page_title: Presidency of Abraham Lincoln
section_title: Election of 1860
hierarchical_section_title: Presidency of Abraham Lincoln / Election of 1860
caption_attribution_description: "The Rail Candidate", anti-Republican political caricature published by Currier and Ives in September 1860, showing Abraham Lincoln being carried on a fence-rail labeled "REPUBLICAN PLATFORM" by a black man and Horace Greeley (editor of the New York Tribune), alluding to Lincoln's nickname of the "rail-splitter". Horace Greeley "We can prove that you have split rails, &amp; that will ensure your election to the Presidency" Abraham Lincoln "It is true I have split Rails, but I begin to feel as if this rail would split me, it's the hardest stick I ever straddled." Black man "Dis Nigger strong and willin, but it's awful hard work to carry Old Massa Abe on nothing but dis 'ere rail!!"
context_page_description: The presidency of Abraham Lincoln began on March 4, 1861, when he was inaugurated as the 16th President of the United States, and ended upon his assassination and death on April 15, 1865, 42 days into his second term. Lincoln was the first member of the recently-established Republican Party elected to the presidency. He was succeeded by Vice President Andrew Johnson. Lincoln presided over the Union victory in the American Civil War, which dominated his presidency.
  Lincoln took office following the 1860 presidential election, in which he won a plurality of the popular vote in a four-candidate field. Almost all of Lincoln's votes came from the Northern United States, as the Republicans held little appeal to voters in the Southern United States. A former Whig, Lincoln ran on a political platform opposed to the expansion of slavery in the territories. His election served as the immediate impetus for the outbreak of the Civil War. After being sworn in as president, Lincoln refused to accept any resolution that would result in Southern secession from the Union.
context_section_description: Lincoln, a former Whig Congressman, emerged as a major Republican presidential candidate following his narrow loss to Democrat Stephen A. Douglas in the 1858 Senate election in Illinois. Though he lacked the broad support of Republican Senator William H. Seward of New York, Lincoln believed that he could emerge as the Republican presidential nominee at the convention after multiple ballots. Lincoln spent much of 1859 and 1860 building support for his candidacy, and his Cooper Union speech was well-received by eastern elites. Lincoln positioned himself in the "moderate center" of his party; he opposed the expansion of slavery into the territories but did not favor the abolition of slavery in slave states. On the first ballot of the May 1860 Republican National Convention, Lincoln finished second to Seward, but Seward was unable to clinch the nomination. Ignoring Lincoln's strong dictate to "make no contracts that bind me", his managers maneuvered to win Lincoln's nomination on the third ballot of the convention. Delegates then nominated Senator Hannibal Hamlin from Maine for vice president. The party platform opposed the extension of slavery into the territories but pledged not to interfere with it in the states. It also endorsed a protective tariff, internal improvements such as a transcontinental railroad, and policies designed to encourage the settlement of public land in the West.
  The 1860 Democratic National Convention met in April 1860, but adjourned after failing to agree on a candidate. A second convention met in June and nominated Stephen Douglas as the presidential nominee, but several pro-slavery Southern delegations refused to support Douglas, as they demanded a strongly pro-slavery nominee. These Southern Democrats held a separate convention that nominated incumbent Vice President John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky for president. A group of former Whigs and Know Nothings formed the Constitutional Union Party and nominated John Bell for president. Breckinridge and Bell would primarily contest the South, while Lincoln and Douglas would compete for votes in the North. Republicans were confident after these party conventions, with Lincoln predicting that the fractured Democrats stood little chance of winning the election.
  Lincoln carried all but one Northern state to win an Electoral College majority with 180 votes to 72 for Breckinridge, 39 for Bell, and 12 for Douglas. Lincoln won every county in New England and most of the remaining counties in the North,
  but he won just two of the 996 Southern counties. Nationwide, Lincoln took 39.8% of the popular vote, while Douglas won 29.5% of the popular vote, Breckenridge won 18.1%, and Bell won 12.6%. 82.2 percent of eligible voters took part in the contentious election, the second highest turnout in U.S. history. Despite Republican success in the presidential election, the party failed to win a majority in either house of Congress.
caption: "The Rail Candidate"—Lincoln's 1860 candidacy is depicted as held up by the slavery issue—a slave on the left and party organization on the right.
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