Friday, February 15, 2008

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%
United States presidential election, 1860

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

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[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

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

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
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
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.
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

[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

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