Election of Lincoln (1860 Presidential Election)

Also called: 1860 United States presidential election

With the Democrats split between North and South, Abraham Lincoln of the Republican Party, which opposed the spread of slavery, swept the Northern states and won the presidency.

In 1860 the Democrats split between Stephen Douglas in the North and John Breckinridge in the South, and John Bell ran on a platform of preserving the Union, making four candidates. Lincoln promised not to touch slavery where it already existed, but to stop its expansion into the territories.

In the vote on 6 November Lincoln won only about 40 per cent of the popular vote, but by carrying every Northern state he took 180 of the 303 electoral votes. In ten Southern states he was not even on the ballot. Convinced that slavery would eventually be threatened, the South began to leave the Union six weeks later, starting with South Carolina.