The Election of 1860
GOALS #11 & #12
The election of
Abraham Lincoln
prompted the
Southern states
to leave the Union
WHY?
 Anti-slavery Democrats
 Those against slavery
spreading to the new
territories
Free Soil!
Free Speech!
Free Labor!
Free Men!
The “Know-Nothings”
[The American Party]
• Nativist Antiimmigrants
I. Birth of the
Republican Party, 1854
•
Northern Democrats.
•
Free-Soilers.
•
Know-Nothings.
•
Other opponents
of the KansasNebraska Act.
*James Buchanan
Democrat (wins)
John C. Frémont
Republican
Millard Fillmore
Whig
•
•
Slave who had
once lived in free
state sued for his
freedom
Supreme Court
ruled slaves not
U.S. citizens, but
are property
Supreme Court said:
Southerners property
rights were protected
by the 5th Amendment
•
•
•
-Missouri
Compromise was
illegal
-Congress could
not deprive
Southerners of
their property
-Congress had NO
right to restrict
slavery ANYWHERE
in the U.S.
“They had no rights which the
white man was bound to
respect; and that the Negro
might justly and lawfully be
reduced to slavery for his
benefit. He was bought and
sold and treated as an
ordinary article of
merchandise and traffic,
whenever profit could be
made by it.”
Chief Justice
Roger B. Taney
III. The Lincoln-Douglas Debates,
1858
Popular
Sovereignty
A House divided
against itself,
cannot stand.
IV. John Brown’s Raid
on Harper’s Ferry, 1859


John Brown wanted to start a slave
rebellion
Plan failed. Brown captured- becomes a
martyr (someone who dies for a cause)
Abraham
Lincoln
Republican
Stephen A. Douglas
Northern Democrat
John Bell
Constitutional
Union
John C. Breckinridge
Southern Democrat
REPUBLICANS
No Spread of Slavery
Free Land
DEMOCRATS
Could not agree on one
candidate
Douglass-Let Each State Decide
Breckinridge – Spread Slavery
Everywhere
1860 Election: A Nation
Coming Apart?!
1860
Election
Results
VI. Because Lincoln was elected . . .

1st state to leave –
South Carolina –
Dec. 20, 1860

6 states follow

Set up Confederate
States of America

Capital city –
Montgomery, AL

President Jefferson
Davis sworn in Feb.
1861
March 20, 1861 – President Lincoln
inaugurated