United States presidential election, 1860

The U.S. presidential election of 1860 set the stage for the American Civil War as the political system split four ways as it proved unable to hold the nation together. The nation had been divided through most of the 1850s on questions of slavery in the territories and states rights. In 1860, this issue finally came to a head, bringing Abraham Lincoln and the Republican party to power, while it simultaneously fractured the formerly dominant Democratic Party in two.

The immediate result was the secession of seven southern states to form their own country and the outbreak of the American Civil War.

Background

Since 1856 the nation had been deeply divided along sectional lines by the Dred Scott decision, the Kansas-Nebraska Act and the Lecompton Constitution, and John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry.

Nominations

Constitutional Union Party nomination

Diehard former Whigs and Know-Nothings who felt they could not support the Democratic Party nor the Republican Party and formed the Constitutional Union Party, nominating John C. Bell of Tennessee for president and Edward Everett for vice president in Baltimore on May 9, 1860 (one week before Lincoln was nominated).

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 and Cotton Whig in the Fillmore administration. The party platform advocated compromise to save the Union, with a slogan of “the Union as it is, and the Constitution as it is.”

Democratic Party nominations

The Democratic Party was divided. At the convention in Charleston in April 1860, 50 southern Democrats walked out over a platform dispute.

Six candidates were nominated: Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois, Andrew Johnson of Tennessee, Daniel S. Dickinson of New York, Joseph Lane of Oregon, James Guthrie of Kentucky, and Robert Mercer Taliaferro Hunter of Virginia. Douglas was ahead on the first ballot, needing 57 more votes. On the 57th ballot, Douglas was still ahead, but was still 50 votes short of the nomination. In desperation, on May 3 the delegates agreed to stop voting and adjourn the convention.

They convened again in Baltimore on June 18. This time 110 southern Democrats (led by “Fire-Eaters”) walked out when the convention would not adopt a resolution supporting slavery in the territories. After many ballots, the remaining Democrats nominated the ticket of Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois for President and Herschel Vespasian Johnson of Georgia for Vice President.

The Southern Democrats reconvened in Richmond, Virginia and on June 28 nominated incumbent Vice President John Cabell Breckinridge of Kentucky for President, and Joseph Lane of Oregon for Vice President.

This divide was, of course, caused by the issue of slavery. Those in the South nominated a solidly pro-slavery candidate, while those in the North nominated a candidate who maintained a middle field when discussing slavery.

Republican Party nomination

When the Republican National Convention met in mid-May, the Democrats had been forced to adjourn their convention in Charleston after 57 ballots. With the Democrats in disarray and with a sweep of the Northern states possible, the Republicans were confident going into their convention in Chicago, Illinois. William H. Seward of New York was considered the frontrunner, followed by Abraham Lincoln of Illinois, Salmon P. Chase of Ohio, and Pennsylvania's Simon Cameron.

As the convention developed, however, it was revealed that Seward, Chase, and Cameron had each alienated factions of the Republican Party. Delegates were concerned that Seward was too identified with the radical wing of the Republican Party, and Seward's moves toward the center had alienated the radicals. Chase, a former Democrat, had alienated many of the former Whigs by his coalition with the Democrats in the late 1840's and opposed tariffs demanded by Pennsylvania. Cameron had little support outside Pennsylvania and was distrusted by many former Whigs because he had switched from the Whig Party to the Democratic Party before becoming a Republican.

Since it was essential to carry the West, and because Lincoln had a national reputation from his debates and speeches as the most articulate moderate, he won the party's nomination on the third ballot on May 16, 1860.

The party platform clearly stated that slavery would not be allowed to spread any farther, and also promised that tariffs protecting industry would be imposed. A law granting free homesteads in the west to settlers was also part of the platform.

General election

Campaign

The contest in the North was between Lincoln and Douglas, but only the latter took to the stump and gave speeches and interviews. In the South, John Breckinridge and John Bell were the main rivals, but Douglas had an important presence in southern cities, especially among Irish Americans. Fusion tickets of the non-Republicans developed in New York and Rhode Island, and partially in New Jersey and Pennsylvania (the northern state in which Breckinridge made the best showing).

