United States Presidential Election of 1860

Lincoln won 180 electoral votes with 39.8 percent as four candidates split the nation.

Overview

The most consequential American election fractured along sectional lines. Lincoln, nominated on the Republican platform of stopping slavery's expansion, carried every free state but New Jersey's split, winning 180 electoral votes and 39.8 percent popular against Douglas's northern Democrats, Breckinridge's southern Democrats, and Bell's Constitutional Unionists, together a majority. Douglas broke precedent by campaigning personally across sections, and Lincoln's name appeared on no southern ballot. South Carolina seceded within six weeks, making the election the immediate trigger of the Civil War.