United States presidential election, 1860

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United States presidential election, 1860
United States
1856 ←
 November 6, 1860
 → 1864
  Abraham Lincoln by Alexander Helser, 1860-crop.jpg John C Breckinridge-04775-restored.jpg
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%
  JohnBell.png StephenADouglas.png
Nominee John Bell Stephen A. Douglas
Party Constitutional Union Democratic
Home state Tennessee Illinois
Running mate Edward Everett Herschel V. Johnson
Electoral vote 39 12
States carried 3 1
Popular vote 590,901 1,380,201
Percentage 12.6% 29.5%

ElectoralCollege1860.svg
Presidential Election 1860. Red shows states won by Lincoln, green by Breckinridge, orange by Bell, and blue by Douglas
Numbers are Electoral College votes in each state by the 1850 Census.
President before election

James Buchanan
Democratic

 Elected President

Abraham Lincoln
Republican

The United States presidential election of 1860 was a quadrennial election, held on November 6, 1860, for the office of President of the United States and the immediate impetus for the outbreak of the American Civil War.

The nation had been divided throughout the 1850s on questions surrounding the expansion of slavery and the rights of slave owners. In 1860, these issues finally came to a head. As a result of conflicting regional interests, the Democratic Party broke into Northern and Southern factions, and a new Constitutional Union Party appeared. In the face of a divided and dispirited opposition, the Republican Party, dominant in the North, secured enough electoral votes to put Abraham Lincoln in the White House with very little support from the South.

Within a few months of the election, seven Southern states, led by South Carolina, responded with declarations of secession, which was rejected as illegal by outgoing President James Buchanan and President-elect Lincoln. Four additional Southern states seceded after the Battle of Fort Sumter.

Contents

[edit] Background

Main article: Timeline of events leading to the American Civil War
Further information: 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, and economics. 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 another compromise. The result was the Kansas–Nebraska Act, which alienated Northerners and Southerners alike. With the rise of the Republican Party, which appealled to both Northeast and Western states, the industrializing North and agrarian Midwest became committed to the economic ethos of free-labor industrial capitalism.

[edit] Nominations

[edit] Northern Democratic

Main article: 1860 Democratic National Convention
South Carolina Institute, Charleston. site of first Democratic Convention, December Secession Convention.[1]

Northern Democratic candidates:

[edit] Democratic Party candidates gallery

At the Democratic convention in Charleston's Institute Hall in April 1860, 51 Southern Democrats walked out over a platform dispute. The extreme pro-slavery "Fire-Eater" William Lowndes Yancey and the Alabama delegation first left the hall, followed by the delegates of Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, Texas, three of the four delegates from Arkansas, and one of the three delegates from Delaware.

Six candidates were nominated: Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois, James Guthrie of Kentucky, Robert Mercer Taliaferro Hunter of Virginia, Joseph Lane of Oregon, Daniel S. Dickinson of New York, and Andrew Johnson of Tennessee. Three other candidates, Isaac Toucey of Connecticut, James Pearce of Maryland, and Jefferson Davis of Mississippi (the future president of the Confederate States) also received votes. Douglas, a moderate on the slavery issue who favored "popular sovereignty", was ahead on the first ballot, needing 56.5 more votes. On the 57th ballot, Douglas was still ahead, but still 50.5 votes short of nomination. In desperation, the delegates agreed on May 3 to stop voting and adjourn the convention.


The Democrats convened again at the Front Street Theater in Baltimore, Maryland, on June 18. This time, 110 Southern delegates (led by “Fire-Eaters”) walked out when the convention would not adopt a resolution supporting extending slavery into territories whose voters did not want it. Some considered Horatio Seymour a compromise candidate for the Democratic nomination at the reconvening convention in Baltimore. Seymour wrote a letter to the editor of his local newspaper declaring unreservedly that he was not a candidate for either spot on the ticket. After two ballots, the remaining Democrats nominated the ticket of Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois for president. Benjamin Fitzpatrick was nominated for vice-president, but he refused the nomination. That nomination ultimately went to Herschel Vespasian Johnson of Georgia.