Stephen Douglas became the first presidential candidate in history to undertake a nationwide speaking tour. He traveled to the South where he did not expect to win many electoral votes, but he spoke for the maintenance of the Union.

The 1860 campaign was less frenzied than 1856, when the Republicans had crusaded zealously, and their opponents counter-crusaded with warnings of civil war. In 1860 every observer calculated the Republicans had an almost unbeatable advantage in the electoral college, since they dominated almost every northern state. Republicans felt victory at hand, and used campaign clubs like the Wide Awakes to rally their supporters. See American election campaigns in the 19th Century for campaign techniques.

Results

The election was held on November 6. It was noteworthy for the exaggerated sectionalism of the vote, with Lincoln not even on the ballot in nine Southern states - and winning only 2 (St. Louis County, Missouri and Gasconade County, Missouri^* ) of 996 counties in the entire South^*.

This election is a textbook example of how to win an electoral majority without a popular majority. While Lincoln captured less than 40% of the popular vote, the sectional divisions of the nation allowed him to capture 17 states plus 4 electoral votes in New Jersey for a total of 180 electoral votes. Although the three-way split of the non-Republican vote confuses the issue, the vote split was irrelevant to Lincoln's victory, because he would have won an outright majority in the electoral vote, 169-134, even had the 60% of voters who supported other candidates united behind a single candidate. Except for California, Oregon, and New Jersey, Lincoln won a popular majority in every state that cast its electoral votes for him.^* Only in California, Oregon, and Illinois had Lincoln's victory margin been less than 7%.

Meanwhile, Stephen Douglas finished second in the popular vote, but due to the north-south split garnered only Missouri's 9 electoral votes and three of seven electoral votes in New Jersey, good for fourth place. Bell won Kentucky, Tennessee, and Virginia's electors, while Breckinridge won every other slave state except Missouri.

The voter turnout rate in 1860 was the second-highest on record (81.2 %, second only to 1876, with 81.8 %). The Fusion ticket of non-Republicans drew 595,846 votes^*.

Source (Popular Vote):

Source (Electoral Vote):

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

Consequences

The election of Lincoln made South Carolina's secession from the United States a foregone conclusion. The state was long waiting for an excuse to secede and unite the southern states against the anti-slavery forces. Upon confirming that the results were final, South Carolina declared, “the Union now subsisting between South Carolina and other states under the name of the ‘United States of America’ is hereby dissolved,” precipitating the American Civil War.

