However, the anti-slavery feeling was a tie that bound
together people of the most diverse opinions about other things, and a
spirited canvass was made, greatly assisted by the final and suicidal
split in the ranks of the Democracy, which placed in nomination two men,
Lincoln's old antagonist, Stephen A. Douglas, representing the northern
or moderate element of the party, and John C. Breckenridge, of Kentucky,
representing the southern, or extreme pro-slavery element. And this was
just the corner into which Lincoln had hoped, all along, to drive his
opponents. Had the party been united, he would have been hopelessly
defeated, for in the election which followed, he received only a little
more than one third of the popular vote; but this was sufficient to give
him the northern states, with 180 electoral votes. But let us remember
that, in 1860, Abraham Lincoln was the choice for President of very much
less than half the people of the country.
The succeeding four months witnessed the peculiar spectacle of the South
leisurely completing its arrangements for secession, and perfecting its
civil and military organization, while the North, under a discredited
ruler of whom it could not rid itself until March 4th, was unable to
make any counter-preparation or to do anything to prevent the diversion
of a large portion of the arms and munitions of the country into the
southern states.
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