The
United States presidential election of 1860 was the 19th quadrennial
presidential election. The election was held on Tuesday, November 6, 1860, and served as the immediate impetus for the outbreak of the
American Civil War. The United States had been divided during the 1850s on questions surrounding the expansion of
slavery and the rights of slave owners. In 1860, these issues broke the
Democratic Party into
Northern and
Southern factions, and a new
Constitutional Union Party appeared. In the face of a divided opposition, the
Republican Party, dominant in the North, secured a majority of the electoral votes, putting
Abraham Lincoln in the
White House with almost no support from the South. Before
Lincoln's inauguration, seven slave-holding Southern states declared their
secession from the U.S. and formed the
Confederacy, ultimately sparking the
American Civil War.