THE 1860 ELECTION
In 1860 the Republican Party nominated Abraham Lincoln as its candidate for president . The Repub- lican platform declared that slavery could spread no farther, promised a tariff for the protection of indus- try, and pledged the enactment of a law granting free homesteads to settlers who would help in the open- ing of the West . Southern Demo- crats, unwilling in the wake of the Dred Scott case to accept Douglas’s popular sovereignty, split from the party and nominated Vice President John C . Breckenridge of Kentucky for president . Stephen A . Douglas was the nominee of northern Dem- ocrats . Diehard Whigs from the border states, formed into the Con- stitutional Union Party, nominated John C . Bell of Tennessee .
Lincoln and Douglas compet- ed in the North, Breckenridge and Bell in the South . Lincoln won only 39 percent of the popular vote, but had a clear majority of 180 elector- al votes, carrying all 18 free states . Bell won Tennessee, Kentucky, and Virginia; Breckenridge took the oth- er slave states except for Missouri, which was won by Douglas . Despite his poor showing, Douglas trailed only Lincoln in the popular vote . 9
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7 THE
CIVIL WAR AND
RECONSTRUCTION
C H A P T E R
President Abraham Lincoln (center) at a Union Army encampment in October 1862, following the battle of Antietam.