1860 Presidential Election
The Presidential Election of 1860 was a pivotal event in American history, leading to the election of Abraham Lincoln as the 16th President of the United States. The election highlighted the deep divisions over slavery, ultimately contributing to the outbreak of the Civil War. Lincoln's victory as a Republican candidate further exacerbated tensions between the North and South, ultimately leading to secession and the formation of the Confederacy.
6 Key excerpts on "1860 Presidential Election"
eBook - ePub- A. James Fuller(Author)
- 2013(Publication Date)
- The Kent State University Press(Publisher)
...Introduction The Election of 1860 Reconsidered A. James Fuller The most important presidential election in American history took place in 1860. The electoral contest marked the culmination of the sectional conflict and led to the secession of the Southern states and the beginning of the Civil War. Over the past century and a half, scholars have offered a number of different interpretations of the election, but surprisingly few works have been dedicated exclusively to the presidential contest itself. Most explanations of the campaign appear in general histories or in biographies of Abraham Lincoln or the other presidential candidates. Although nearly every succeeding generation of historians has managed to produce at least one full-length study, scholarship on the election of 1860 remains relatively rare. The sesquicentennial anniversary of the election offered an opportunity to fill this gap in the literature. Historians have taken up the cause, producing several new books on the subject, including this one. 1 This volume reconsiders the election and offers fresh insights on the campaigns for the presidency. In his concluding essay, Douglas G. Gardner examines the historiographical tradition regarding the election, noting that scholars across the generations have focused on Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas, with scant attention paid to the other candidates or to other related topics. Two of the essays clearly fall into that scholarly tradition—Michael S. Green argues that Lincoln played the role of master politician during the campaign, and James L. Huston explores the significance of Douglas’s southern tour. The other chapters move in different directions, and even those chapters dedicated to the Rail Splitter and the Little Giant provide new interpretations of the two most famous presidential candidates. But this book breaks new ground by seeing the election as more than Lincoln’s victory and Douglas’s loss...
eBook - ePub- Brian Holden Reid(Author)
- 2014(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...‘Already the people of the North taunt us with inability and cowardice’. A concern with such moral imperatives drew politicians to act even though they had not thought out the object and compass of their acts or their consequences very systematically. But even sceptics were anxious to show that they were prepared for action of some kind and agreed that whatever was undertaken should be consonant with the action of other southern states and coordinated jointly with them. 54 But the policy of waiting on events surrendered more of the initiative to the ‘ultras’, offered even less space for manoeuvre, and rendered the final act, when it came, a colossal gamble. The presidential election of 1860 is also significant because of the splintering of the Democratic Party, the sole remaining political grouping which straddled the two sections. The Democratic Party was not only a national institution, but also a political force that was allied with, and drew much of its strength from, the South. The issues of the election did not revolve around the continuance of slavery in the states, only its restriction there. By refusing to accept the protection of northern Democrats, the southern pro-slavery party unwittingly (and in some cases wittingly) shattered that political grouping best able to defend their peculiar institution. They sought to replace it with a purely southern political structure which, if it sought to safeguard slavery outside the Union, would have to rely on force. This was a huge risk, for it staked the survival of slavery in the southern states on the southern ability to defend it. This had not been an issue in the election itself. By their precipitate and rash conduct, the secessionists dramatically increased the stakes of the contest and risked all that they held dear. The election confirmed the political authority and electoral support of the Republican Party in the North...
- Gregory Feldmeth, Christine Custred(Authors)
- 2015(Publication Date)
- Research & Education Association(Publisher)
...The platform was designed to have something for all Northerners, including the provisions of the 1856 Republican platform as well as a call for federal support of a transcontinental railroad. Once again, its centerpiece was a call for the containment of slavery. Douglas, believing only his victory could reconcile North and South, became the first U.S. presidential candidate to make a vigorous nationwide speaking tour, a tradition followed by every subsequent presidential candidate. In his speeches he urged support for the Union and opposition to any extremist candidates that might endanger its survival, by which he meant Lincoln and Breckinridge. On election day the voting went along strictly sectional lines. Breckinridge carried the Deep South; Bell, the border states; and Lincoln, the North. Douglas, although second in popular votes, carried only a single state and part of another. Lincoln’s name was not even printed in several Southern states. He led in popular votes, and though he only won 40 percent of the votes cast, he did have the needed majority in electoral votes and was elected. The Secession Crisis Lincoln had declared he had no intention of disturbing slavery where it already existed, but many Southerners thought otherwise. They also feared further raids of the sort John Brown had attempted and felt their pride injured by the election of a president for whom no Southerner had voted. On December 20, 1860, South Carolina, by vote of a special convention made up of delegates elected by the people of the state, declared itself out of the Union. By February 1, 1861, six more states (Alabama, Georgia, Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas) had followed suit. Representatives of the seven seceded states met in Montgomery, Alabama, in February 1861 and declared themselves to be the Confederate States of America. They elected former Secretary of War and U.S...
