1864

United States presidential election, 1864
8 November 1864
Nominee	Abraham Lincoln	George B. McClellan
Party	National Union Party	Democratic
Home state	Illinois	Pennsylvania
Running mate	Andrew Johnson	George Hunt Pendleton
Electoral vote	212	21
States carried	22	3
Popular vote	2,218,388	1,812,807
Percentage	55.0%	45.0%
Presidential election results map. Blue denotes states won by Lincoln/Johnson, Red denotes those won by McClellan/Pendleton, Brown denotes Confederate States. Numbers indicate the number of electoral votes allotted to each state.
Incumbent Abraham Lincoln Republican		Successor Abraham Lincoln National Union Party

The United States presidential election of 1864 saw Abraham Lincoln win by a landslide. Lincoln was a Republican but he ran on a coalition ticket with the "War Democrats." The coalition ticket was known as the National Union Party.

Lincoln ran against his former top Civil War general, the Democratic candidate, George B. McClellan, and the Radical Republican Party candidate, John C. Frémont. McClellan was the "peace candidate" but did not personally believe in his party's platform. Frémont abandoned his political campaign in September 1864, after he brokered a political deal in which Lincoln removed U.S. Postmaster General Montgomery Blair from office.

The election of 1864 was conducted during the Civil War, and as such, none of the states which made up the Confederate states participated.

Republicans across the country were jittery during the summer of 1864. Confederate forces had triumphed at the Battle of Mansfield and the Battle of the Crater. In addition, the war was continuing to take a very high toll. The prospect of a long, never-ending war started to make the "negotiated peace" offered by the Democrats look more desirable. But then the Democrats had to confront the severe internal strains within their party at the Democratic National Convention. Finally, with William Tecumseh Sherman marching inexorably toward Atlanta and Ulysses S. Grant pushing Lee into the outer defenses of Richmond, it became increasingly obvious that a Union military victory was inevitable and close at hand.

The Lincoln/Johnson ticket ran with the slogan “Don't change horses in the middle of a stream.” The Republican party name was changed to Union, to appeal to War Democrats; the new name vanished after the election. Johnson, however, never became a Republican.

The Republican/Union party made an all-out effort to depict the Democrats in the worse way possible. They ridiculed McClellan for his pacifist platform and denounced Democrats as traitorous Copperheads. On November 8, Lincoln won by over 400,000 popular votes and easily clinched an electoral majority. Several states allowed their citizens serving as soldiers in the field to cast ballots, a first in United States history. Soldiers in the Army gave Lincoln more than 70% of their vote.

Contents [hide] 1 Nominations 1.1 "National Union Party" nomination 1.2 Democratic Party nomination 2 General election 2.1 Results 3 See also 4 References 5 Notes 6 External links 7 Navigation

[edit] Nominations

[edit] "National Union Party" nomination

Abraham Lincoln was renominated by the Republican Party, which changed its name for the 1864 election to the "National Union Party”. Thus, the Republican Party temporarily passed out of existence. Lincoln's nomination was not unanimous, however, as 22 disgruntled opponents of Lincoln voted for Ulysses S. Grant, who was not a candidate. Seeing an opportunity to work with the War Democrats under the Union banner, the convention nominated Military-Governor Andrew Johnson of Tennessee, a War Democrat, as Lincoln's running mate over incumbent Vice President Hannibal Hamlin and three other War Democrats - former New York Senator Daniel S. Dickinson, Buchanan cabinet member Joseph Holt and General Ben Butler.

National Union (Republican) Party poster for Pennsylvania in 1864

[edit] Democratic Party nomination

Democratic candidates

• George B. McClellan, U.S. Army major general from New Jersey
• Charles O'Conor, lawyer from New York
• Horatio Seymour, Governor of New York and candidate for the 1860 nomination
• Thomas H. Seymour, former U.S. representative from Connecticut

The Democratic Party was bitterly split between the War Democrats and the anti-war Copperheads. The compromise was to nominate pro-war General George B. McClellan along with an anti-war platform. McClellan defeated Horatio Seymour and others for the nomination; he and ticketmate George H. Pendleton were nominated on a peace platform^[1] — a platform McClellan personally rejected.^[2]

[edit] General election

The 1864 election was the first time since 1812 that a presidential election took place during a war. McClellan's chances of victory faded after Union victories in Georgia and Virginia, followed by the withdrawal of John C. Fremont's Radical Republican Party candidacy.

