It was not so very long since he had spoken of the Abolitionist leaders as “friends;” but they did not reciprocate the feeling, nor indeed could reasonably be expected to do so, or to vote the Republican ticket.  They were even less willing to vote it with Lincoln at the head of it than if Seward had been there.[109] But Republicanism itself under any leader was distinctly at odds with their views; for when they said “abolition” they meant accurately what they said, and abolition certainly was impossible under the Constitution.  The Republicans, and Lincoln personally, with equal directness acknowledged the supremacy of the Constitution.  Lincoln, therefore, plainly asserted a policy which the Abolitionists equally plainly condemned.  In their eyes, to be a party to a contract maintaining slavery throughout a third of a continent was only a trifle less criminal than aiding to extend it over another third.  Yet it should be said that the Abolitionists were not all of one mind, and some voted the Republican ticket as being at least a step in the right direction.  Joshua R. Giddings was a member of the Republican Convention which nominated Lincoln.  But Wendell Phillips, always an extremist among extremists, published an article entitled “Abraham Lincoln, the Slave-hound of Illinois,” whereof the keynote was struck in this introductory sentence:  “We gibbet a Northern hound to-day, side by side with the infamous Mason of Virginia.”  Mr. Garrison, a man of far larger and sounder intellectual powers than belonged to Phillips, did not fancy this sort of diatribe, though five months earlier he had accused the Republican party of “slavish subserviency to the Union,” and declared it to be “still insanely engaged in glorifying the Union and pledging itself to frown upon all attempts to dissolve it.”  Undeniably men who held these views could not honestly vote for Mr. Lincoln.

The popular vote and the electoral vote were as follows:[110]—­

Li:  Abraham Lincoln, Illinois. 
Do:  Stephen A. Douglas, Illinois. 
Br:  John C. Breckenridge, Kentucky. 
Be:  John Bell, Tennessee.

                                           Popular Vote | Electoral Vote
  State Li Do Br Be | Li Do Br Be
  ------------------------------------------------
-------+--------------
  Maine 62,811 26,693 6,368 2,046 | 8 —­ —­ —­
  New Hampshire 37,519 25,881 2,112 441 | 5 —­ —­ —­
  Vermont 33,808 6,849 218 1,969 | 5 —­ —­ —­
  Massachusetts 106,533 34,372 5,939 22,231 | 13 —­ —­ —­
  Rhode Island 12,244 7,707[B] —­ —­ | 4 —­ —­ —­
  Connecticut 43,792 15,522 14,641 3,291 | 6 —­ —­ —­
  New York 362,646 312,510[B] —­ —­ | 35 —­ —­ —­
  New Jersey 58,324 62,801[B] —­ —­ | 4 3 —­