United States presidential election of 1860
Who were the candidates in the United States presidential election of 1860?
Why was the U.S. presidential election of 1860 important?
What was the outcome of the U.S. presidential election of 1860?
What was the “Team of Rivals”?
A deeply divided nation went to the polls on November 6, 1860, to choose a new president at a time of profound and existential crisis. As testament to those divisions, when Republican Abraham Lincoln emerged victorious over Southern Democrat John C. Breckinridge, Democrat Stephen A. Douglas, and Constitutional Union candidate John Bell, he did so with less than 40 percent of the popular vote. Thus, a man who would go on to be lauded as one of the country’s greatest leaders was initially rejected by 60 percent of its voters. The electoral split between Northern and Southern Democrats was emblematic of the severe sectional split, particularly over slavery. In the months following Lincoln’s election—and before his inauguration in March 1861—seven Southern states, led by South Carolina on December 20, 1860, seceded, setting the stage for the American Civil War (1861–65).
What would prove to be one of the most consequential elections in U.S. history occurred amid the collapse of what was known as the second party system, which from 1828 to 1854 had been dominated by the Democratic and Whig parties. The disintegration of the Whig Party in the 1850s, largely over the issue of slavery’s expansion into the western territories, contributed to the rise of the Republican Party, whose platform opposed the expansion of slavery, though it did not call for its abolition where it already existed. By 1860 political loyalties had become increasingly divided along geographic lines, with Republicans drawing their principal support from Northern states and Southern leaders aligning with factions that sought stronger federal protection for slavery.
At a glance: the election of 1860
The conventions
Following on the heels of the Dred Scott decision of 1857, in which the U.S. Supreme Court voided the Missouri Compromise (1820), thus making slavery legal in all U.S. territories, the election of 1860 was sure to further expose sectional differences between those, especially (but not solely) in the North, who wanted to abolish slavery and those who sought to protect the institution.
At issue was not only the future of slavery in the Southern states but also whether it would be permitted to expand into newly organized western territories. Republicans argued that Congress possessed the authority to prevent slavery’s extension, whereas many Southern Democrats maintained that slaveholders had a constitutional right to carry enslaved people into the territories. These competing interpretations of federal power and property rights deepened mistrust between regions and shaped the party platforms of 1860.
The Democratic Party held its convention in April–May 1860 in Charleston, S.C., where a disagreement over the official party policy on slavery prompted dozens of delegates from Southern states to withdraw. Unable to nominate a candidate (Sen. Stephen A. Douglas received a majority of the delegates’ support but could not amass the required two-thirds majority needed for nomination), Democrats held a second convention in Baltimore, Maryland, on June 18–23, though many of the Southern delegates failed to attend. At Baltimore the Democrats nominated Douglas, who easily defeated Kentuckian John C. Breckinridge, the sitting vice president of the United States. Trying to unite Northern and Southern Democrats, the convention then turned for vice president first to Sen. Benjamin Fitzpatrick of Alabama, who declined nomination, and eventually to Herschel V. Johnson, a former U.S. senator and former governor of Georgia, who was chosen as Douglas’s running mate. Disaffected Democrats, largely Southerners, then nominated Breckinridge, with Sen. Joseph Lane of Oregon as his running mate. Both Douglas and Breckinridge claimed to be the official Democratic candidates.
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The Republican convention was held in Chicago on May 16–18. The party, which had formed only in the 1850s, was largely opposed to the extension of slavery in the U.S. territories. Though many party members favored the total abolition of slavery, the party pragmatically did not call for abolition in those states that already had slavery. Entering the convention, Sen. William H. Seward of New York was considered the favorite for the nomination, and on the first ballot he led Abraham Lincoln, who had been defeated in Illinois in 1858 for the U.S. Senate by Douglas, as well as a host of other candidates. On a second ballot the gap between Seward and Lincoln narrowed, and Lincoln was subsequently nominated on the third ballot. Sen. Hannibal Hamlin of Maine was nominated as Lincoln’s running mate.
