The United States presidential election of 1860 set the stage for a divided nation to go to war against itself. The questions dividing the country were states’ rights and slavery in the territories. By 1860, the issue had come to a head, and it split the formerly dominant Democratic Party into southern and northern factions. This made it so that Abraham Lincoln and the Republican Party could come to power without the support of even a single southern state.
As a result of Lincoln’s victory, South Carolina and other southern states seceded from the Union. These secessions were rejected by then-president Buchanan, although he did nothing about them, deeming that action, too, was illegal. President-elect Lincoln also rejected the secessions.
The election in the north was a contest between Lincoln and Stephen A Douglas. In the south, John Breckenridge and John Bell were the main rivals although Douglas was influential in southern cities. Douglas was the first presidential candidate in history to set upon a nationwide speaking tour. He traveled to the South, where he did not expect to win many electoral votes, but spoke in favor of maintaining the Union. The dispute over the Dred Scott case helped Lincoln in the north. In the south, he didn’t even appear on all the ballots.
Lincoln was elected president largely on his Electoral College strength in the north. He was not even on the ballot in 9 southern states. He only won 2 counties in the entire south. Breckinridge, the sitting vice president and pro-secessionist southern candidate, won all the states that would later form the confederacy except Virginia and Tennessee. Lincoln won an electoral majority, but not an absolute majority in the popular vote. Lincoln captured less than 40 percent of the popular vote, but the sharp divisions in the nation allowed him to capture 17 states and four of New Jersey’s electoral votes, for a total of 180 electoral votes, enough to put him in the white house.