[edit] Constitutional Union

Constitutional Union candidates:

[edit] Constitutional Union candidates gallery

Die-hard former Southern Whigs and Know Nothings[2] who felt they could support neither the Democratic Party nor the Republican Party formed the Constitutional Union Party. They met in Baltimore's Eastside District Courthouse, 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 on May 9, 1860, one week before Lincoln.[3]

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."[4]

[edit] Republican Party

Main article: 1860 Republican National Convention


Republican candidates:



.

[edit] Republican candidates gallery

Chicago Wigwam, Republican Convention

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 the 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 for president on the third ballot on May 18, 1860. Senator Hannibal Hamlin of Maine was nominated for vice-president, defeating Cassius Clay of Kentucky.

The party platform[5] clearly stated that slavery would not be allowed to spread any further, and it also promised that tariffs protecting industry would be imposed, a Homestead Act granting free farmland in the West to settlers, and the funding of a transcontinental railroad. All of these provisions were highly unpopular in the South.

[edit] Southern Democratic

Southern Democratic candidates:

[edit] Southern Democratic candidates gallery

Maryland Institute Hall, Baltimore Here bolting delegates nominated Breckinridge before Richmond vote[6]


Led by Yancey, a remnant of Southern Democrats from Maryland Institute Hall, almost entirely from the Lower South, reconvened on June 28 in Richmond, Virginia, where the "Fire-Eater Robert Rhett had been waiting. Less than half the Southern delegates in Baltimore gathered to re-nominate the pro-slavery incumbent vice-president, John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky, for president.[6] They had nominated Joseph Lane of Oregon for Vice President in Baltimore.

[edit] Campaign

Watchman Lincoln arrests others breaking into White House. Bell counts on Douglas. Douglas tries keys of ‘regular nomination’. Pres. Buchanan tries to pull Breckinridge up into a window. ‘Breck’ complains of weakness, so ‘compelled to dissolve the Union’.[7]

The contest in the North was between Lincoln and Douglas, but only the latter took to the stump and gave speeches and interviews in both sections, North and South. In the cartoon, Douglas tries the keys of ‘regular nomination’, ‘nonintervention (slavery)’ and ‘Nebraska (terr.) Bill’.In the South, John C. Breckinridge and John Bell were the main rivals, but Douglas had an important presence in southern cities, especially among Irish Americans.[8] Fusion tickets of the unionist non-Republicans developed in New York and Rhode Island, and partially in New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

Before 1860 "people saw candidates in the flesh less often than they saw a perfect rainbow".[9] Lincoln followed the longstanding tradition of almost every presidential candidate since George Washington. During his front porch campaign, Lincoln made no new speeches and did not leave his hometown of Springfield, Illinois. Although he met with hundreds of visitors, Lincoln answered all political questions by advising listeners to read his published speeches, such as those from the debates with Douglas in 1858; even an August crowd of 30,000 that marched in a parade eight miles long in front of his home failed to cause Lincoln to speak more than a few words.[10]:41-43[11]

Pro-Douglas newspaper published cartoons attacking Lincoln's support from New York’s free blacks and Greely abolitionists. Douglas won 30% of the popular vote, Lincoln won 40%.

Douglas, in contrast, was the first presidential candidate in American history to undertake a nationwide speaking tour. In July he left New York City to Ontario County in upstate New York, allegedly to visit his mother. Republicans and newspapers mocked Douglas' trip, which required two months and lengthy detours through New England, Pennsylvania, and Maryland. While "in search of his mother", Douglas could not resist the demands of the many crowds that met him at train stations and asked him to make speeches. After finally meeting his mother, Douglas traveled to North Carolina, allegedly for family legal issues, but with more lengthy detours throughout the South.[10]:42 He did not expect to win many electoral votes there, 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.

