U.S. Presidential Election of 1860

The Lincoln–Douglas Debates were a series of seven public debates held throughout seven of the nine Congressional Districts of the state of Illinois in 1858. Abraham Lincoln, a lawyer, and Stephen A. Douglas, a Democratic senator, debated the issue of slavery and its extension into the territories. In the late 1850s political disagreements ran deep, creating a sectional divide, a division between North and South over the question of slavery and whether to extend it to the territories. The two men differed. In Lincoln's view, slavery was ripping the nation apart, but to Douglas the problem was the controversy over the territories.

Lincoln and Douglas debated the Kansas-Nebraska Act which Douglas had sponsored into law in 1854. The Kansas-Nebraska Act repealed the solution established in the Missouri Compromise of 1820, which had prohibited slavery north of latitude 36°30'. Instead, it established the doctrine of popular sovereignty, a doctrine calling for the people living in federal territories to decide whether their territories would join the Union as free or slave states. In Kansas, the law led to a violent conflict from 1854 to 1859 that spawned the phrase "Bleeding Kansas." Douglas's doctrine of popular sovereignty had not created a common ground for proslavery and antislavery forces to reach a peaceful agreement. Lincoln and Douglas also debated the 1857 Supreme Court's controversial Dred Scott decision, a ruling claiming Dred Scott, a slave, was not entitled to his freedom even though he had lived in a free state and territory—areas prohibiting slavery.

Lincoln argued against the extension of slavery into the territories and feared a breakdown of the federal government if slavery were to persist: "I believe this government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free." He explained issues clearly and without excessive wordiness. Douglas argued in favor of popular sovereignty and often spoke in wordy phrases. Douglas supported the Freeport Doctrine, the idea that residents of a territory could make slavery illegal if they refused to pass laws favoring slavery. Douglas's unwillingness to take a strong stance on the slavery issue created a rift between him and the Southern Democrats. However, the Illinois state legislature elected senators and Douglas won by just eight votes. Although Lincoln lost the Senate race, he won national acclaim as an articulate spokesman of principles later adopted by the Republican Party in the 1860 presidential race.

The debates had significance extending well beyond the Illinois Senate seat. They addressed issues dividing the nation into hostile camps—such as slavery and states' rights issues—and threatening the Union's very existence. Although Douglas won the Senate seat, his relationship with the Southern Democrats was strained and their power in the Senate was lost. This also caused division among the Democratic Party while boosting the newly formed Republican Party. The telegraph and the railroad guaranteed the debates a national audience. Using shorthand, stenographers took down each debate word for word. Runners would then collect the shorthand notes and catch the train to Chicago (the nearest telegraph office). The runners transcribed the shorthand on the train ride and, once in Chicago, the debates were telegraphed and published in newspapers—though often summarized or otherwise altered.

The presidential campaign for the 1860 election was contentious and crowded. Four political parties ran presidential and vice-presidential candidates and each had a different platform, a statement of principles and policies adopted by a political party. The parties had to create platforms promising to resolve a number of complex sectional issues, including slavery and the Western territories, states' rights versus federal power, and the issue of militant abolitionists. One of these militant abolitionists was John Brown, who organized a bloody, violent raid against a federal arsenal in Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, in 1859. Brown believed he was appointed by God to help put an end to slavery and had plans to build a stronghold for runaway slaves in the mountains of Virginia and Maryland. He did not incite a nationwide slave rebellion but his actions hastened the coming of the Civil War.

State delegates advocating slavery in the territories walked out of the Democratic convention held in Charleston, South Carolina, in April 1860. A reconvened convention met in Baltimore, Maryland, in June, but many Southern delegates failed to attend. Stephen A. Douglas was nominated as the Democratic presidential candidate, and former governor of Georgia, Herschel V. Johnson, as vice president. However, the platform of the Democratic Party, a long-standing proslavery party based in the South, did not address the issue of slavery in the territories.

Consequently, Democratic proslavery leaders formed the Southern Democratic Party, an offshoot of the Democratic Party that advocated for slavery in the territories. It nominated John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky who was vice president of the United States at the time. His running mate was Oregon Senator Joseph Lane.

The Republican Party was a mostly antislavery party that had partly evolved in the 1850s from the Whig Party—which had itself formed for the 1834 election out of the National Republican Party and conservative political opponents of the Democratic-Republicans. The Republicans held their convention in Chicago in May. Most party members were opposed to slavery in the territories. Abraham Lincoln, famous because of the Lincoln–Douglas debates, was nominated on the third ballot. His running mate was Maine Senator Hannibal Hamlin. Lincoln pushed for a moderate party platform in order to preserve the Union. The platform did not advocate restricting slavery in states where slavery was already established, but it did stand for the prohibition of the expansion of slavery into the western territories.

A group of former Whigs formed the Constitutional Union Party, which sought to resolve sectional differences by emphasizing the importance of upholding the Constitution. Nominees were Tennessee Senator John Bell and his running mate, Edward Everett, a former Massachusetts congressional representative. The party platform did not address the slavery issue.

Because of the number of parties vying to put their candidates in office, voters had a wide variety of choices in this contentious election.