The Presidential campaign of 1860, with its excitements and struggles, its “Wide-awake” clubs and boisterous enthusiasm throughout the North, and its bitter and threatening character throughout the South, was at last ended; and on the 6th of November Abraham Lincoln was elected President of the United States.[A] His cause had been aided not a little by an unexpected division in the Democratic party.  Douglas had been nominated for the Presidency by this party in its convention at Baltimore on the 18th of June; but he was bitterly opposed by the extreme slavery element of the Democracy, and this faction held a convention of its own at Baltimore ten days later and nominated for President John C. Breckenridge of Kentucky.  There was still another party, though a very minor one, in the field—­the “Constitutional Union Party,” based chiefly on a desire to avoid the issue of slavery in national politics—­which on the 9th of May had nominated John Bell of Tennessee as its candidate for the Presidency, with Edward Everett of Massachusetts for the Vice-Presidency.  There were thus four tickets in the field—­the Republican, including if not representing the anti-slavery element in the North; the Democratic, which was pro-slavery in its tendencies but had so far failed to satisfy the Southern wing—­now grown alarmed and restless at the growth and tendencies of the Republican party—­that this element nominated as a third ticket an out-and-out pro-slavery candidate; and (fourth) a “Constitutional Union” ticket, representing a well-meant but fatuous desire to keep slavery out of national politics altogether.

This eventful contest was therefore determined largely on sectional lines, with slavery as the great underlying issue.  Lincoln’s gratification at his election was not untempered with disappointments.  While he had a substantial majority of the electoral vote (180 to 123), the popular vote was toward a million (930,170), more against him than for him.  Fifteen States gave him no electoral vote, and in nine States’ he received not a single popular vote.  The slave States—­“the Solid South”—­were squarely against him.  Lincoln saw the significance of this, and it filled him with regret and apprehension.  But he faced the future without dismay, and with a calm resolve to do his duty.  With all his hatred of slavery, loyalty to the Constitution had always been paramount in his mind; and those who knew him best never doubted that it would continue so.

Lincoln took no active part in the campaign, preferring to remain quietly at his home in Springfield.  Scarcely was the election decided than he was beset with visitors from all parts of the country, who came to gratify curiosity or solicit personal favors of the incoming President.  The throng became at last so great, and interfered so much with the comfort of Lincoln’s home, that the Executive Chamber in the State House was set apart as his reception room.  Here he met all who chose to come—­“the