"Honest Old Abe Elected"

The Great Victory
Republicanism Triumphant Over
Cotton, Fraud, Fusion, and Treason

~ Headlines: Chicago Daily Tribune November 7, 1860 ~

 

Does history repeat itself? We've arrived at the bicentennial of one of the greatest and chaotic times of our nation's history, the Civil War Era. The headlines in the papers were reading similar to what they may have read, this past week......a euphoria was errupting all across the United States of America, at Lincoln's election to the White House. However, some four or five months later, the nation would errupt into the bloodiest war, this nation has ever known, pitting brother against brother, father against son, and "spilling the blood of millions" across these United States, creating a division that would take more than 100 years to heal!

 

 

 

It was on November 6th, that Lincoln won the 1860 Presidential Election and set the stage for a period of mass unrest, war, and sacrifice in this nation.

 

 

 

 

 

The United State of America presidential election of 1860, set the stage for the American Civil War. The nation, for over 10 years, had been divided on the questions of states' rights and slavery, in the annexing of territories. In 1860, these issues finally came to a head, fracturing the dominant Democratic Party, into the Southern and the Northern factions, allowing Abraham Lincoln, of the Republican Party, to rise to power, without carrying a single state. Hardly more than a month, following the election, came the declarations of session by South Carolina and other southern states.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Abraham Lincoln was elected President in the 33 states, on Tuesday, November 6, 1860, Each state chose a number of electors, by a formula based on the census of free persons. A bonus counted three-fifths of 'other persons' for which had not yet abolished slavery. Then, the Electoral College met on February 11, 1861, and opened the ballots to find that Lincoln was elected by a constitutional majority, or 180 of the 303 possible electoral votes. Lincoln was sworn-in on the steps of the unfinished Capitol in Washington D.C. on March 4, 1861.

The sectionalism that existed in the 1860's of the states was important, for soon the Union would dissolve into the two factions of the Civil War.

 

 

 

 

The Confederate States of America was formed and war erupted all across American soil.

 

 

 

 

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