A foretaste of the national election came in the state elections held in the months prior to the presidential election. In these six state elections (Oregon on 6/5, Vermont on 9/6, Maine on 9/11, Ohio and Pennsylvania on 10/10, and West Virginia on 10/26), the Union Republican Party won a sweeping victory. These six states elected 44 Union Republicans in U.S. House races, compared to just 10 Democrats, for a net gain of 18 seats for the Union Republicans. The stage had been set for Lincoln.

[edit] Results

Only 24 states participated, because 11 had seceded from the Union and claimed to have formed their own nation: the Confederate States of America (CSA). Three new states participated for the first time: Nevada, West Virginia, and Kansas. The reconstructed portions of Tennessee and Louisiana elected presidential Electors, although Congress did not count their votes.

Presidential Candidate	Party	Home State	Popular Vote(a)		Electoral Vote(a), (b)	Running Mate	Running Mate's Home State	RM's Electoral Vote(a), (b)
			Count	Pct
Abraham Lincoln	National Union(c)	Illinois	2,218,388	55.0%	212	Andrew Johnson(c)	Tennessee	212
George Brinton McClellan	Democratic	New Jersey	1,812,807	45.0%	21	George Hunt Pendleton	Ohio	21
Other			692	0.0%	–	Other		–
Total			4,031,887	100 %	233			233
Needed to win					117			117

Source (Popular Vote): Leip, David. 1864 Presidential Election Results. Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections (July 27, 2005).

Source (Electoral Vote): Electoral College Box Scores 1789–1996. Official website of the National Archives. (July 31, 2005).

^(a) The states in rebellion did not participate in the election of 1864.
^(b) One Elector from Nevada did not vote
^(c) Andrew Johnson had been a Democrat, and after 1869 was a Democrat. The Republicans did not run a presidential candidate in 1864 but formed the National Union Party to accommodate the War Democrats.

[edit] See also

• American election campaigns in the 19th century
• History of the United States (1849–1865)
• Third Party System

[edit] References

• Harold M. Dudley. "The Election of 1864," Mississippi Valley Historical Review, Vol. 18, No. 4 (Mar., 1932) , pp. 500-518 full text in JSTOR
• David E. Long. Jewel of Liberty: Abraham Lincoln's Re-election and the End of Slavery (1994)
• Merrill, Louis Taylor. "General Benjamin F. Butler in the Presidential Campaign of 1864." Mississippi Valley Historical Review 33 (March 1947): 537-70 full text in JSTOR
• Nelson, Larry E. Bullets, Ballots, and Rhetoric: Confederate Policy for the United States Presidential Contest of 1864 University of Alabama Press, 1980.
• Nevins, Allan. Ordeal of the Union: The War for the Union vol 8 (1971)
• Randall, James G. and Richard N. Current. Lincoln the President: Last Full Measure. Vol. 4 of Lincoln the President. 1955.
• Vorenberg, Michael. "'The Deformed Child': Slavery and the Election of 1864" Civil War History 2001 47(3): 240-257. ISSN 0009-8078 full text in JSTOR
• Jack Waugh Reelecting Lincoln: The Battle for the 1864 Presidency (1998), a popular study
• White, Jonathan W. "Canvassing the Troops: the Federal Government and the Soldiers' Right to Vote" Civil War History 2004 50(3): 291-317. ISSN 0009-8078

[edit] Notes

1. ^ 1864 Democratic Platform
2. ^ George B. McClellan. Ohio History Central. Retrieved on 2007-03-06.