In August, mirroring Douglas’ stumping throughout the South, William Lowndes Yancey made a speaking tour of the North. He had been instrumental in denying the Charleston nomination to Douglas, and he supported the Richmond Convention nominating Breckinridge with his Alabama Platform. Venues in Boston, New York, and Cincinnati that hosted Emerson and Thoreau opened their doors to the "Fire-Eater". He claimed that Lincoln’s restricting slavery would bring an end of Union, and pleaded that a Northern voter could save the Union voting for anyone but Lincoln. [12]

Because Lincoln did not campaign or give speeches, state and county Republican organizations worked on his behalf to sustain party enthusiasm and thus obtain high turnout. There was little effort to convert non-Republicans, and there was virtually no campaigning in the South except for a few border cities such as St. Louis, Missouri, and Wheeling, Virginia; indeed, the party did not even run a slate in most of the South. In the North, there were thousands of Republican speakers, tons of campaign posters and leaflets, and thousands of newspaper editorials. These focused foremost on the party platform, but also drew attention to Lincoln's life story, making the most of his boyhood poverty, his pioneer background, his native genius, and his rise from obscurity. His nicknames, "Honest Abe" and "the Rail-Splitter," were exploited to the fullest. The goal was to emphasize the superior power of "free labor," whereby a common farm boy could work his way to the top by his own efforts.[13]

The 1860 campaign was less frenzied than in 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 such as the Wide Awakes to rally their supporters (see American election campaigns in the 19th century for campaign techniques).

[edit] Results

the unfinished Capitol dome, 1860
Inauguration of Abraham Lincoln
the Capitol, March 4, 1861
1860 Electoral College map with 35 states
state Election results
by Electoral College vote

The election was held on Tuesday, November 6, 1860. That election was noteworthy for exaggerated sectionalism in a country that was soon to dissolve into civil war. In yet another presidential election, no party found the key to popular-vote majorities. All six Presidents elected since Andrew Jackson (1832) had been one-term presidents, the last four elected with a popular vote under 51%.[14] But Lincoln had won an Electoral College majority by carrying states above the Mason-Dixon Line and north of the Ohio River, plus the far west California and Oregon. Unlike his predecessors, he carried not one slave-holding state.

Lincoln won in the Electoral College with less than 40% of the popular vote nationwide, and the split in the Democratic party is sometimes held responsible for Lincoln's victory,[15] But his Electoral College strategy would have worked against the combined anti-Lincoln votes to win regardless, 169 to 134. Republican victory was due to the concentration of votes in the free states which together controlled a majority of the presidential electors.[16] In the three states where anti-Lincoln vote did combine into fusion tickets, Lincoln still won in two states and split New Jersey's.[17]

Like Lincoln, Breckinridge and Bell won no electoral votes outside their section. While Bell retired to his family business quietly supporting his state secession, Breckinridge served as a Confederate general. He finished second in the Electoral College with 72 votes, carrying 11 of 15 slave states. He won a distant third in national popular vote at 18%, but he accrued 50-75% in the first seven states that would become the Confederacy, and took nine of the eleven states which eventually joined.[18]

Bell carried three slave states Tennessee, Kentucky, and Virginia. and lost Maryland by 722 votes. Nevertheless, he finished a remarkable second in the all the slave states won by Breckinridge and Douglas. He won 45-47% for Maryland, Tennessee and North Carolina and he canvassed respectably with 36-40% in Missouri, Arkansas and Louisiana, Georgia and Florida. While Bell trailed last in national popular vote at 12% in the event, he had a winning total of 177 electoral votes in play when adding his fusion tickets in Rhode Island 38%, New York 46% and New Jersey 52%[19]

Douglas was the only candidate winning electoral votes in both sections, free New Jersey and slave Missouri. But he finished last in the Electoral College. His support was geographically the most widespread, finishing second behind Lincoln in the popular vote with 29.5%. He gained 51% of the vote in New Jersey to split, and 35% in Missouri to win its electoral votes. Douglas gained a 28-47% share in the states of the Mid-Atlantic, Midwest and Trans-Mississippi West, slipping to 19-39% in New England. Outside his section, Douglas took 15-17% of the popular vote total in the slave states of Kentucky, Alabama and Louisiana, then 10% or less in the nine remaining slave states.

