1860 United States presidential election

1860 United States presidential election
Alexander Hesler · Public domain · source
Election name	1860 United States presidential election
Country	United States
Type	Presidential
Previous election	1856 United States presidential election
Previous year	1856
Next election	1864 United States presidential election
Next year	1864
Election date	November 6, 1860
Turnout	81.2%

1860 United States presidential election

The 1860 presidential contest was the 19th quadrennial election in which voters across the United States chose electors for the Electoral College to select a successor to James Buchanan. The campaign occurred amid intense sectional tensions involving slavery in the United States, territorial expansion such as the Kansas–Nebraska Act, and rising polarization between the Republican Party and splintered Democratic Party factions. The election produced a regional realignment that precipitated the Secession crisis of 1860–61 and the onset of the American Civil War.

Background

The 1850s saw a series of national controversies—Compromise of 1850, Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, and the Kansas crisis—that fractured national politics. The enactment of the Kansas–Nebraska Act in 1854 overturned the terms of the Missouri Compromise, catalyzing the collapse of the Whig Party and the creation of the Republican Party with leaders such as Abraham Lincoln, William H. Seward, and Salmon P. Chase. The 1857 Dred Scott v. Sandford decision by the Supreme Court of the United States further intensified disputes among advocates represented by figures like Stephen A. Douglas, John C. Breckinridge, and John Bell. Migration, the California Gold Rush, and debates over admission of territories like Kansas and Nebraska shaped alignments between Northern abolitionists, Southern slaveholders, Western expansionists, and border-state moderates.

Candidates and parties

Multiple national conventions produced four principal tickets that reflected sectional divisions. The Republican Party nominated Abraham Lincoln with running mate Hannibal Hamlin; Republicans drew support from anti-slavery Northerners, Free Soil Party adherents, and Northern Whigs. Northern Democrats held a convention at Baltimore and nominated Stephen A. Douglas with running mate Herschel V. Johnson. Southern Democrats split, convening in a separate Charleston/Baltimore process and ultimately nominating incumbent Vice President John C. Breckinridge with running mate Joseph Lane. A fourth ticket emerged from the Constitutional Union Party—composed of former Whig Party members and border-state conservatives—nominating John Bell with running mate Edward Everett. Other figures who sought influence included William H. Seward, Simon Cameron, Horatio Seymour, Franklin Pierce, and regional leaders such as Preston Brooks and Jefferson Davis.

Campaign and issues

Campaign rhetoric centered on slavery, territorial status, and preservation of the Union. Republicans attacked the extension of slavery into territories contested by events like Bleeding Kansas and championed policies such as homesteading and protective tariffs advocated by industrialists aligned with New England and the Mid-Atlantic states. Democrats fractured over popular sovereignty promoted by Stephen A. Douglas and the Dred Scott ramifications; Southern Democrats defended slaveholder rights invoking property rights affirmed in decisions like Dred Scott v. Sandford. The Constitutional Union ticket emphasized enforcement of existing compromises and avoidance of secession, appealing to voters in Kentucky, Tennessee, and Virginia. Campaign tactics included stump speeches in urban centers like New York City and Chicago, partisan newspapers such as the New-York Tribune and Richmond Enquirer, and debates over personalities memorialized in pamphlets and broadsides. Violence and intimidation influenced turnout in volatile regions where militia alignments and episodes like the Pottawatomie massacre and Congressional altercations involving Charles Sumner and Preston Brooks remained fresh.

Results

The election produced a decisive Electoral College victory for the Republican ticket in a regionally sectional popular vote. Abraham Lincoln carried nearly all Northern states, securing 180 of 303 electoral votes, while John C. Breckinridge won most deep Southern states with 72 electoral votes. John Bell carried border and Upper South states for 39 electoral votes, and Stephen A. Douglas won only Missouri and a fraction of electoral votes via a faithless elector for a total of 12. Lincoln won a plurality of the popular vote, concentrated in industrial and populous states such as New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Massachusetts, while Breckinridge dominated in plantations-dominated states like South Carolina, Mississippi, and Alabama. Voter turnout reached historically high levels in many Northern states due to mobilization by party machines and partisan press networks. The electoral map demonstrated the sectional cleavage: Republican dominance in the North and West versus Democratic strength in the South and border-state pluralities for the Constitutional Unionists.

Aftermath and impact

Lincoln's election, without electoral support from most Southern states, triggered immediate political crisis. South Carolina called a special convention and issued an ordinance of secession, followed by states including Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas forming the initial Confederate States of America under leaders such as Jefferson Davis and adopting a constitution protecting slavery. Border states like Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri faced internal divisions and guerrilla conflicts, while efforts at compromise—led by figures like John J. Crittenden proposing the Crittenden Compromise—failed in Congress. The election reshaped national parties: the Republican Party emerged as the dominant Northern party, the Democratic Party fractured until reunification during the American Civil War, and the Whig Party remained defunct. Lincoln's presidency proceeded to navigate the Fort Sumter crisis and the broader transition to wartime governance, ultimately leading to emancipation measures such as the Emancipation Proclamation and constitutional change culminating in the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The 1860 contest thus stands as a pivotal inflection in American political, social, and constitutional history.

Category:United States presidential elections