āOur Next Presidentā
A Currier & Ives lithograph from 1860 introduced Abraham Lincoln after his election in an adaptation of a Mathew Brady photograph.
United States presidential election of 1860
United States government
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...