Presidency of Abraham Lincoln

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Recommended: About the election of 1860

Many Americans believed that the election of 1860 would decide the fate of the Union. The Democratic Party was the only party in the national scope. The convention in Charleston, South Carolina in 1860 split the Democratic Party. Stephen Douglas wanted his party’s presidential nomination, but he could not afford to alienate northern voters by accepting the southern position on the territories. However, "Southern Democrats insisted on recognition of their rights, as the Dred Scott decision had defined them and they moved to block Douglas’s nomination"( Bialy, 2007, p. 383). Douglas obtained a majority for his version of the platform, delegates from the South walked out of the convention. After compromise efforts the Democrats presented two nominees: Douglas for the northern wing, and Vice President John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky for the southern. The Republicans nominated Abraham Lincoln at the convention in Chicago. The nomination of Lincoln showed a growing power of the Midwest, and perceived more a reasonable on slavery than the early front runner, Senator William H. Seward of New York. John Bell of Tennessee was nominated by a Constitutional Union Party that was formed to conserve the nation but strong only in the upper South. Lincoln and the Republicans denied any intent with slavery in the states where it existed, they stood firm against the extension of slavery into the territories.

Lincoln won the election of 1860, but Douglas, Breckinridge, and Bell together received a majority of the votes. “Douglas had broad-based support but won only in one state” (Bialy, 2007, p384). Breckinridge won support from nine southern states. Bell won pluralities in Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee. Lincoln succeed in the North, but “i...

... middle of paper ...

... as America’s greatest president, despite his lack of education and experience. His accomplishments in preserving the Union, abolish slavery, establishing the Republican Party, enforcing the first income tax, and the construction transcontinental railroad all helped in establishing who Abraham Lincoln was.

References

Bailey, B., Blight, D., Katzman, D., Logevall, F., Norton, M., Paterson, T., & Tuttle, W., (2007). A people and a nation. Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, MA.

Davis, C. K.. Don’t know much about History: Everything you need to know about American history. (2003). Harper-Collins Publishing Inc.: New York, NY.

Anzovin, S., Kane, N. J., & Podell, J.(7th ed.) Facts about the Presidents. (2001). H.W. Company: Bronx, NY

The Civil War Preservation Trust. (2006) Retrieved December 10, 2007 from

http://www.civilwar.org/historyclassroom/hc_taxes.htm

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