4/23/2021 Print - Election of 1860 - Reference Articles

From ABC-CLIO's American History website https://americanhistory.abc-clio.com/

Election of 1860
Reference Articles
The election of 1860 is generally recognized as a critical, or realigning, election. In addition to electing the
United States' rst Republican president, it helped to set in motion the events leading to the Civil War.

Background to the Election

Like the earlier Federalist Party, by the 1850s, the Whig Party had fallen apart. The Democratic Party had
begun to show serious ssures between its Northern and Southern wings. In the meantime, the
Republican Party had been formed in Ripon, Wisconsin, in 1854. Its central principle was to oppose the spread of slavery into the
territories. The Republicans ran their rst candidate for president, Gen. John C. Frémont, in 1856.

The 1860 election was a four-way race with two dominant issues: the Dred Scott decision of 1857 and slavery. Northern Democrats
nominated Stephen A. Douglas. Douglas favored the resolution of the slavery issue in the territories according to the principle of
popular sovereignty. Southern Democrats, wanting a stronger defense of slavery, nominated Vice President John Breckinridge of
Kentucky. The Republican Party held its national convention in Chicago and nominated Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln had gained fame
during his debates with Douglas, where he expressed his moral opposition to slavery and the spread of slavery into the territories.
The Constitutional Union Party nominated Tennessee's John Bell.

Results and Aftermath

Lincoln, with strong support in the North and Midwest, won a clear majority of the electoral college. However, he garnered only 40%
of the overall vote. Lincoln denied that he planned to interfere with slavery where it already existed. While continuing to oppose any
expansion of slavery, he even lent his support to the proposed Corwin Amendment. This amendment would have guaranteed
slavery in states where it was already established.

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Nonetheless, seven Southern states (later joined by four others) seceded from the Union even before Lincoln's inauguration.
Determined to uphold his oath to support the Constitution and preserve the Union, Lincoln stood rm against the secessionists.
The Civil War began when Confederate troops red on Fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina on April 12, 1861.

John R. Vile
Further Reading

Fite, Emerson. The Presidential Campaign of 1860. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1911; Jaffa, Harry V. A New Birth of
Freedom: Abraham Lincoln and the Coming of the Civil War. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Little eld, 2000; Polsby, Nelson, and Aaron
Wildavsky. Presidential Elections: Strategies of American Electoral Politics. New York: Scribner, 1964.

 
MLA Citation
Vile, John R. "Election of 1860." American History, ABC-CLIO, 2021, americanhistory.abc-clio.com/Search/Display/253307.
Accessed 23 Apr. 2021.
 
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