Page 361 - American Stories, A History of the United States

14.1 Election of 1860
Electoral Vote by State Popular Vote
REPUBLICAN
14.2 Abraham Lincoln 180 1,865,593

DEMOCRATIC, SOUTHERN
John C. Breckinridge 72 848,356
14.3 DEMOCRATIC, NORTHERN
Stephen A. Douglas 12 1,382,713
CONSTITUTIONAL UNION 39 592,906
John Bell
303 4,689,568

8
WASH.
5
4 5 13
3 NEBRASKA 35
TERR. UNORG. TERR. 5
TERR. 6 6 4
4 27 4
UTAH 13 23 3
TERR. 11 15 3
KANSAS
4 TERR. 9 12 8
12 10
NEW MEXICO INDIAN 4 8
TERR. TERR. 10
7 9
4 6
3

MAp 14.3 tHe eLeCtioN oF 1860 Many observers have said that the election of 1860 was really two
elections: one in the North and one in the South. From this map, can you see why the candidate who won the
northern election became president?

Lincoln, his support in the North was so solid that he would have won in the electoral
college even if he had faced a single opponent.
Most Southerners saw the election as a catastrophe. A candidate and a party with
no support in their own section had won the presidency on a platform viewed as insult-
ing to southern honor and hostile to southern interests. Since the birth of the republic,
Southerners had either sat in the White House or influenced those who did. Those days
might now be gone forever. Rather than accept permanent minority status in American
politics and face the resulting dangers to black slavery and white “liberty,” the political
leaders of the lower South launched a movement for immediate secession from the Union.

Conclusion: explaining the Crisis

Generations of historians have searched for the underlying causes of the crisis leading
to disruption of the Union but have failed to agree on what these causes were. Some
have stressed the clash of economic interests between agrarian and industrializing
regions. But this interpretation does not reflect the way people at the time expressed
their concerns. The main issues in the sectional debates of the 1850s were whether
slavery was right or wrong and whether it should be extended or contained. Disagree-
ments over protective tariffs and other economic measures benefiting one section or
the other were secondary.
Another group of historians blames the crisis on “irresponsible” politicians and
agitators on both sides of the Mason–Dixon Line. Public opinion was whipped into a
frenzy over issues that competent statesmen could have resolved. But this viewpoint
fails to acknowledge the depths of feeling that the slavery question aroused and under-
estimates the obstacles to a peaceful solution.
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