[edit] External links

• 1864 popular vote by counties
• 1864 State-by-state popular results
• Transcript of the 1864 Democratic Party Platform
• Harper Weekly - Overview
• more from Harper Weekly
• How close was the 1864 election? - Michael Sheppard, Michigan State University

[edit] Navigation

1860

United States presidential election, 1860
6 November 1860
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	Northern Democratic
Home state	Tennessee	Illinois
Running mate	Edward Everett	Herschel Vespasian Johnson
Electoral vote	39	12
States carried	3	1
Popular vote	590,901	1,380,202
Percentage	12.6%	29.5%
Presidential election results map. Blue denotes states won by Lincoln/Hamlin, Green denotes those won by Breckinridge/Lane, Yellow denotes those won by Bell/Everett, and Light Green denotes those won by Douglas/Johnson. Numbers indicate the number of electoral votes allotted to each state.
Incumbent James Buchanan Democratic		Successor Abraham Lincoln Republican

The United States presidential election of 1860 set the stage for the American Civil War. The nation had been divided throughout most of the 1850s on questions of states' rights and slavery in the territories. In 1860 this issue finally came to a head, fracturing the formerly dominant Democratic Party into Southern and Northern factions and bringing Abraham Lincoln and the Republican Party to power without the support of a single Southern State.

The immediate result of Lincoln's victory was declarations of secession by South Carolina and other states, which were rejected as illegal by the then-current President, James Buchanan and President-elect Abraham Lincoln.^{[citation needed]}

Contents [hide] 1 Background 2 Nominations 2.1 Republican Party nomination 2.2 Democratic Party nomination 2.3 Constitutional Union Party nomination 3 General election 3.1 Campaign 3.2 Results 4 Consequences 5 Results by state 6 See also 7 References 8 External links 9 Navigation

[edit] Background

See also: Origins of the American Civil War

The origins of the American Civil War lay in the complex issues of slavery, competing understandings of federalism, party politics, expansionism, sectionalism, tariffs, economics and modernization in the Antebellum Period.

After the Mexican-American War, the issue of slavery in the new territories led to the Compromise of 1850. While the compromise averted an immediate political crisis, it did not permanently resolve the issue of the Slave power (the power of slaveholders to control the national government).

Amid the emergence of increasingly virulent and hostile sectional ideologies in national politics, the collapse of the old Second Party System in the 1850s hampered efforts of the politicians to reach yet one more compromise. The compromise that was reached (the Kansas-Nebraska Act) outraged many northerners. In the 1850s, with the rise of the Republican Party, the first major party with no appeal in the South, the industrializing North and agrarian Midwest became committed to the economic ethos of free-labor industrial capitalism.

[edit] Nominations

[edit] Republican Party nomination

Republican candidates

• Edward Bates, former U.S. representative from Missouri
• Simon Cameron, U.S. senator from Pennsylvania
• Salmon P. Chase, Governor of Ohio
• Abraham Lincoln, former U.S. representative from Illinois
• William H. Seward, U.S. senator from New York

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

As the convention developed, however, it was revealed that Seward, Chase, and Bates had each alienated factions of the Republican Party. Delegates were concerned that Seward was too closely identified with the radical wing of the party, and his 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 1840s, had opposed tariffs demanded by Pennsylvania, and critically, had opposition from his own delegation from Ohio. Bates outlined his positions on 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. German-Americans in the party opposed Bates because of his past association with the Know-Nothings.

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.

Senator Hannibal Hamlin of Maine was nominated for vice president, defeating Cassius M. Clay of Missouri

The party platform clearly stated that slavery would not be allowed to spread any further, and it also promised that tariffs protecting industry would be imposed. The party promised a homestead law granting free farm land in the West to settlers. These provisions were highly unpopular in the South.

[edit] Democratic Party nomination

Democratic candidates

• Daniel S. Dickinson, former U.S. senator from New York
• Stephen A. Douglas, U.S. senator and candidate for the 1852 and 1856 nominations from Illinois
• James Guthrie, former Secretary of Treasury from Kentucky
• Robert M.T. Hunter, U.S. senator from Virginia
• Andrew Johnson, U.S. senator from Tennessee
• Joseph Lane, U.S. senator from Oregon
• Horatio Seymour, former Governor of New York

The Democratic Party was divided over the issue of slavery. 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, a moderate on the slavery issue who favored "popular sovereignty", was ahead on the first ballot, needing 57 more votes. On the 57th ballot, Douglas was still ahead, but still 50 votes short of nomination. In desperation, on May 3 the delegates agreed to stop voting and adjourn the convention.

The Democrats convened again in Baltimore in June 18. This time 110 southern delegates (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 the pro-slavery incumbent Vice President, John Cabell Breckenridge of Kentucky, for President and Joseph Lane of Oregon for Vice President.

