The Election of 1860
There were four major candidates for president in 1860. The Democratic Party had been split over the issue of slavery, and a new party had been formed called the Constitutional Union Party. This consisted of former Whigs and Know-Nothings from the South, along with some moderate Northerners. Northern Democrats backed Stephen Douglas and his doctrine of popular sovereignty. Southern Democrats supported Vice-President John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky.The Constitutional Union Party had nominated John Bell of Tennessee.
In the end it was Abe Lincoln that emerged as the winner, despite being virtually unknown in the East before the election. Like in the previous election with Buchanan, Lincoln had received less than half of the popular vote. In fact, although Lincoln defeated his combined opponents in the electoral vote 180 to 123, he received no electoral votes from the South. Lincoln had received sectional support rather than national support, and in most slave states he hadn't even been listed on the ballot. The Republican Party had swept New England, the Middle Atlantic States, the Old Northwest, California, and Oregon. The Deep South went for Breckinridge, and Douglas and Bell divided the other states. Lincoln now had one of the hardest tasks of any president: keeping the Union together.