Election of 1860
Also known as: 1860 presidential election
The election of 1860 was the U.S. presidential contest in which Republican Abraham Lincoln defeated a divided field of three opponents. His victory without a single Southern electoral vote triggered the secession of seven Southern states and set the country on the path to the Civil War.
By 1860 the national party system had broken apart over slavery in the territories. The Democratic Party split at its convention: Northern Democrats nominated Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois, who ran on popular sovereignty, while Southern Democrats bolted and nominated Vice President John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky, who demanded federal protection of slavery in the territories. A fourth party, the Constitutional Union Party, nominated John Bell of Tennessee on a platform that sidestepped slavery and appealed to preserving the Union.
The Republicans nominated Abraham Lincoln, a comparative moderate who opposed the extension of slavery into the western territories but disclaimed any intention to interfere with it where it already existed. The Republican platform also carried economic planks with broad Northern appeal — a protective tariff, a homestead act, and support for a transcontinental railroad. Lincoln's name did not appear on the ballot in most Southern states.
The result was decisive in the Electoral College and sectional in every other respect. Lincoln won under 40 percent of the popular vote but carried nearly every free state, giving him a clear electoral majority; Breckinridge swept the Deep South, Bell took three border states, and Douglas finished second in popular votes while winning almost no electoral votes. The arithmetic made the point Southern leaders had feared: the North alone now held enough electoral strength to elect a president over unanimous Southern opposition.
South Carolina seceded in December 1860, and six more Deep South states followed before Lincoln's inauguration in March 1861, forming the Confederate States of America. The AP U.S. History exam places this in Period 5, where the election is used to test causation — how sectional crisis, party realignment, and the results of 1860 connect to secession and war — so know the four candidates, their positions, and the sectional pattern of the vote.
Key takeaways
- Four candidates ran in 1860: Lincoln (Republican), Douglas (Northern Democrat), Breckinridge (Southern Democrat), and Bell (Constitutional Union).
- The Democratic Party split over slavery in the territories, dividing the opposition to Lincoln.
- Lincoln won a clear electoral majority with under 40 percent of the popular vote and almost no Southern support.
- Republicans opposed extending slavery into the territories but not abolishing it where it existed.
- South Carolina seceded in December 1860 and six more states followed before Lincoln took office.