Lincoln and the
Republicans

Anger over the Kansas-Nebraska Act led to the founding of the Republican Party in the North in 1854. Members of the Republican Party considered slavery evil and opposed its extension into Western territories. Many Whigs and Democrats—members of the nation's two largest parties—joined the new party. They included Abraham Lincoln, a former Whig. Some other Americans belonged to the Know-Nothing Party, which blamed immigrants and Roman Catholics for the country's problems. The Republican Party's first presidential candidate, John C. Fremont, won most of the Northern vote and almost the presidency in 1856. But Democrat James Buchanan was elected president.

In 1858, the Democratic Party was divided over a constitution that proslavery Kansans hoped to have adopted when the Kansas territory became a state. Buchanan and another party leader, Senator Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois, took opposite positions on the constitution. Buchanan favored it, and Douglas opposed it. The conflict between proslavery and antislavery Democrats caused the party to split into Northern and Southern branches in 1860.

The Republicans chose Abraham Lincoln as their candidate in the 1860 presidential election. Douglas ran on the Northern Democratic ticket. Vice President John C. Breckinridge was the Southern Democratic candidate. Some former members of the Whig and Know-Nothing parties—which had disbanded by 1860—formed the Constitutional Union Party and nominated former Senator John Bell of Tennessee.

Lincoln won all the electoral votes of every free state except New Jersey, which awarded him four of its seven votes. He thus gained a majority of electoral votes and won the election. However, Lincoln received less than 40 percent of the popular vote, almost none of which came from the South. Southerners feared Lincoln would restrict or end slavery.