Participation in Elections for President and U S Representatives 1932 to 2010 PDF U S Census Bureau Statistical Abstract of the United States 2012 U S Census Bureau Archived from the original PDF on October 24 2012 Retrieved February 7 2013 United States Presidential Election Results uselectionatlas org Retrieved July 19 2022 Only Franklin Pierce had achieved a statistical majority in the popular vote 50 83 percent Chadwick Bruce Lincoln for President an unlikely candidate an audacious strategy and the victory no one saw coming 2009 Ch 10 The Eleventh Hour p 289 ISBN 978 1 4022 2504 8 Ziegler McPherson Christina A Selling America Immigration Promotion and the Settlement of the American Continent 1607 1914 pp 34 36 ISBN 1440842094 e g the 1912 Catholic Encyclopedia vol 15 p 171 New Jersey s Vote in 1860 NY Times December 26 1892 Potter The impending crisis 1848 1861 1976 p 437 Luthin The First Lincoln Campaign p 227 Davies Gareth and Zelizer Julian E America at the Ballot Box Elections and Political History pp 65 66 ISBN 0812291360 Murrin John M Johnson Paul E McPherson James M Fahs Alice Gerstle Gary Rosenberg Emily S Rosenberg Norman L January 2011 Liberty Equality Power A History of the American People Volume I To 1877 6th ed Boston Wadsworth Cengage Learning p 403 ISBN 978 0 495 91587 4 a b c d e Dubin Michael J United States Presidential Elections 1788 1860 The Official Results by County and State McFarland amp Company 2002 p 187 a b c d Dubin Michael J United States Presidential Elections 1788 1860 The Official Results by County and State McFarland amp Company 2002 p 188 Secession Convention Encyclopedia of Arkansas Secession Vote and Realigned Allegiance North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources Walther Eric H 2006 William Lowndes Yancey The Coming of the Civil War p 262 ISBN 978 0 7394 8030 4 Avery Craven The Growth of Southern Nationalism 1848 1861 1953 ISBN 978 0 8071 0006 6 p 391 394 396 Decredico Mary A 2004 Sectionalism and the Secession Crisis In Boles John B ed A Companion to the American South p 243 ISBN 9781405138307 Wyatt Brown Bertram Yankee Saints and Southern Sinners 1990 Decredico Mary A 2004 Sectionalism and the Secession Crisis In Boles John B ed A Companion to the American South p 240 ISBN 9781405138307 https web archive org web 20161021171757 http www history army mil books AMH AMH 09 htm The Civil War 1861 American Military History U S Army Center of Military History Archived from the original on 21 October 2016 Retrieved 3 July 2023 Further reading editAchorn Edward 2023 The Lincoln Miracle Inside the Republican Convention That Changed History Atlantic Monthly Press Carwardine Richard 2003 Lincoln Pearson Education Ltd ISBN 978 0 582 03279 8 Chadwick Bruce 2010 Lincoln for President An Unlikely Candidate An Audacious Strategy and the Victory No One Saw Coming Sourcebooks Inc ISBN 978 1 4022 2858 2 Decredico Mary A Sectionalism and the Secession Crisis in John B Boles ed A Companion to the American South 2004 pp 231 248 on the historiography of Southend motivations Donald David Herbert 1996 1995 Lincoln New York Simon and Schuster ISBN 978 0 684 82535 9 Egerton Douglas 2010 Year of Meteors Stephen Douglas Abraham Lincoln and the Election That Brought on the Civil War Bloomsbury Press ISBN 978 1 59691 619 7 Fite Emerson David The Presidential Campaign of 1860 1911 online Foner Eric 1995 1970 Free Soil Free Labor Free Men The Ideology of the Republican Party before the Civil War Oxford University Press ISBN 978 0 19 509497 8 Franson Melissa Wide Awakes Half Asleeps Little Giants and Bell Ringers Political Partisanship in the Catskills of New York during the Elections of 1860 and 1862 New York History 102 1 2021 149 171 excerpt Fuller A James ed 2013 The Election of 1860 Reconsidered Kent State University Press online Thomas E Rodgers Saving the Republic Turnout Ideology and Republicanism in the Election of 1860 in The Election of 1860 Reconsidered ch 6 Gabrial B The Democrats Divide Newspaper Coverage of the 1860 Presidential Conventions in In The Antebellum Press Routledge 2019 pp 201 211 Goodwin Doris Kearns 2002 Team of Rivals The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln New York Simon amp Schuster ISBN 0 684 82490 6 Green Michael S 2011 Lincoln and the Election of 1860 SIU Press ISBN 978 0 8093 8636 9 Grinspan Jon Young Men for War The Wide Awakes and Lincoln s 1860 Presidential Campaign Journal of American History 96 2 2009 online Harris William C 2007 Lincoln s Rise to the Presidency Lawrence University Press of Kansas ISBN 978 0 7006 1520 9 Holt Michael F 1978 The Political Crisis of the 1850s Holt Michael F The Election of 1860 A Campaign Fraught with Consequences 2017 online review Holzer Harold 2004 Lincoln at Cooper Union The Speech That Made Abraham Lincoln President Simon amp Schuster ISBN 978 0 7432 9964 0 Johannsen Robert W 1973 Stephen A Douglas Oxford University Press Luebke Frederick C 1971 Ethnic Voters and the Election of Lincoln Lincoln University of Nebraska Press ISBN 9780803207967 Luthin Reinhard H 1944 The First Lincoln Campaign Cambridge MA Harvard University Press ISBN 978 0 8446 1292 8 along with Nevins the most detailed narrative of the election Nevins Allan Ordeal of the Union 8 volumes Macmillan 1947 1971 detailed scholarly coverage of every election 1848 to 1864 See vol 4 1950 The Emergence of Lincoln vol 2 Prologue to Civil War 1857 1861 pp 200 317 online Nichols Roy Franklin The Disruption of American Democracy 1948 pp 348 506 focused on the Democratic party online Parks Joseph Howard 1950 John Bell of Tennessee Louisiana State University Press Potter David M 1976 The Impending Crisis 1848 1861 HarperCollins ISBN 978 0 06 131929 7 Rhodes James Ford 1912 History of the United States from the Compromise of 1850 to the Final Restoration of Home Rule at the South in 1877 Vol II Rhodes James Ford 1920 History of the United States from the Compromise of 1859 to the McKinley Bryan Campaign of 1896 Wells Damon Stephen Douglas The Last Years 1857 1861 1971 online Woods Michael E Arguing Until Doomsday Stephen Douglas Jefferson Davis and the Struggle for American Democracy UNC Press Books 2020 online review Primary sources edit Chester Edward W A Guide to Political Platforms 1977 pp 72 79 online Porter Kirk H and Donald Bruce Johnson eds National Party Platforms 1840 1964 1965 online 1840 1956External links edit nbsp Wikimedia Commons has media related to United States presidential election 1860 1860 election State by state Popular vote results 1860 popular vote by counties Electoral Map from 1860 Abraham Lincoln Original Letters and Manuscripts 1860 Archived May 11 2014 at the Wayback Machine Shapell Manuscript Foundation Lincoln s election details Report on 1860 Republican convention Abraham Lincoln A Resource Guide from the Library of Congress Presidential Election of 1860 A Resource Guide from the Library of Congress Election of 1860 in Counting the Votes Archived October 3 2017 at the Wayback Machine Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title 1860 United States presidential election amp oldid 1198416975, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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