Trying to transcend the sectional divide was the Constitutional Union Party, which was formed in 1859 by former Whigs and members of the Know-Nothing Party. The Constitutional Unionists named former senators John Bell of Tennessee and Edward Everett of Massachusetts as their presidential and vice presidential nominees, respectively. The party’s platform particularly appealed to border states in its attempt to ignore the slavery issue and focus instead on fealty to the U.S. Constitution:
Resolved, that it is both the part of patriotism and of duty to recognize no political principles other than the Constitution of the country, the Union of the states, and the enforcement of the laws; and that, as representatives of the Constitutional Union men of the country in national convention assembled, we hereby pledge ourselves to maintain, protect, and defend, separately and unitedly, these great principles of public liberty and national safety against all enemies, at home and abroad, believing that thereby peace may once more be restored to the country, the rights of the people and of the states reestablished, and the government again placed in that condition of justice, fraternity, and equality which, under the example and Constitution of our fathers, has solemnly bound every citizen of the United States to maintain a more perfect Union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.
The campaign
After his nomination, Lincoln put aside his law practice and ran a stay-at-home campaign, in which he made no stump speeches, though he did give full time to the direction of his campaign. His “main object,” he had written, was to “hedge against divisions in the Republican ranks,” and he counseled party workers to “say nothing on points where it is probable we shall disagree.” With Republicans united, and with division within the Democratic Party and surrounding Bell’s candidacy, the primary fear that Republicans had was that some disunity might appear and hamper their chances. Breckinridge also did little campaigning, giving only one speech. Douglas, however, was an active campaigner, in both the North and the South, where he gave a passionate defense of the Union and strenuously opposed secession. Still, much of the campaigning that did follow consisted of parades and rallies that boosted interest in the election (on election day some four-fifths of eligible voters turned out).
Despite four main candidates (and Douglas’s forays into the South), the contests in the states were sectionally fought, with Douglas and Lincoln dominant in the North and Breckinridge and Bell dueling for support in the South. On election day Lincoln captured slightly less than 40 percent of the vote, but he won a majority in the electoral college, with 180 electoral votes, by sweeping the North (with the exception of New Jersey, which he split with Douglas) and also winning the Pacific Coast states of California and Oregon. Douglas won nearly 30 percent of the vote but won only Missouri’s 12 electoral votes. Breckinridge, with 18 percent of the national vote, garnered 72 electoral votes, winning most of the states in the South as well as Delaware and Maryland. Bell, who won 12.6 percent of the vote, secured 39 electoral votes by winning Kentucky, Tennessee, and Virginia. The results in the South are instructive in understanding the deep sectional divide. Lincoln did not win any votes in any state that would form the Confederacy, with the exception of Virginia, where he garnered only 1 percent of the total vote (Douglas won slightly less than 10 percent). By the time of Lincoln’s inauguration in March, seven Southern states had seceded, and barely a month after Lincoln became president, the country became engaged in civil war.
Lincoln’s victory, achieved without carrying a single state that would become part of the Confederacy, reinforced the perception among many Southern political leaders that their influence within the federal government had been irretrievably weakened. Although Lincoln pledged not to interfere with slavery where it already existed, his opposition to its expansion was viewed by secessionists as a threat to the long-term security and political power of slaveholding states. In this way, the election served as an immediate catalyst for a sundering of the union, an eventuality that had been building for decades.
The 1860 election is regarded by most political observers as a “critical” election in the United States. In this context, a critical election refers to one that produces lasting political realignment, reshaping the coalitions that support the major parties and altering patterns of regional voting. Lincoln’s victory established the Republican Party as a dominant political force in the North and initiated a period in which the Democratic and Republican parties became the principals in what had become largely a two-party system. (Other examples of critical elections include the election of 1896, which saw William McKinley elected president and the Republican Party take control of the presidency, the House of Representatives, and the Senate as well dominating in most states outside the South. Another example of a critical election came in 1932, in the midst of the Great Depression, when Franklin Roosevelt was elected for the first of four times.)
After 1860 the Democratic and Republican parties became the major parties in a largely two-party system. In federal elections from the 1870s to the 1890s, the parties were in rough balance—except in the South, which became solidly Democratic. The two parties controlled Congress for almost equal periods, though the Democrats held the presidency only during the two terms of Grover Cleveland (1885–89 and 1893–97).
For the results of the previous election, see United States presidential election of 1856. For the results of the subsequent election, see United States presidential election of 1864.