The U.S. Election of 1860 Trivia Quiz

Answer: Abraham Lincoln

Lincoln was only the second presidential candidate for this young party. A dark horse candidate, at the time he was best known for a losing campaign against Stephen Douglas for Senator in 1858. (He had also tried to obtain the Republican nomination for Vice President in 1856, but lost on the first ballot).

The actual favorite was in fact William Seward (future Secretary of State under Lincoln and Andrew Johnson), but Seward was unable to obtain the vote of a majority of the delegates and the anti-Seward factions united behind Lincoln as a compromise candidate.

Answer: Stephen Douglas

Douglas's doctrine of 'popular sovereignty' (the belief that each state's residents should have the right to choose whether that state should be slave or free) had come under fire from Lincoln and anti-slavery forces in a series of famous debates during the 1858 senatorial campaign.

In 1860 they were attacked from the other side. Southern Democrats wanted a federal slave code -- a law prohibiting territorial legislatures from banning slavery -- while Douglas and the Northern Democrats believed such a code would infringe on states' rights. Whether slavery was right or not was irrelevant...the important thing was to let the states decide and not Congress. By a vote of 165-138, the Democratic delegation approved Douglas' platform, causing the delegations of several states (most of which would later become part of the Confederacy) to withdraw from the convention and plan their own.

Answer: John Breckinridge

After the Democratic platform was approved, the Southern Democrats split off and held their own convention in Baltimore (technically under the banner of the 'National Democrats', though they have become known as the Southern Democrats). John Breckinridge, then the vice president under James Buchanan, was chosen as their candidate.

As a citizen of Kentucky, Breckinridge would flee his state when Kentucky chose to remain in the Union, later joining the Confederate Army and rising to the rank of Major General.

After the war, he would become a voice urging compromise and reconciliation.

Answer: John Bell

The Constitutional Union party wrote in their platform that it was 'both the part of patriotism and of duty to recognize no political principle other than THE CONSTITUTION OF THE COUNTRY, THE UNION OF THE STATES, AND THE ENFORCEMENT OF THE LAWS' (Emphasis in the original platform).

They believed that the slavery issue was tearing the nation apart, and that the unity of the nation was more important than any single issue.

Answer: Stephen Douglas

Despite this, he finished last in the electoral college, carrying only the state of Missouri and half the electors from New Jersey! Although he did quite well in many of the northern states, he almost always finished a close second to Lincoln. In the south, the Democrats tended to vote for the National (Southern) Democrat instead of the man whose party they had split from.

Interestingly, when it became apparent to Douglas that he wasn't going to win, he spent the last few weeks before the election campaigning in the south, urging the states not to secede from the Union if Lincoln won.

Answer: Maryland

Tennessee and Virginia would both later go on to join the confederacy...so much for Constitutional Union. Bell actually did quite well in the south as well, finishing with about 30 percent of the vote (but without a plurality) in most states there. Most of the Northern states, however, gave him less than 5 percent of their vote, perhaps because they feared he would compromise too much on the issue of slavery.

Answer: A little under two fifths

Yes, Lincoln won with under 40 percent of the vote. Part of this was due to the fact that there were so many candidates he was running against (especially Douglas who stole many of his votes in the north). It also came about because the election was so factionalized. There were several southern states in which Lincoln received an official vote total of exactly 0.

Answer: New York

New York provided 35 electoral votes in an election in which only 152 were needed for a majority of the electoral college. Pennsylvania provided the second most (27) and Ohio the third most (23)...all three were taken by Lincoln. Lincoln also took California, but its 4 electoral votes weren't exactly critical.

Answer: Hannibal Hamlin

Both before and after his stint as Vice President, Hamlin served as U.S. Senator from the state of Maine. Hamlin was actually a casuality of the Union's military troubles at the beginning of 1864. Fearing for Lincoln's reelection chances, the Republican party chose Andrew Johnson, a pro-war Democrat, as Vice Presidential candidate instead of Hamlin.

Answer: 81 percent

For comparison, the turnout for the 2000 election was only 51.0 percent. Kind of sad, isn't it?