Hello and welcome back to another edition of Lace ‘Em Up’s Presidential Election series for today we will be going over the Election of 1860. One of the most important elections in American History, the nation is on the brink of civil war and four different candidates are looking to become the president with the future of the entire country at stake.

Divided Nation

For much of the 1850s, the issue of slavery has being destroying the United States with events like Senator Charles Sumner being beaten on the Senate floor, the backlash from the Kansas-Nebraska Act aka ‘Bleeding Kansas’ to John Brown’s 1859 arsenal raid which would see him get hanged in public as a result.

President James Buchanan wasn’t making things any better with his indecisiveness while in office and the Supreme Court made things worse when they announced their ruling in the case Scott v. Sandford where an African American slave named Dred Scott sued the widow and brother of his former master in order for him and his family to be free.

In March of 1857, seven out of the nine Supreme Court Justices agreed with the previous decisions made by the lower courts but in their misguided attempts at ending the slavery issue, they said that Scott was still a slave whether he entered a free state or not as African Americans were not meant to be viewed as citizens but property.

This decision further fueled racial tensions in the country with many anti-slavery supporters protesting what they saw was the increasing rise of ‘Slave Power’ both in Washington and now the Supreme Court.

An Un-Democratic Party

With James Buchanan promising to only serve one term, the Democrats were struggling to find someone who could appeal to both the Northern and Southern wings of the party. By the time of the Democratic National Convention many pro-slavery Democrats decided to walk out as they were unwilling to compromise on the issue of slavery and decided to nominate their own candidate instead.

The remaining Democrats would meet up once again and after 59 ballots they chose Stephen Douglas, who was still the Senator of Illinois as their candidate. Benjamin Fitzpatrick the Senator of Alabama was nominated as Douglas’ running mate but he refused, so the party went with former Governor of Georgia Herschel Johnson and the two represented what would be known as the “Northern Democratic Party”.

Not too long after this, the pro-slavery Democrats later known as the “Southern Democratic Party” decided to hold their own convention and they nominated Buchanan’s Vice President, John Breckinridge as their candidate with Oregon Senator Joseph Lane as his running mate.

Abraham Lincoln & Backroom Dealings

Abraham Lincoln, who was the former U.S. Representative of Illinois and a self-taught country lawyer became famous after a series of debates between himself and Stephen Douglas back in 1858 for the position of Illinois Senator which saw Douglas come out on top.

Despite this loss, Lincoln believed he could become the party’s nominee but he had to get past New York Senator William Seward for the nomination. Seward’s campaign team was led by politician and former newspaper publisher, Thurlow Weed who helped to get Zachary Taylor and William Henry Harrison elected president thanks to his skills as a ruthless political organizer.

David Davis, a member of the Illinois House of Representatives heads Lincoln’s campaign team and their trying to get enough support from the delegates, but Weed has devised a plan where he intends to stack the halls with people who will support his candidate while also making deals with the delegates to ensure victory for Seward.

Many of us know Lincoln to be an honest man but that didn’t stop him from playing dirty especially if it meant winning the nomination as his team were making deals with several delegates in exchange for many of them getting cabinet positions in Lincoln’s administration.

On the day of the convention, many Seward supporters attempted to enter the halls but they soon discovered that the place is filled with people as Lincoln’s team got a hold of a convention ticket and made a large number of counterfeit tickets and stacked the halls with people who would vote for Lincoln. After much balloting and deal-making, Abraham Lincoln secured his party’s nomination with his running mate being Hannibal Hamlin, an anti-slavery Senator from Maine who was a less radical choice for VP than Kentucky Representative and abolitionist Cassius Marcellus Clay.

The Constitutional Union Party

Realizing that the Democratic Party was fractured and the Republicans were looking to abolish slavery (even though Lincoln promised to do the opposite), many Americans were not satisfied and were looking for an alternative who promised to keep the country together during this tumultuous period in time.

Thus ‘The Constitutional Union Party’ was created out a the remaining fragments of the Know Nothing Party and the Whig Party with their campaign slogan being: 

“The Union as it is, The Constitution as it is”. 

They nominated John Bell, a former Senator of Tennessee and they chose former Senator from Massachusetts Edward Everett as Bell’s running mate.

The election now becomes a four-way race with the candidates having to fight for the most electoral votes in their respective regions: Bell and Breckinridge battling for support in the South while Lincoln and Douglas will be battling for support in the North and West.

The Dark Cloud of Civil War

Despite Lincoln and the Republican Party’s promise to not abolish slavery, most Southerners refused to believe this and prevented Lincoln’s name from getting on the ballot in several state and when his name did appear in few southern states, he would only got less than 1% of the popular vote.

Southerners were going so far as to say that if Lincoln won the election then the South would begin to actively secede from the Union in order to create their own country; This led to Stephen Douglas heading to the South not to campaign for president but to convince them not to break up the Union for the sake of the country, but alas his words fell on deaf ears.

This election is also notable for being the first one in which Oregon and Minnesota officially became states, not to mention the voter turnout for this election was the highest it had ever been in all of American History with about 81% of the population coming out in droves to go out and vote as the future of the United States literally hanged in the balance.

The Election of 1860: The Results

This election saw a regional divide when it came to who the people voted for but in the end, Abraham Lincoln won and became the 16th President of the United States. Lincoln received 180 electoral votes and 39.8% of the popular vote with ‘Honest Abe’ winning just enough of the Northern and Western states to get the victory.

John Breckinridge came in second place, receiving 72 electoral votes but third place in the popular vote getting 18.1%; Breckinridge would be the last VP until 1960 to get his party’s nomination without his predecessor dying years earlier.

John Bell came in third place in the electoral college, receiving 39 electoral votes but came in fourth place in the popular vote with 12.6%; The Constitutional Union Party like so many third parties before them would fade into obscurity following this election.

Stephen Douglas came in fourth place, receiving 12 electoral votes but came in second place in the popular vote with 29.5%; Douglas only won the state of Missouri and got three votes in the state of New Jersey, making him the only one of the four candidates to win votes in a slave state and a free state.

The common misconception is that Douglas, Bell and Breckinridge all campaigning cost them the opportunity to win the election, which isn’t true. The amount of electoral votes all three men had combined would have been 123 votes and you needed 152 to win.

The Civil War Begins

Not too long after Lincoln’s victory, seven Southern states (South Carolina, Georgia, Mississippi, Florida, Louisiana, Alabama and Texas) begin seceding from the Union to create their own country known as the “Confederate States of America” (or the C.S.A. for short). Jefferson Davis, the Senator from Mississippi was sworn in as their president just days before Lincoln was inaugurated.

As Lincoln was to begin his time in office, he did not recognize the C.S.A. as a legitimate country and even tried to tell the remaining Southerners at his inauguration speech to reconsider their actions but it didn’t work as southern states continued to secede.

On April 12th 1861, the Battle of Fort Sumter saw a South Carolina militia attack the military base which led to a shocking surrender at the hands of the Union Army. This attack at Fort Sumter coupled with Abraham Lincoln’s election officially kicked off one of the darkest periods in the nation’s history: The American Civil War.

Be sure to follow Lace ‘Em Up on Twitter @laceemupoffice and you can follow me also on Twitter @hakeemfullerton and I’ll see you in the next article.