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Banned
Senator William H. Seward of New York
On May 16th 1860, the Republican National Convention convened in the Wigwam building of Chicago. The Democrats were in disarray and had yet to nominate a candidate, but New York Senator William H. Seward was confident that he would see victory. Unfortunately, it would not be a smooth road, as the proceedings were disrupted at length on the first day, as a minor dispute over the availability of the ballot paper erupted into a heated argument. After refusing to adjourn, Seward's supporters claimed that the increasingly prominent Abraham Lincoln of Illinois had hired cronies to tamper with the electoral process.
“A man of unsavory looks and unsavory means,” Robert K. Enos of the Ohio delegation had reflected later in the Chicago Press and Tribune. It was little wonder then when Seward attained 222 ballots on the first vote.
Contemporary article describing the 1860 Republican National Convention
A second vote was conducted on May 17th 1860; “excepting any chicanery from Mr. Lincoln's friends!” an Irrepressible had shouted out to the Chairman before the voting proceeded, which was met with a hearty round of chuckles from those assembled.
Seward won nearly unanimously, and declared to the crowd, “I believe that with this decision, the Union will sooner be free of its irrepressible conflict.” Former Democrat Hannibal Hamlin of Maine was selected as the Vice Presidential candidate to balance out the ticket.
Abraham Lincoln still had supporters who urged him to run his campaign, but he would always reply that, “A party divided, cannot stand”.
Unusually for a presidential candidate, Seward campaigned extensively, matched only by the efforts of Stephen Douglas on behalf of the Democratic Party. Unfortunately, Senator Seward's national tour only served to undermine him, as he came across as a radical when the nation needed a moderate to keep the states united.
In the words of Senator Douglas, “Unlike the Black Republicans, I see no irrepressible conflict with which to dissolve this nation. I am in favor of having a Union that is kept whole, and I will see to it that any who takes up arms against it will be hanged.”
This kind of rhetoric did nothing to unite the pro-slavery candidates, especially among the “Fire-Eaters” who saw secession as a legitimate course of action (although Vice President Breckenridge had admonished them in saying, “I am a proud American, who never even harbored a thought that was not in devotion to this Union)”. Nonetheless, Douglas appealed to moderates who had been alienated by both Seward and Breckenridge.
The election was extraordinarily close. Although the popular vote was clearly won by William Seward, followed by Stephen Douglas, John C. Breckenridge and John Bell, no one achieved a majority of electoral college votes.
Seward: 145, Breckenridge: 90, Douglas: 44, Bell: 24
Pursuant to the 12th Amendment, the election was now to be decided by the 35th Congress. The Senate's Democratic majority voted easily for Joseph Lane to be Vice President, but the process was more complex in the House of Representatives, where each state was collectively allotted one vote. In the end, Seward managed to attain 15 states, and Douglas took just one (Illinois), but Breckenridge was left with the remaining seventeen from the Democratic and ex-Whig delegations. This was how, despite placing third in the popular vote, Vice President John C. Breckenridge became the 16th President of the United States of America on March 4th, 1861.
Upon his inauguration, President Breckenridge told the increasingly divided nation, “I shall discharge the duties of this high office with both proud satisfaction, as well as the trust that I can lead this nation to attain a once forlorn hope.”
Although much of the South received the results amicably, not everyone was pleased with the outcome. Popular contemporary cartoons in the North included a wanted poster of “Johnny Breckenridge” for the “crime of electoral robbery”, and another depicted him sneaking into the White House with the caption, “like a thief in the night”. In the National Anti-Slavery Standard, abolitionist Edmund Quincy wrote that “we live now in a Confederacy of Crime and Failure, a place where slaveholders are 'free' to keep slaves in bondage. Through all just, lawful and bloodless means, we must form a new republic where true freedom can flourish”. William Lloyd Garrison, editor of The Liberation and founder of the American Anti-Slavery Society, proclaimed “I will say again what I have said many times before: there is no union with slaveholders!”
Bust of President John C. Breckinridge
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