Who were the Republicans that ran against Lincoln in 1860?
November 6, 1860 — Abraham Lincoln (Rep-R-Ill) becomes the 16th US president today.
It was a tough battle. Other Republican candidates included: William Seward, Senator, New York • Simon Cameron, Senator, Pennsylvania • Salmon P. Chase, Governor of Ohio • Edward Bates, former representative, Missouri • John McLean, Associate Justice, Ohio • Benjamin Wade, Senator, Ohio • William L. Dayton, former Senator, New Jersey.
Historians believe that this 19th quadrennial election served as the immediate impetus for the outbreak of the American Civil War.
“The United States had been divided during the 1850s on questions surrounding the expansion of slavery and the rights of slave owners,” explains the American Presidency Project at UC Santa Barbara.
“In 1860, these issues broke the Democratic Party into Northern and Southern factions, and a new Constitutional Union Party appeared. In the face of a divided opposition, the Republican Party, dominant in the North, secured a majority of the electoral votes, putting Abraham Lincoln in the White House with almost no support from the South. Before Lincoln’s inauguration, seven Southern states declared their secession and formed the Confederacy.”
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Words of Wisdom
Every man is said to have his peculiar ambition. Whether it be true or not, I can say for one that I have no other so great as that of being truly esteemed of my fellow men, by rendering myself worthy of their esteem. How far I shall succeed in gratifying this ambition, is yet to be developed.
