The idea that states could and should secede from the Union was not a concept brought about in the 1850's. As early as 1828, talk of secession could be heard in South Carolina and other Southern states. And several times prior to 1860, South Carolina did indeed attempt, though unsuccessfully, to leave the United States and form its own independent government. But the times following John Brown's raid were the most tense, and the possibility of secession was turning into more of a reality than just an abstract notion.
Ultimately, the fate of the Union rested on one event: the national election. The campaign of 1860 saw the emergence of four major candidates. The nominee of the newly formed Republican party was Abraham Lincoln, who beat out the once leading party candidate William H. Seward. For the Democrats, two nominees were chosen. This was because the Democratic party was ultimately split between the loyalists and those with slave-holding interests. Stephen Douglas was nominated by the Northern Unionist Democrats, while Vice President John Breckinridge was declared a candidate for the Southern Democrats. And finally there was John Bell, another Southerner, of the Constitutional Union party. Essentially, the election would be decided sectionally: Douglas vs. Lincoln in the North, and Bell vs. Breckinridge in the South.
The South was almost entirely against Lincoln from the outset. They saw his election as a detriment to their way of life. Although he promised not to touch slavery in the states where it already existed, pro-slavery Southerners knew he would not allow for the expansion of slavery, and that in itself was against their notion of popular sovereignty. In addition, Lincoln was 100 percent against secession, calling it unconstitutional. With these two issues separating him from much of the Southern point of view, he was not even on the ballot in many Southern states. Furthermore, the South made it very clear that if Lincoln won the election, secession would follow.
The outcome of the election of 1860 was exactly what Lincoln's supporters hoped for. He won the majority of the popular votes and all but three electoral votes in the North, while in the South he received no electoral votes. However, that mattered very little as far as winning the election for there were enough electoral votes in the Northern states to carry the number needed to win. And win is exactly what Lincoln did, carrying 180 electoral votes. Breckinridge came in second with 72. Abraham Lincoln was going to be the 16th president of the United States.
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