[edit] An election for disunion

Popular vote by county.
Reds - Lincoln, blues - pro-union Douglas, greens - John Breckinridge, and yellows - Constitutional Unionist Bell. Grey - unincorporated, SC - no vote

Bell and Douglas had campaigned that they could save the Union from the inevitable result of disunion following a Lincoln election. Loyal army officers in Virginia, Kansas and South Carolina warned Lincoln of military preparations. Secessionists threw their support behind Breckinridge in an attempt to throw the election into the House, where the selection of President would be made by the Representatives elected in 1858, before the Republican majorities in both House and Senate achieved in 1860 were seated in the new 37th Congress. Mexican War hero Winfield Scott suggested to Lincoln that he assume powers of Commander-in-Chief before inauguration. But historian Bruce Chadwick observes that Lincoln and his advisors ignored the widespread alarms and threats of secession as mere election trickery.

Indeed, voting in the South was not as monolithic as an Electoral College map appeared. Economically, culturally, and politically, the South was made up of three regions. In the states of the "Upper" South (also known as "border states"), unionist popular votes were scattered among Lincoln, Douglas, and Bell to form a majority in four of the four (Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, Missouri). In four of the five "Middle" South states, there was a unionist majority divided between Douglas and Bell in Virginia and Tennessee; in North Carolina and Arkansas, the unionist vote approached a majority. Texas was the only Middle South state that Breckinridge carried convincingly. In three of the six "Deep" South, unionists won divided majorities in Georgia and Louisiana or neared it in Alabama. Breckinridge convincingly carried only three of the six states of the Deep South (South Carolina, Florida, and Mississippi).[20] These three Deep South states were all among the four Southern states with the lowest white populations; altogether, they held only nine-percent of Southern whites.[21]

The voter turnout rate in 1860 was the second-highest on record (81.2%, second only to 1876, with 81.8%).[22] Among the states which would become the Confederacy, the three big turnout states voted extremes. Texas at 5% Confederate population voted only 20% pro-Union candidates. Kentucky and Missouri with one-fourth the Confederate population claimed, voted a combined 68% for pro-Union candidates. The first six signatory states establishing the Confederacy counted about one-fourth its population. They voted 43% for pro-Union candidates, excluding South Carolina which did not allow a popular vote for President. The four states which entered after Fort Sumter held almost half its population, voted 53% for pro-Union candidates Lincoln, Douglas and Bell.

In the eleven states that would later declare their secession from the Union and be controlled by Confederate armies, ballots for Lincoln were cast only in Virginia,[23][24] where he received only 1.1 percent of the popular vote.[20][25]

In the four slave states that did not secede (Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland, and Delaware), he came in fourth in every state except Delaware (where he finished third). Within the 15 slave states, Lincoln won only two counties out of 996,[20] both in Missouri.[26] (In the 1856 election, the Republican candidate for president had received no votes at all in 13 of the 15 slave states).


Presidential candidate Party Home state Popular vote(a) Electoral
vote		 Running mate
Count Pct Vice-presidential candidate Home state Elect. vote
Abraham Lincoln Republican Illinois 1,865,908 39.8% 180 Hannibal Hamlin Maine 180
John C. 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 A. 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] 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 no ballots 13,618 15.1 - 48,669 54.0 9 27,835 30.9 - 90,122 AL
Arkansas 4 no ballots 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 no ballots 223 1.7 - 8,277 62.2 3 4,801 36.1 - 13,301 FL
Georgia 10 no ballots 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 no ballots 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 no ballots 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 no ballots 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[nb 1] 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 no ballots 11,281 7.7 - 65,097 44.6 - 69,728 47.7 12 146,106 TN
Texas 4 no ballots 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
Constitutional Union campaign poster, 1860. Bell supported TN secession after Lincoln's militia callup. Everett dedicated Gettysburg Cemetery 1863

[edit] See also

campaign buttons with tintype portraits, 1860

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ In Pennsylvania, votes for Breckinridge were in support of a group of electors who promised to fully support either Breckinridge or Douglas if one man could gain an electoral majority with Pennsylvania's votes and split their support otherwise.[27]

