Timeline worked out thus far:
November 7, 1860
The Union woke up the day following the 1860 election expecting to hear of a Lincoln victory. Most sources had expected this for most of the election season; what came out of the election, however, was far different.
Lincoln had lost every single slave state. This was not surprising in the least. He'd also managed to lose California and Oregon, again hardly surprising in retrospect. New Jersey and Illinois also fell: New Jersey by approximately four points, and Illinois by two. The biggest surprises were in Indiana and Ohio: Lincoln won Ohio by less than a thousand votes over Douglas, but lost Indiana by half that margin.
The election returns were marred by widespread rumors of ballot boxes being stuffed along the Ohio River and in Chicago, as the Breckinridge-Douglas-Bell fusion ticket saw a number of Kentuckians cross the river around the time of the election. Similar rumors of fraud were heard in Missouri and Iowa, and voter intimidation was undoubtedly rampant on both sides of the Ohio.
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As the final votes were counted, and in many cases re-counted, over the next week it was clear that Lincoln had failed to secure an outright victory in the Electoral College by the official tallies. Rumors persist to this day what the actual counts were in the states along the Ohio River, but it is worth noting that in several border counties the number of votes cast exceeded not only the number of registered voters, but in one case also the number of residents.
December, 1860
Charleston, South Carolina
In an overcrowded meeting hall, delegates to the South Carolina Convention met, arguing for hours over whether or not South Carolina should secede from the Union. Tension had been building for several years towards secession, waiting for a spark to trigger it. Now, with the threat of the Republicans winning the Presidency, many of the so-called Fire Eaters were pushing openly for it.
In spite of strong secessionist sentiment in the room, the possibility that Breckinridge would triumph was enough to split the delegates almost evenly. A slim majority in favor of immediate secession could be found; an attempt to table the Ordinance of Secession until after Congress selected a President failed after much heated debate by a vote of 75 in favor to 77 opposed on December 24th
[FONT="][2][/FONT]; a motion to adjourn prior to a vote on the Ordinance until after Christmas failed by the same.
In the end, the vote was probably never in doubt; Harper's Weekly records that the atmosphere in the convention was not particularly condusive to dissent. Even still, the vote showed substantial opposition, with 31 of the 152 delegates either voting against the Ordinance or abstaining.
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January, 1861
When Congress met for the formal announcement of the electoral votes, the atmosphere was anything but cordial. Before the voting even began, the Sergeant at Arms was forced to break up a fistfight in the House between two members with long-standing grievances were seated next to each other.
Things did not improve much when the reading of the votes began. When Indiana was called out, shouts of “Fraud!” roared through the chamber from the Republican side. A motion was made by a member from Massachusetts to reject the votes of Indiana as fraudulent, but it failed by a substantial margin. A similar ritual was carried out when Ohio was called, as many Southerners took the occasion of voting irregularities in both states to charge Republicans with attempting to steal Ohio as an excuse for discounting Ohio’s votes. (In retrospect, both parties quite possibly attempted to steal several states in the Midwest, and the Democrats were just more successful…and more blatant…at it than the Republicans.)
When South Carolina came for a vote, the rancor in the chamber was audible outside of the cloakrooms as a number of Republicans sought to discount the votes of that state in light of its secession. Although the vote was largely a technicality (which it was not in the case of Indiana; voiding both sets could conceivably have permitted Lincoln to be elected anyway), it was seen by many as a “test vote”. Slave states voted en masse to retain South Carolina’s delegation, as did most other Democrats along with Unionist Congressmen. The vote failed by 139 to 100, and the House dissolved into angry protests and shouting by many Republicans from New England, as well as the Ohio delegation.
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Once the ritual of counting the votes was finished, it was officially announced that no candidate had a majority of the electoral votes; the count was Lincoln 145, Breckinridge 75, Douglas 44, and Bell 39. Therefore, the House would have to vote to select the President themselves from among Breckinridge, Douglas, and Lincoln.
The early voting went surprisingly smoothly; the first ballot yielded 14 states for Lincoln, 11 for Breckinridge, 5 for Douglas, with 3 split.