[edit] Constitutional Union Party nomination

Constitutional Union poster

Die-hard former Whigs and Know-Nothings who felt they could support neither the Democratic Party nor the Republican Party formed the Constitutional Union Party, nominating John Bell of Tennessee for president over Governor Sam Houston of Texas on the second ballot. Edward Everett was nominated for vice president at the convention 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 in the 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." [1]

[edit] General election

Political cartoon depicting Lincoln stopping Douglas, Bell, and Breckenridge trying to enter the White House

[edit] 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 Breckenridge and John Bell were the main rivals, but Douglas had an important presence in southern cities, especially among Irish Americans^{[citation needed]}. 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 Breckenridge made the best showing).

Stephen Douglas was 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 dispute over the Dred Scott case had helped the Republicans easily dominate the Northern states' congressional delegations, allowing that party, although a newcomer on the political scene, easily to spread its popular influence.

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 para-military campaign organizations like the Wide Awakes to rally their supporters. See American election campaigns in the 19th century for campaign techniques.

Abraham Lincoln's December 1, 1859 visit to Kansas has been recorded by the [2] Kansas History Online service.

[edit] Results

Inauguration of Abraham Lincoln, 4 March 1861, beneath the unfinished capitol dome.

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 two (St. Louis County, Missouri and Gascony's County, Missouri [3]) of 996 counties in the entire South. [4]. In the six states still permitting slavery where he was on the ballot, he came in fourth in every state except Delaware (3rd). Breckinridge, who was the sitting Vice-President of the United States and the only candidate to later support secession, won all the states that would form the Confederacy except Virginia and Tennessee; he also lost in the future border states of Missouri and Kentucky (his home state), but won the states of Delaware and Maryland (both of which also still permitted slavery) by pluralities.

Lincoln won an electoral majority without a popular majority. While Lincoln captured less than 40% of the popular vote, the divisions of the nation allowed him to capture 17 states plus four 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 if 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. [5] Only in California, Oregon, and Illinois was Lincoln's victory margin less than seven percent. Meanwhile, Stephen Douglas finished second in the popular vote, but due to the north-south split garnered only Missouri's nine electoral votes and three of seven electoral votes in New Jersey, good for fourth place. Bell won Kentucky, Tennessee, and Virginia's electors, while Breckenridge won every other slave state except Missouri.

This was the only presidential election in U.S. history to be won by a third-party candidate. The election, and the subsequent Civil War, propelled the Republican Party to prominence, while the Whigs faded away; no new American political party since has succeeded in electing a candidate to the office of President.

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 [6].

Presidential Candidate	Party	Home State	Popular Vote(a)		Electoral Vote	Running Mate	Running Mate's Home State	RM's Electoral Vote
			Count	Pct
Abraham Lincoln	Republican	Illinois	1,865,908	39.8%	180	Hannibal Hamlin	Maine	180
John Cabell Breckinridge	Southern Democratic	Kentucky	848,019	18.1%	72	Joseph Lane	Oregon	72
John Bell	Constitutional Union/Whig	Tennessee	590,901	12.6%	39	Edward Everett	Massachusetts	39
Stephen Arnold Douglas	Northern Democratic	Illinois	1,380,202	29.5%	12	Herschel Vespasian Johnson	Georgia	12
Other			531	0.0%	–	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 (July 27, 2005).

Source (Electoral Vote): Electoral College Box Scores 1789–1996. Official website of the National Archives. (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.

[edit] 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.” South Carolina's secession influenced the other southern states in such a way that they soon followed the example that South Carolina set, precipitating the American Civil War.

