ELECTION #19, 1860. The NASTY-METER goes to 8.

QUOTE from Abraham Lincoln on June 16, 1858: "A house divided against itself cannot stand."

In 1860, the U.S. population was over 31 million - and every man, woman, and child was waiting for the coming storm of a terrible war.

The issue of slavery had been a divisive issue ever since the writing of the Constitution in 1787.In the 1850s three things happened that made war inevitable. In May of 1854 Congress passed the Kansas-Nebraska Act. The act established the territories of Kansas and Nebraska. This controversial legislation repealed the Compromise of 1820-21 and reopened the controversy over the extension of slavery in the western territories. The Missouri Compromise had prohibited slavery north of 36 degrees 30 minutes, which was the southern border of Missouri. In January of 1854, Senator Douglas of Illinois, got a bill passed dividing the land into two territories, Kansas and Missouri, and leaving the question of slavery to be settled by voting, known as POPULAR SOVEREINGTY - thus making the Missouri Compromise null and void. It enraged the antislavery north - all it did was add fuel to the fire. The sectional split between north and south was aggravated to a point that made reconciliation virtually impossible. The Republican Party was founded by opponents of this act, and the U.S., was pushed closer to civil war.

The second thing was the Supreme Court decision in 1857 called the "The Dred Scott decision" - it helped seal the deal for a future war. The decision was about a freed slave, named Dred Scott, and it said that "slaves are property and not people." It also said that slaves were not citizens and had no political rights and being slaves were property , they had to be returned to their rightful owners, even if they fled to a free state. And the Supreme Court decision continued by saying that outlawing slavery was illegal, which opened the door to slavery in the new western territories.

The third thing was the election of Abraham Lincoln as president in 1860. His win assured there would be a civil war as the slave states said if Lincoln wins we will secede (and they did).

The CANDIDATES in 1860. (there were four of them)

REPUBLICAN: ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

The Republican convention was held in Chicago. The favorite was William Seward, the former governor of New York and a powerful antislavery speaker. But some of the delegates were afraid Seward would not be able to carry Pennsylvania and Indiana, two states considered necessary for a Republican victory. Seward led on the first ballot but Lincoln won on the third ballot.

NORTHEN DEMOCRATS: STEPHEN DOUGLAS of ILLINOIS.

SOUTHERN DEMOCRATS: JOHN C. BRECKENBRIDGE of KENTUCKY (VP under Buchanan.)

CONSTITUTIONAL UNION: JOHN BELL. (This party was composed mostly of former Whigs who had found the new Republican Party to be too radical.)

The CAMPAIGN in 1860.

The Republicans held huge rallies and had marches several miles long. Republican newspapers published countless jokes at Douglas's expense, such as: "Lincoln is like a rail; Douglas is the reverse - rail spelled backwards - liar." Lincoln said that Douglas's idea of "popular sovereignty"
meant that, "if anyone chooses to make a slave of another man, neither that man nor anybody else had a right to object." Douglas was short - 5'4" and was pretty big around his middle. Republicans described Douglas as "about five feet nothing in height and about the same in diameter the other way. He has a red face, short legs, and a large belly." Douglas didn't do himself any good by saying things like the following: "I am for the negro against the crocodile, but for the white man against the negro."

The Democrats reciprocated. They said Lincoln had participated in duels. As a congressman during the Mexican war, he had failed to vote for provisions for the troops. And they said he had slandered Thomas Jefferson by saying that Jefferson had sold his own children (by his slave Sally Hemmings) into slavery. Lincoln knew they were lies and didn't take the bait. He stayed in Springfield during the campaign while Douglas road a railcar all over the country. He said that a Lincoln victory would mean secession and said, if only Andrew Jackson were alive today, "he might hang Northern and Southern traitors on the same gallows." A Democratic newspaper in Charleston caricatured the 6'4" Lincoln with a vengeance. "He is a horrid-looking wretch, sooty and scoundrelly in aspect, a cross between the nutmeg dealer, the horse-swapper, and the nightman." The Houston paper said, "Lincoln is leanest, lankest, most ungainly mass of legs and arms and hatchet face ever strung on a single frame." In one Democratic poster Lincoln was pictured being carried into the lunatic asylum by numerous supporters.

The WINNER was ABRAHAM LINCOLN - the 16th president.

Lincoln got 1,865,908 popular votes and 180 electoral.
Douglas got 1,380,202 popular votes and 12 electoral.
Breckinridge got 848,019 popular votes and 72 electoral.
Bell got 590,901 popular votes and 39 electoral.

Lincoln had less than 40% of the popular vote but a majority of the electoral. The other three candidates had more popular votes than Lincoln but together the three had only 123 electoral to Lincoln's 180. Lincoln won over 50% of the vote in the North and West, but a measly 3% in the South. Breckinbrie won all the Southern states.

By the time Lincoln was inaugurated on March 4, 1861, seven southern states had already seceded. The seven were S.C., Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, Florida, Louisiana, and Texas. These seven then formed the Confederate States of America. In April, Virginia, Arkansas, N.C., and Tennessee also seceded, to make it eleven. The border states of Maryland, Kentucky, Missouri, Delaware stayed in the Union, despite some opposition to this within those states. Lincoln was relieved those four stayed.