[FONT="][5][/FONT] The results continued, with only a handful of votes shifting in close states to try and work towards a compromise; through the twentieth ballot, the voting was completely inconclusive. Before the twenty-first ballot could be called, however, the House was forced to adjourn, ostensibly due to a fight between a member from South Carolina and one from Massachusetts.
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Voting resumed with the twenty-first ballot when Congress came back from its recess. Though the twenty-first ballot was virtually identical to the twentieth, the twenty second ballot saw Rhode Island, Georgia, Louisiana, Kentucky, and North Carolina all go for Douglas; although three of these states had been evenly divided, and though one was Douglas’s Vice President’s home state, the stampede of closely-split states caught the House off guard.
The twenty-third ballot was, in many ways, decisive. Although only Florida and Arkansas changed allegiances (Florida from Breckinridge to Douglas, and Arkansas from Breckinridge to “Split”), the momentum stayed with Douglas and vigorous negotiations began. Also important was the defection of several Democrats in the Virginia delegation. Though not enough to change the delegation’s vote, it showed increasing weakness on Breckinridge’s part outside the Deep South. Republican discipline in Pennsylvania and several other states, in spite of the hot tempers earlier in the session, began to break down, and Douglas had more raw votes on this ballot than either Lincoln or Breckinridge.
On the twenty-fourth ballot, Oregon fell into line with the building Douglas push; Arkansas came in line as well, as did Connecticut amid extreme pressure on the Congressmen in those delegations. Texas flipped to split on the twenty-fifth ballot, and Virginia shifted to Douglas on the same; the twenty-sixth ballot finally yielded a victory for Stephen Douglas as Texas’s delegation was dragged, almost literally kicking and screaming, along with the Douglas steamroller amid rumors of a backroom deal.
The Senate’s job proved much easier. By a vote of 35 to 29, Joseph Lane of Oregon was elected Vice President of the United States over Hannibal Hamlin.
[FONT="][7][/FONT] The vote split was perfectly partisan; the only quirk was the absence of the two South Carolina Senators. Where much of the South Carolina House delegation had declined to absent themselves, the Senators had followed the directives of the State Convention and remained in South Carolina.
[FONT="][1][/FONT] Historically, Lincoln managed to win all of these states save New Jersey; in the case of New Jersey, he lost the popular vote but won the electoral vote. The POD here is that Breckinridge, Bell, and Douglas united their tickets in parts of the Midwest as they did in New York and several other states, and that Breckinridge followed this up with stuffed ballot boxes in the states north of Kentucky.
[FONT="][2][/FONT] This vote historically failed by a vote of 31 to 121
[FONT="][3][/FONT] And this vote historically passed nearly unanimously. More delegates than this are inclined to hold off, but few are willing to stand up and vote against it. Most of the 31 are in fact abstentions.
[FONT="][4][/FONT] Most of the Dems are pressured into supporting SC’s position; ten, mainly in New York , Pennsylvania, and Connecticut break, as do the three Unionist/Constitutional Unionist Congressmen from New England. Twenty Republicans, almost all in New York, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey break the other way in favor of keeping SC’s votes in. Also, most of these votes are theatrical, as extremists on both sides are making theatre for the press.
[FONT="][5][/FONT] Lincoln carries all of New England except for Connecticut, which splits evenly; he carries all of the remaining Free states except NJ (Douglas), IL (Douglas), and OR (Breckinridge). However, NC and LA split between Breckinridge and Douglas, while TN, MO, and MD vote for Douglas among the slave states, making Douglas the only candidate with substantial cross-sectional support; on a numerical vote, Lincoln is sitting at 108, Breckinridge at 58 (all in the South, except for 1 in OR and 1 in OH), and Douglas is at 73 (34 in the South, 39 in the North)
[FONT="][6][/FONT] The “fight” was relatively minor; it consisted of a single punch being thrown at a South Carolina Congressman on the opposite side of the chamber from his delegation, and there have been rumors that the confrontation was not wholly spontaneous.
[FONT="][7][/FONT] Douglas and Breckinridge cut a deal after the 22nd Ballot; when Douglas was able to pull as many votes together as he did, Breckinridge knew that Douglas was in a strong enough position and came to terms.