[edit] References

  1. ^ Lossing, Benson John. Pictorial history of the civil war in the United States of America, Volume 1 (1866) Poughkeepsie, NY. Free ebook. viewed January 26, 2012. Bolters met at St. Andrew’s Hall.
  2. ^ "How (And Where) Lincoln Won", New York Times
  3. ^ Lossing, Benson John. Pictorial history of the civil war in the United States of America, Volume 1 (1866) Poughkeepsie, NY. p. 29. Free ebook. viewed January 26, 2012. The building had been the First Presbyterian Meeting House (Two Towers Church) on Fayette Street, between Calvert and North Street, demolished before 1866 and occupied by the United States Courthouse.
  4. ^ Getting the Message Out! Stephen A. Douglas
  5. ^ http://cprr.org/Museum/Ephemera/Republican_Platform_1860.html
  6. ^ a b Freehling, William W., The Road to Disunion: Secessionists Triumphant, Vol.2. Oxford University, 2007, p. 321
  7. ^ http://www.loc.gov/pictures/collection/app/item/2003674583/
  8. ^ David T. Gleeson, The Irish in the South, 1815-1877 (University of North Carolina Press, 2001) p. 138
  9. ^ Maury Klein, Days of Defiance: Sumter, Secession, and the Coming of the Civil War pp. 27-28
  10. ^ a b Goodheart, Adam (2011). 1861: The Civil War Awakening. Alfred A. Knopf. ISBN 978-0-307-59666-6. 
  11. ^ "American President:Abraham Lincoln:Campaigns and Elections". Miller Center of Public Affairs, University of Virginia. http://millercenter.org/academic/americanpresident/lincoln/essays/biography/3. Retrieved 2009-04-22. 
  12. ^ Freehling, op.cit., p.336
  13. ^ Benjamin P. Thomas‎, Abraham Lincoln, a biography (1952) p. 216; Luthin (1944); Nevins, (1950)
  14. ^ http://www.uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/ Only Franklin Pierce had achieved a statistical majority in the popular vote (50.83%).
  15. ^ e.g. the 1912 Catholic Encyclopedia's article on the United States, vol, 15, p. 171
  16. ^ Chadwick, Bruce. "Lincoln for President: an unlikely candidate, an audacious strategy, and the victory no one saw coming" (2009) Ch. 10 The Eleventh Hour. pp. 289 ISBN 978-14-0-222504-8 Lincoln's strategy was deliberately focused, in collaboration with Republican Party Chairman Thurlow Weed, "Find 'em and vote 'em." and based on expanding on the states Fremont had won four years earlier. New York was critical with 35 Electoral College votes, 11.5% of the total. The Wide Awakes young Republican men's organization massively expanded registered voter lists. But Lincoln was not even on the ballot in many southern states.
  17. ^ Allan Nevins, The Emergence of Lincoln: Prologue to Civil War (1950), The three states were New York, Rhode Island, and New Jersey, p. 312 notes that if the opposition had formed fusion tickets in every state, Lincoln still would have 169 electoral votes; he needed 152 to win the Electoral College. Potter, The impending crisis, 1848–1861 (1976) p. 437, and Luthin, The First Lincoln Campaign p. 227 both conclude it was impossible for Lincoln's opponents to combine because they hated each other. The fractured Democratic vote did tip California, Oregon, and four New Jersey "New Jersey's Vote in 1860". NY Times. 1892-12-26. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9407E0DC1638E233A25755C2A9649D94639ED7CF.  electoral votes to Lincoln, giving him 180 Electoral College votes. 1860 election Only in California, Oregon, and Illinois was Lincoln's victory margin less than seven percent. In New England, he won every county.
  18. ^ He carried the border slave states of Delaware and Maryland and losing Virginia and Tennessee. Breckinridge received very little support in the free states, showing some strength only in California, Oregon, and Pennsylvania.
  19. ^ In a fusion ticket, the votes won are ascribed to the lead candidate, in the case of Rhode Island, New Jersey and New York, for the purposes of defeating Lincoln. Were Bell to have triumphed, scholars would take the popular votes from those fusion states out of the Douglas column and place them in Bell's column, adding 386,086 to his popular vote total, behind Douglas 17, 129 then, and ahead of Breckinridge 128,968.
  20. ^ a b c "HarpWeek 1860 Election Overview". http://elections.harpweek.com/1860/Overview-1860-2.htm. Retrieved 2011-03-20. 
  21. ^ Freehling, William W., The Road to Disunion: Volume II. Secessionists Triumphant, 1854-1861, Oxford University Press, 2004, p. 447.
  22. ^ Vshadow: Lincoln's Election
  23. ^ "Republican ballot 1860". http://www.virginiamemory.com/online_classroom/union_or_secession/doc/republican_ballot. Retrieved 2011-04-28. 
  24. ^ "Election of 1860 – "Read Your Ballot"". http://housedivided.dickinson.edu/sites/blogdivided/2010/07/19/election-of-1860-read-your-ballot/. Retrieved 2011-04-28.  Ballots were printed sheets, usually printed by the party, with the name of the candidate(s) and the names of presidential electors who were pledged to that presidential candidate. Voters brought the ballot to the polling station, and dropped it publicly into the election box. In order to receive any votes, a candidate (or his party) had to have ballots printed, and have organized a group of electors pledged to that candidate. Except in some border areas the Republican party did not attempt any organization in the South and did not print ballots there because almost no one was willing to acknowledge publicly they were voting for Lincoln for fear of violence.
  25. ^ "1860 Election Returns in Virginia, by County". http://www.virginiamemory.com/docs/1860_election_returns.pdf. Retrieved 2011-04-28. 
  26. ^ St. Louis County, Missouri and Gasconade County, Missouri according to http://www.missouridivision-scv.org/election.htm
  27. ^ Dubin, Michael J., United States Presidential Elections, 1788-1860: The Official Results by County and State, McFarland & Company, 2002, p. 188

