1860 Presidential Election WSBCTC 1

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1 Election of 1860 Although the Democratic Party survived the events of the 1850s, in 1860 it failed to agree on a presidential candidate. The result was that Stephen Douglas ran in the North and John Breckinridge of Kentucky in the South. Remnants of the Whig Party in the South formed the Constitutional Union Party and nominated John Bell of Tennessee. The Republicans who had carried 11 free states in 1856 needed only to pick up Pennsylvania, Illinois, and Indiana to win the presidency. The Illinois lawyer Abraham Lincoln won the nomination. Lincoln's name failed to appear on the ballot in 10 southern states, but he won the election. Look at this map of the election. The victory of the Republican Lincoln inflamed the secessionist passions of the South and especially of South Carolina. Just over a month after Lincoln's election, South Carolina voted to secede. Other states soon followed. It mattered not that Lincoln never called for the abolition of slavery in the South but only for preventing its expansion. To southerners, Lincoln's election meant northern domination and therefore secession became the only choice to preserve the South Presidential Election From The National Atlas of the United States of America. Ed. Arch C. Gerlach. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Dept. of the Interior, Geological Survey, Image provided by Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection, University of Texas Libraries ( WSBCTC 1

2 The War Begins Lincoln was not inaugurated until March 1861 (the 20th Amendment in 1933 moved inauguration to January). By then 7 states in the Deep South had seceded, formed the Confederate States of America, and elected Jefferson Davis as their president. Fort Sumter sat on an island at the entrance to the Charleston (S.C.) harbor. By April, the federal forces at the fort needed to be resupplied. President Lincoln notified the governor of South Carolina that he was sending a relief force with food but no military supplies. President Davis ordered that Fort Sumter surrender or be attacked. Before Lincoln's relief force reached Charleston harbor, Confederates had attacked the fort and forced its surrender. States in the Upper South most notably Virginia joined the Confederacy and the North and South mobilized for war. WSBCTC 2

3 Secession of Confederate States of America and Readmission to Union (1860 to 1870) Here again is the animated map from the Maps folder that shows the secession of states to form the Confederate States of America. To view the map, please click here. Map created by User: Golbez in 2007 and licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license. (CC BY-SA 3.0) ( The song that played when you opened the lecture is "Dixie." It was a popular song of the 1850s performed in minstrel shows. Written by a northerner, the song was heard in both North and South. Lincoln requested that it be played at his inauguration in Though both North and South added lyrics during the war, "Dixie" became familiar to later generations as a rallying song for Confederates and an ode to the Old South. DIXIE Daniel Decatur Emmett I wish I was in the land of cotton, Old times there are not forgotten; In Dixie's Land, where I was born in, Early on one frosty morning, CHORUS: WSBCTC 3

4 Then I wish I was in Dixie. Hooray! Hooray! In Dixie's Land I'll take my stand, To live and die in Dixie. Away! Away! Away down South in Dixie! Away! Away! Away down South in Dixie! Old missus married Will the Weaver. William was a gay deceiver! But when he put his arm around her, Smiled as fierce as a forty-pounder! His face was as sharp as a butcher's cleaver, But that did not seem to grieve her! Old missus acted the foolish part, And died for the man that broke her heart. Now here's a health to the next old missus, And all the gals that want to kiss us! But if you want to drive away sorrow. Come and hear this song tomorrow. There's buckwheat cakes and injun batter, Makes you fat or a little fatter! Then hoe it down and scratch your gravel, To Dixie's Land I'm bound to travel. Until the 1850s, the United States had avoided the slavery question with indirect references in the Constitution, with the Missouri Compromise, with "gag rules" that prevented debates in Congress, and in the WSBCTC 4

5 1850s with popular sovereignty that resolved nothing but inflamed sectional rivalries. Think about the war's beginning from the perspective of a southerner and a northerner. 2008, rev Susan Vetter WSBCTC 5