1856 United States Presidential Election (The Hamilton Timeline)

The 1856 United States Presidential Election was the 18th quadrennial United States presidential election, held on November 4, 1856. In another three-way race, Whig candidate and Senator from Illinois Stephen A. Douglas defeated a near-evenly split opposition between Democratic candidate and former Representative from Kentucky John C. Breckinridge, and Unionist candidate and former Governor of Texas Sam Houston. The fright brought about in the Southern states following the result of this election, and fear of President-elect Douglas is considered to be the main catalyst of the American Civil War that would succeed the election.

Disapproval from those within President Franklin Pierce's Unionist Party led to a starkly divided and contested convention in Philadelphia. The main rivaling candidates in the crowd that gathered at the convention would be Illinois Senator Stephen A. Douglas, Pennsylvania Governor James Buchanan, as well as a minor movement to draft aging Texas Governor Sam Houston as the faltering party's candidate. After thirty-nine ballots, Douglas narrowly prevailed ahead of Pierce's favored candidate, Buchanan. Contradicting positions with Douglas on what to do with Kansas and Nebraska led Pierce and Buchanan to bolt to the Democratic ticket instead. As a result of the division, Douglas then approached would-be Whig nominee Abraham Lincoln with an offer to unite the tickets to oppose a potential Democratic victory, which Lincoln heard to. Three weeks later, the Second 1856 Whig National Convention opened in Chicago, nomination Douglas for President and Lincoln for Vice President.

The Democratic nomination was easily clenched by Kentucky Senator John C. Breckinridge, with slivers of opposition rising from Michigan Senator Lewis Cass and Mississippi Senator Jefferson Davis, the latter of whom was chosen to serve as Breckinridge's running mate for Vice President. The fraction of remaining Unionist-Loyalists nominated Houston for President and Tennessee Senator John Bell for the Vice Presidency.

As had been the case since the conclusion of the Mexican-American War, slavery surrounded the election as the defining issue. Breckinridge supported the expansion of slavery into the Kansas and Nebraska Territories, where violence over the status of the institution there had flooded the Plains territories. However, Houston and Douglas took the more moderate road on the issue, with both supporting a popular sovereignty solution that would allow for fair elections to decide the legality of slavery in the territories.

When the final votes were counted, Douglas had only slightly prevailed in the state of New York, thus giving Douglas a slim victory in the electoral college. The popular vote, however, was a much stronger lead for Douglas, with runner-up Breckinridge trailing Douglas by a little under 18 percent. Fear of Douglas and, in particular, his running mate spread about the Southern states, leading to a convention on secession being called in South Carolina's capital a month later. The domino effect that the election had leads many historians to argue that the 1856 election was perhaps the most impactful in history, only leading against the elections in 1812, 1932, and 1964. Historian Arthur Bonder, author of 1856: The Collapse of the Social Order, writes, "The 1856 election, if not for the victory of the Northern states in the Civil War that the results sparked, could have set a dangerous precedent that would have defined unilateral secession as a tolerable act and as a normal protocol as agreed to upon the virtues of states' rights."

Whig nomination
Whig candidates:

The nomination process for the Whig Party was contentious and especially extravagant this year. The Whig Party's convention was held a week later than that of the Unionists, but by this point President Pierce and his allies had already defected to the Democrats. The delegates wanted a candidate that would be able to have a qualified and stout representation of the leftward-trending party, knowing that it was at the cusp of victory due to the election's unusual circumstances. However, also faced with the threat of secession, the party needed a candidate that would be able to execute a war well.

The convention opened on May 19, 1860 in Cincinnati, Ohio. In the vote, Sumner led in the Northeast; Lincoln led in the Plains and Midwest; Chase led in the South and Mid-Atlantic; and Chandler led in Michigan and Ohio. Seeing his chances of victory dwindling, Chandler announced that he would withdraw from the convention; he privately met with leaders of his delegation and requested that they vote for Sumner. On the second ballot, Sumner still led in the Northeastern states; Lincoln now bolted ahead of most other candidates in the Midwest; and Chase towered ahead of his rivals in the South and Mid-Atlantic like before. Several more votes were held over Sunday, the 20th with little success in swinging the vote. Then, in a shock announcement the next day, Chase announced that he would withdraw from the balloting, hoping to not further entrench the party divide as the convention dragged on. Later that night, Lincoln swept the Chase states, providing a decisive victory over Sumner.

Sumner's concession speech provided a call for party unity, as many divided factions within the Whig Party had faced off over the weekend's ballots. Lincoln then stepped to the stage to speak to a jubilant and celebratory crowd; he waited two minutes before he let out his first word. The towering and tall nominee then delivered what is considered one of his greatest orations, the Step at Dawn speech, which called for partisan unity as well as a response to threats of secession. Lincoln ordered that "upon any request or ordinance of secession of any Southern state," he would "call up the National Army to restore a calm against what would be a failed rebellion and insurrection against the government and order of the American nation." After his eighteen-minute speech, Lincoln then stepped down from the state to charades of applause from the delegates. The vast majority had agreed that an attempt at secession from the United States was equivalent to treason and should be punished as such.

Chairman of the Convention and future President John Sherman, following Lincoln's speech, then adjourned the convention at around 8:00 PM that Monday.

Results