[edit] Bibliography

  • Carwardine, Richard (2003). Lincoln. Pearson Education Ltd. ISBN 9780582032798. 
  • Donald, David Herbert (1996) [1995]. Lincoln. New York: Simon and Schuster. ISBN 9780684825359. 
  • Egerton, Douglas (2010). Year of Meteors: Stephen Douglas, Abraham Lincoln, and the Election That Brought on the Civil War. Bloomsbury Press. 
  • Foner, Eric (1995) [1970]. Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men: The Ideology of the Republican Party before the Civil War. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780195094978. 
  • Goodwin, Doris Kearns (2005). Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln. New York: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0684824906. 
  • Grinspan, Jon, "'Young Men for War': The Wide Awakes and Lincoln's 1860 Presidential Campaign," Journal of American History 96.2 (2009): online.
  • Harris, William C. (2007). Lincoln's Rise to the Presidency. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas. ISBN 9780700615209. 
  • Holt, Michael F. (1978). The Political Crisis of the 1850s. 
  • Holzer, Harold (2004). Lincoln at Cooper Union: The Speech That Made Abraham Lincoln President. Simon & Schuster. ISBN 9780743299640. 
  • Johannsen, Robert W. Stephen A. Douglas (1973), standard biography
  • Luebke, Frederick C. (1971). Ethnic Voters and the Election of Lincoln. 
  • Luthin, Reinhard H. (1944). The First Lincoln Campaign. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. ISBN 9780844612928. along with Nevins, the most detailed narrative of the election
  • Mansch, Larry D. (2005). Abraham Lincoln, President-Elect: The Four Critical Months from Election to Inauguration. McFarland. ISBN 078642026X. 
  • Nevins, Allan (1950). Ordeal of the Union; Vol. IV: The Emergence of Lincoln: Prologue to Civil War, 1859–1861. Macmillan Publishing Company. ISBN 9780684104164. 
  • Nichols, Roy Franklin . The Disruption of American Democracy (1948), pp 348–506, focused on the Democratic party
  • Parks, H. John Bell of Tennessee (1950), standard biography
  • Potter, David M. (1976). The impending crisis, 1848–1861. HarperCollins. ISBN 9780061319297. 
  • Rhodes, James Ford (1920). History of the United States from the Compromise of 1850 to the McKinley-Bryan Campaign of 1896. http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=72303423.  vol. 2, ch. 11. highly detailed narrative covering 1856–60

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