[edit] 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

[edit] See also

• History of the United States (1849–1865)
• History of the United States Democratic Party
• History of the United States Republican Party
• Third Party System
• United States House election, 1860
• American election campaigns in the 19th century
• Wide Awakes

[edit] References

• Daniel W. Crofts; Reluctant Confederates: Upper South Unionists in the Secession Crisis University of North Carolina Press, 1989
• David Herbert Donald. Lincoln (1999) ISBN 0-684-82535-X, standard biography
• Dwight Lowell Dumond, ed., Southern Editorials on Secession (1931), contains hundreds of well-chosen editorials from the 1860 presidential campaign and the secession crisis in both the upper and lower South
• Foner, Eric (1995). Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men: The Ideology of the Republican Party before the Civil War. , analyzes factions inside new party
• Holt, Michael F. (1978). The Political Crisis of the 1850s.
• Robert W Johannsen, Stephen A. Douglas Oxford University Press, 1973, standard biography
• Marc W. Kruman, Parties and Politics in North Carolina, 1836-1865 (Louisiana State University Press, 1983), pages 180-221,
• Luebke, Frederick C. (1971). Ethnic Voters and the Election of Lincoln.
• Luthin, Reinhard H. The First Lincoln Campaign (1944), along with Nevins, the most detailed narrative of the election
• McPherson, James M. Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era (1988). Pulitzer Prize winner surveys all aspects of the era
• Nevins, Allan (1950). The Emergence of Lincoln. 2 vols. the most detailed narrative; covers 1857–61
• Roy Franklin Nichols. The Disruption of American Democracy (1948), pp 348-506, focused on the Democratic party
• H. Parks, John Bell of Tennessee (Louisiana State University Press, 1950), standard biography
• Howard Cecil Perkins, ed., Northern Editorials on Secession, 2 vols. (1942), reprints hundreds of editorials
• Potter, David (1976). Impending Crisis 1848–1861. ISBN 0-06-090524-7.
• Rhodes, James Ford (1920). History of the United States from the Compromise of 1850 to the McKinley-Bryan Campaign of 1896. vol. 2, ch. 11. highly detailed narrative covering 1856–60
• Stampp, Kenneth M. (1950). And the War Came: The North and the Secession Crisis, 1860–1861. , focus on immediate aftermath of election

[edit] External links

• 1860 election: State-by-state Popular vote results
• 1860 popular vote by counties
• Wrong way elections table at the Center for Range Voting
• Election of 1860
• Electoral Map from 1860
• Lincoln's election - details
• Report on 1860 Republican convention
• U.S. Department of State infoUSA site
• Overview of Constitutional Union National Convention
• How close was the 1860 election? - Michael Sheppard, Michigan State University

[edit] Navigation

1856

United States presidential election, 1856
4 November 1856
Nominee	James Buchanan	John C. Frémont	Millard Fillmore
Party	Democratic	Republican	Know-Nothing
Home state	Pennsylvania	California	New York
Running mate	John C. Breckinridge	William L. Dayton	Andrew Jackson Donelson
Electoral vote	174	114	8
States carried	19	11	1
Popular vote	1,836,072	1,342,345	873,053
Percentage	45.3%	33.1%	21.6%
Presidential election results map. Blue denotes states won by Frémont/Dayton, Red denotes those won by Buchanan/Breckinridge, and Light Blue denotes those won by Fillmore/Donelson. Numbers indicate the number of electoral votes allotted to each state.
Incumbent Franklin Pierce Democratic			Successor James Buchanan Democratic

1856 Republican campaign poster

The United States presidential election of 1856 was unusually heated. The Republicans crusaded against the Slave Power, while the Democrats warned that the Republicans were extremists whose victory would lead to civil war. The newly formed Republican Party condemned the Kansas-Nebraska Act and expansion of slavery, while Democrats took more of a laissez-faire approach to slavery expansion, taking the official position that it was a state-by-state decision. A third party, the relatively new American Party or "Know-Nothings", ignored the slavery issue (in favor of anti-immigration policies) and won almost a quarter of the vote.

The incumbent President, Franklin Pierce, was defeated in his effort to be renominated by the Democrats, who instead selected James Buchanan of Pennsylvania; this was thanks in part to the fact that the Kansas-Nebraska Act divided Democrats. The Whig Party had disintegrated over the issue of slavery, and new organizations such as the Republican Party and the American Party competed to replace them. The Republicans nominated John Frémont of California as their first standard bearer, over Senator William H. Seward, and the Know-Nothings nominated former President Millard Fillmore of New York. Perennial candidate Daniel Pratt also ran.

Frémont received fewer than 600 votes from slave states—those all coming from Delaware and Maryland. The electoral college results indicated, however, that the Republicans could likely win the next election in 1860 by winning just two more states—such as Pennsylvania and Illinois.