Results by state

		Abraham Lincoln Republican			Stephen Douglas (Northern) Democrat			John Breckinridge Southern Democrat			John Bell Constitutional Union			State Total
State	electoral votes	#	%	electoral votes	#	%	electoral votes	#	%	electoral votes	#	%	electoral votes	#
Alabama	9	not on ballot			13,618	15.1	-	48,669	54.0	9	27,835	30.9	-	90,122	AL
Arkansas	4	not on ballot			5,357	9.9	-	28,732	53.1	4	20,063	37.0	-	54,152	AR
California	4	38,733	32.3	4	37,999	31.7	-	33,969	28.4	-	9,111	7.6	-	119,812	CA
Connecticut	6	43,488	58.1	6	15,431	20.6	-	14,372	19.2	-	1,528	2.0	-	74,819	CT
Delaware	3	3,822	23.7	-	1,066	6.6	-	7,339	45.5	3	3,888	24.1	-	16,115	DE
Florida	3	not on ballot			223	1.7	-	8,277	62.2	3	4,801	36.1	-	13,301	FL
Georgia	10	not on ballot			11,581	10.9	-	52,176	48.9	10	42,960	40.3	-	106,717	GA
Illinois	11	172,171	50.7	11	160,215	47.2	-	2,331	0.7	-	4,914	1.4	-	339,631	IL
Indiana	13	139,033	51.1	13	115,509	42.4	-	12,295	4.5	-	5,306	1.9	-	272,143	IN
Iowa	4	70,302	54.6	4	55,639	43.2	-	1,035	0.8	-	1,763	1.4	-	128,739	IA
Kentucky	12	1,364	0.9	-	25,651	17.5	-	53,143	36.3	-	66,058	45.2	12	146,216	KY
Louisiana	6	not on ballot			7,625	15.1	-	22,681	44.9	6	20,204	40.0	-	50,510	LA
Maine	8	62,811	62.2	8	29,693	29.4	-	6,368	6.3	-	2,046	2.0	-	100,918	ME
Maryland	8	2,294	2.5	-	5,966	6.4	-	42,482	45.9	8	41,760	45.1	-	92,502	MD
Massachusetts	13	106,684	62.9	13	34,370	20.3	-	6,163	3.6	-	22,331	13.2	-	169,548	MA
Michigan	6	88,481	57.2	6	65,057	42.0	-	805	0.5	-	415	0.3	-	154,758	MI
Minnesota	4	22,069	63.4	4	11,920	34.3	-	748	2.2	-	50	0.1	-	34,787	MN
Mississippi	7	not on ballot			3,282	4.7	-	40,768	59.0	7	25,045	36.2	-	69,095	MS
Missouri	9	17,028	10.3	-	58,801	35.5	9	31,362	18.9	-	58,372	35.3	-	165,563	MO
New Hampshire	5	37,519	56.9	5	25,887	39.3	-	2,125	3.2	-	412	0.6	-	65,943	NH
New Jersey	7	58,346	48.1	4	62,869	51.9	3	partial fusion ticket with Douglas						121,215	NJ
New York	35	362,646	53.7	35	312,510	46.3	-	fusion ticket with Douglas						675,156	NY
North Carolina	10	not on ballot			2,737	2.8	-	48,846	50.5	10	45,129	46.7	-	96,712	NC
Ohio	23	231,709	52.3	23	187,421	42.3	-	11,406	2.6	-	12,194	2.8	-	442,730	OH
Oregon	3	5,329	36.1	3	4,136	28.0	-	5,075	34.4	-	218	1.5	-	14,758	OR
Pennsylvania	27	268,030	56.3	27	16,765	3.5	-	178,871	37.5	-	12,776	2.7	-	476,442	PA
Rhode Island	4	12,244	61.4	4	7,707	38.6	-	fusion ticket with Douglas						19,951	RI
South Carolina	8	-			-			8			-			-	SC
Tennessee	12	not on ballot			11,281	7.7	-	65,097	44.6	-	69,728	47.7	12	146,106	TN
Texas	4	not on ballot			18	0.0	-	47,454	75.5	4	15,383	24.5	-	62,855	TX
Vermont	5	33,808	75.7	5	8,649	19.4	-	218	0.5	-	1,969	4.4	-	44,644	VT
Virginia	15	1,887	1.1	-	16,198	9.7	-	74,325	44.5	-	74,481	44.6	15	166,891	VA
Wisconsin	5	86,110	56.6	5	65,021	42.7	-	887	0.6	-	161	0.1	-	152,179	WI
TOTALS:	303	1,865,908	39.8	180	1,380,202	29.5	12	848,019	18.1	72	590,901	12.6	39	4,685,030
TO WIN:	152

References

Daniel W. Crofts; Reluctant Confederates: Upper South Unionists in the Secession Crisis University of North Carolina Press, 1989
Dwight Lowell Dumond, ed., Southern Editorials on Secession (1931), contains well-chosen editorials from the 1860 presidential campaign and the secession crisis in both the upper and lower South
Robert W Johannsen, Stephen A. Douglas Oxford University Press, 1973
Marc W. Kruman, Parties and Politics in North Carolina, 1836-1865 (Louisiana State University Press, 1983), pages 180-221,
2 vols.
- covers 1857–61
Roy Franklin Nichols. The Disruption of American Democracy (1948), 348-506, a history of the Democratic party
H. Parks, John Bell of Tennessee (Louisiana State University Press, 1950),
Howard Cecil Perkins, ed., Northern Editorials on Secession, 2 vols. (1942)
vol. 2, ch. 11.
- highly detailed narrative covering 1856–60

External links

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