eBook - ePubNew Perspectives on Race and Slavery in America
Essays in Honor of Kenneth M. Stampp
- Robert H. Abzug, Stephen E. Maizlish(Authors)
- 2021(Publication Date)
- The University Press of Kentucky(Publisher)
...Although the war with Mexico, the Compromise of 1850, and the repeal of the Missouri Compromise gave the notion of a Slave Power more plausibility, most northerners remained suspicious of any idea spawned by abolitionists. Additional and more direct assaults on northern liberties were necessary to overcome their scepticism. It was not mere coincidence that the party’s ideology formalized in 1856. The impact of the caning of Sumner and the continuing chaos in Kansas account for both the focus of the Republican appeal and its persuasiveness. By raising more directly than anything since the mail and petition controversies of the 1830s the issues of civil liberties, of northern rights, and of republicanism, these events directed public attention to issues other than the existence of slavery, and Republican leaders understood the strategic advantages of downplaying the question of slavery in favor of an attack on the Slave Power. After 1856, the Republican appeal continued to center on the threat to republicanism and to northern rights posed by the Slave Power, and the party’s main goal remained wresting control of the government from the slave oligarchy. The momentous events of 1857-60, however, dramatically magnified the threat confronting the North and added new dimensions to the party’s creed. Beginning in 1857, Republicans increasingly emphasized the growing belief that slavery would be forced not just on Kansas and other territories, but on the free states as well. Unless the North acted, slavery would soon become a national institution. The fear that slavery would ultimately expand north had been voiced, albeit sporadically, during the struggle over the Nebraska bill in 1854...
eBook - ePub- Wilbur F. Gordy(Author)
- 2021(Publication Date)
- Left Of Brain Onboarding Pty Ltd(Publisher)
...It was as if a higher power said to him: “This is your work. Do it, no matter what may be the cost to you in time, strength, or political advancement.” Opposition to the extension of slavery was the one fundamental issue upon which the Republican party was built. Lincoln was so strongly in sympathy with this doctrine that, although up to this time he had been a Whig, he joined the Republican party when in 1856 it was organized in the State of Illinois, at a convention held in Bloomington. After this convention had adopted a platform, elected delegates to the Republican National Convention, and nominated State officers, it called upon certain men present for speeches. None of them seemed to make much impression. But finally the audience shouted, “Lincoln! Lincoln!” again and again. Slowly his tall form rose in the back part of the room, and moved forward to the platform. His countenance seemed to be burdened by a great weight. It was plain that he thought of this as a crisis in his life, a great opportunity. It was the moment when he was about to announce himself as no longer a Whig but from that time on a Republican. As he turned to look at his eager listeners his face changed, a great passion laid hold upon him, and he seemed to grow in stature. At first he talked slowly, even haltingly; but in a little while, when deep emotion swayed him, he spoke with greater force. His eyes blazed with excitement, his face became pale, and his voice was vibrant with deep feeling. As he grew more and more intense his auditors started from their seats with white faces and quivering lips, moving toward the speaker. Men and women cheered and cried at the same time. In a little while all present seemed to feel and think and will as one man, and Lincoln had made them Republicans not only in name but also in spirit. “The conclusion of all is,” said Lincoln, in his closing words, “that we must restore the Missouri Compromise...
eBook - ePubNew York's Grand Emancipation Jubilee
Essays on Slavery, Resistance, Abolition, Teaching, and Historical Memory
- Alan J. Singer(Author)
- 2018(Publication Date)
- SUNY Press(Publisher)
...If the gentleman had rather embrace a nigger baby than a white one, let him say so.” Racism so distorted the editorial judgment of the Democratic Party press that it led to what can only be described as political fantasy. In the 1864 election, three states, Ohio, Indiana, and Pennsylvania, cast ballots on October 11, four weeks before the rest of the nation, and all three states were carried by Lincoln and the Union Party (New York Times 1864g, 1). Manton Marble of the World, however, continued to insist that Lincoln and the Republican/Unionist would be defeated in November. On October 13, Marble predicted, “General McClellan will be honestly elected President on the 8th of November next.” The editor of the Journal of Commerce anticipated a close election but also proclaimed a McClellan victory (Waugh 2009, 338). Despite the positive war news in the fall of 1864, Lincoln and the Republicans narrowly carried New York State in the presidential election, by a margin of less than 1 percent. It was Lincoln’s narrowest margin of victory in any Northern state and was probably attributable to the seventy thousand absentee ballots cast by Union soldiers. Nearly four of five soldiers who voted supported Lincoln over McClellan, including 70 percent of the Army of the Potomac that was formerly under McClellan’s command (Waugh 2009, 353; Burroughs and Wallace 1999, 903). Lincoln performed particularly poorly in New York State’s urban areas, where there were large numbers of newly registered immigrant voters. In New York City, Lincoln received less than one-third of the votes; he trailed Democratic candidate George McClellan by 73,716 to 36,687. McClellan also outpolled Lincoln in Kings County (Brooklyn), Albany County, and Erie County (Buffalo)...