Contents [hide] 1 General election 1.1 Campaign 1.2 Results 2 See also 3 Notes 4 References 5 External links 6 Navigation

[edit] General election

[edit] Campaign

1856 Know-Nothing campaign poster

1856 Democratic Campaign Poster

None of the three candidates took to the stump. Republicans opposed the extension of slavery into the territories — in fact, their slogan was "Free speech, free press, free soil, free men, Frémont and victory!" The Republicans thus crusaded against the Slave power, warning it was destroying Republican values. Democrats counter-crusaded by warning that a Republican victory would bring Civil War.

The Republican platform opposed the repeal of the Missouri Compromise through the Kansas-Nebraska Act and the policy of popular sovereignty in deciding whether a state would enter the Union as a free or slave state. The Republicans also accused the Pierce administration of allowing a fraudulent territorial government to be imposed upon the citizens of the Kansas Territory, allowing the violence that had raged in Bleeding Kansas, and advocated the immediate admittance of Kansas as a free state. Along with opposing the spread of slavery into the continental territories of the United States the party also opposed the Ostend Manifesto which advocated the annexation of Cuba from Spain. In summation the campaign's true focus was against the system of slavery, which they felt was destroying the Republican values that the Union had been founded upon.

The Democratic platform supported the Kansas-Nebraska Act and the system of popular sovereignty established in the Western territories. The party supported the pro-slavery territorial legislation elected in Kansas opposing the free state elements within Kansas and the Topeka Constitution as an illegal document written during an illegal convention. The Democrats also supported the plan to annex Cuba, advocated in the Ostend Manifesto, which Buchanan had help devise while serving as minister to Britain. Most influential aspect of the Democratic campaign was a warning that a Republican victory would lead to the secession of numerous southern states.

[edit] Results

Presidential Candidate	Party	Home State	Popular Vote(a)		Electoral Vote	Running Mate	Running Mate's Home State	RM's Electoral Vote
			Count	Pct
James Buchanan	Democratic	Pennsylvania	1,836,072	45.3%	174	John Cabell Breckinridge	Kentucky	174
John Charles Frémont	Republican	California	1,342,345	33.1%	114	William Lewis Dayton	New Jersey	114
Millard Fillmore	Know-Nothing	New York	873,053	21.6%	8	Andrew Jackson Donelson	Tennessee	8
Other			3,177	0.1%	–	Other		–
Total			4,054,647	100 %	296			296
Needed to win					149			149

Source (Popular Vote): Leip, David. 1856 Presidential Election Results. Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections (July 27, 2005).

Source (Electoral Vote): Electoral College Box Scores 1789–1996. Official website of the National Archives. (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.

Caricature of Democratic Platform

[edit] See also

• American election campaigns in the 19th century
• History of the United States (1849–1865)
• History of the United States Democratic Party
• History of the United States Republican Party
• Origins of the American Civil War
• Third Party System

[edit] Notes

[edit] References

• Tyler Anbinder, Nativism and Slavery: The Northern Know Nothings and the Politics of the 1850s (1992)
• Eric Foner, Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men: The Ideology of the Republican Party before the Civil War (1970)
• William E. Gienapp, The Origins of the Republican Party, 1852-1856 (1987).
• Michael F. Holt, The Political Crisis of the 1850s (1978), pp 139-81
• Nevins, Allan. Ordeal of the Union: vol 2: A House Dividing, 1852-1857 (1947), the most detailed narrative
• Michael D. Pierson; "'Prairies on Fire': The Organization of the 1856 Mass Republican Rally in Beloit, Wisconsin" Civil War History, Vol. 48, 2002
• Potter, David (1976). Impending Crisis 1848–1861. ISBN 0-06-090524-7.
• James A. Rawley, Race and Politics: "Bleeding Kansas" and the Coming of the Civil War (1969)
• Richard H. Sewell, Ballots for Freedom: Antislavery Politics in the United States, 1837-1860 (1976) 254-91

[edit] External links

• Nativism in the 1856 Presidential Election
• 1856 popular vote by counties
• 1856 state-by-state popular voting results
• James Buchanan and the Election of 1856
• How close was the 1856 election? - Michael Sheppard, Michigan State University

[edit] Navigation