geekyAfter the disastrous Presidency of James Buchanan which ended with a number of states threatening secession, it was inevitable that the election of 1860 would be one of the more emotionally charged presidential elections in history. The nation had been divided throughout the 1850s on questions surrounding the expansion of slavery and the rights of slave owners. The nation had barely avoided a split with the Compromise of 1850, and the aftermath of the compromise did not improve matters. Opposition to the Fugitive Slave Law and the Kansas-Nebraska Act increased the conflict between pro and anti slavery factions. 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.
At the Democratic convention held at Institute Hall in Charleston, South Carolina beginning on April 23, 1860, 51 Southern Democrats walked out of the convention over a platform dispute. The extreme pro-slavery faction (known as the "Fire-Eaters") in the Alabama delegation were the first to leave 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.
At the convention, 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, was ahead on the first ballot, needing just 57 more votes. But on the 57th ballot, Douglas was still 51 votes short of nomination. In desperation, the delegates agreed on May 3 to stop voting and adjourn the convention.
The Democrats reconvened at the Front Street Theater in Baltimore, Maryland, on June 18. This time, 110 Southern delegates walked out when the convention would not adopt a resolution supporting extending slavery into territories even then the voters in that territory did not want it. There was a movement towards selecting famed newspaper editor Horatio Seymour as a compromise candidate, but Seymour wrote a letter in his local newspaper making it clear 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 of Alabama was nominated for vice-president, but he refused the nomination. That nomination ultimately went to Herschel Vespasian Johnson of Georgia.
What took place at the Republican convention is described in detail in Doris Kearns Goodwin's wonderful book Team of Rivals. The Republicans had planned to also meet in Charleston, but they chose to move the convention to Chicago and hold in from May 16-18th. 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. But as the convention progressed, it became apparent that Seward, Chase, and Bates had each alienated factions of the Republican Party. Seward was too closely identified with the radical wing of the party, while 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. Bates' position on the extension of slavery into the territories alienated his supporters in the border states.
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 clearly stated that slavery would not be allowed to spread any further.
Southern Democrats reconvened on June 28 in Richmond, Virginia, where they nominated the pro-slavery incumbent vice-president, John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky, for president and Joseph Lane of Oregon for Vice President.
Lincoln made no new speeches and did not leave his hometown of Springfield, Illinois. (The famed Lincoln-Douglas debates were part of an earlier campaign for the Illinois senate, not this election.) Douglas traveled to North Carolina, allegedly for family legal issues, but in reality to campaign. He did not expect to win many electoral votes there, but he spoke for the maintenance of the Union. Lincoln's surrogate campaigners were able to sustain party enthusiasm and thus obtain high turnout. They 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 especially promoted.
The election was held on Tuesday, November 6, 1860. No candidate received a majority of the popular vote. 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. Lincoln won in the Electoral College with less than 40% of the popular vote nationwide. He won 180 electoral votes, compared to 72 for Breckinridge, 39 for John Bell and 12 for Stephen Douglas. The voter turnout rate in 1860 was the second-highest on record (81.2%, second only to 1876, with 81.8%).
Reaction to Lincoln's victory was dramatic. On December 20, 1860, six weeks after the election, South Carolina seceded from the union. Incumbent President James Buchanan did nothing to stop it. Other Southern states soon followed, leading within just over five months to the outbreak of the Civil War.