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Election Of 1860 Research Paper

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The Evolution of Elections
From gunshots to bloody battles, who knew this could happen all because of one election. How could one election cause the start of one of the most profound events in US history? The Civil War took place between 1861 to 1865, but what started it, is pretty shocking. The election of 1860, sparked the start of the Civil War. During the election of 1860, men from different areas from both the South and the North came together for one of the most significant elections of all time. Abraham Lincoln, 16th president of the United States won the election, but it didn’t come that easy. Feuds between Abraham Lincoln, John C. Breckinridge, John Bell, and Stephen Douglas slowed down Lincoln’s victory dramatically. (Dow, paragraph …show more content…

The main difference in the elections back then and the elections today are the political parties. In the election of 1860 and 1864, there were three main parties. There were the Republicans, Democrats, and the new party, the Constitutional Union party. In our most recent election, we had two main parties, the Democrats and the Republicans same parties as 1860. In 2016, we also had the Libertarian party. As shown, there were not a lot of differences.
Why was the election of 1860 so important after all? The election of 1860 was very momentous. (Schlesinger jr., 17) On November 6, 1860 Lincoln won the election with 180 electoral votes and 1.8 million popular votes. Lincoln was the strongest candidate and had the higher chance of winning. (Schlesinger jr., 17) After Lincoln won the election, South Carolina seceded from the Union after hearing about this news. After Abraham Lincoln won, South Carolina feared that Abraham Lincoln would abolish slavery completely. Obviously South Carolina didn’t want that to happen since they supported slavery. After South Carolina’s secession, more and more states started seceding, following their “president”, Jefferson Davis to make their own country, the Confederate States. As Abraham Lincoln once said, “We can not have free government without elections…” (History.com Staff, paragraph 5) At this time, there were now two countries with two different presidents all in one country. …show more content…

As it was stated, Lincoln’s victory was a hard one. With all his feuds with John C.
Breckinridge, Stephen Douglas, and John Bell over their individual thoughts on slavery. Since each candidate was from a different area, such as the North and South, each candidate had their own thought on slavery. For example, Abraham Lincoln was a northern Republican who disliked slavery and thought it shouldn’t be expanded furthermore. Stephen Douglas was a Democrat who thought slavery should be limited. John C. Breckinridge had the exact opposite thoughts as Lincoln which is why they had the most arguments, John was a southern Democrat who wanted slavery to expand everywhere. John Bell was from the Constitutional Union and he thought that the issue over slavery could be ignored. In the election of 1860, 25 states were involved. (Ground, Each candidate had their own thoughts and would argue over whose thinking was the correct thinking. Although, the election of 1860 was a huge argument, the election of 1864 was way more different. In the election of 1864, there were only two candidates, Abraham Lincoln, our previous winner and George B. McClellan. McClellan and Lincoln’s thoughts were quite similar. Because of that, there were limited arguments between the two. Abraham Lincoln won this election with 212 electoral votes and 2.2 million popular votes. Two different elections, one same winner. Today, we have elections that

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