Election of 1860 slideshow

The race showed how deeply divided the nation was along regional lines. There were actually two different campaigns going on at the same time. In the North, the election was between Douglas and Lincoln. In the South, it was between Breckinridge and Bell. The Republicans did not campaign in the South at all. Lincoln’s name was not even on the ballot in 10 states. Only Douglas ran a national campaign.

The results were firmly divided by region. Lincoln’s Republican Party won the North and the two free states on the West Coast. Bell’s Constitutional Union Party won in the non-cotton-growing Southern states: Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee. Breckinridge won the South. The only exception was Maryland. This non-cotton-growing slave state voted for Breckinridge. Douglas won nearly 30 percent of the popular vote. However, his support was spread thinly over a wide area, and he only carried Missouri. Lincoln won only about 40 percent of the popular vote. He did not win a single state in the South. However, the 17 states that Lincoln won gave him 59 percent of the electoral votes and victory in the election.

Before the election, some Southern leaders had threatened that their states would secede, or leave the Union, if Lincoln were elected. Even before Lincoln was sworn in as president, seven states seceded from the Union. In December 1860, South Carolina was first to secede. The Civil War was about to begin.