Election of 1860 Reconsidered

Description

The election of 1860 was a crossroad in American history. Faced with four major candidates, voters in the North and South went to the polls not knowing that the result of the election would culminate in the bloodiest conflict the United States had ever seen. Despite its obvious importance, surprisingly few studies have focused exclusively on this electoral contest itself. In The Election of 1860 Reconsidered, seven historians offer insightful essays that challenge the traditional view of the election, present fresh inter- pretations, and approach the contest from new angles. In engaging treatments of the main presidential candidates, the authors employ biography to explain the election. Michael S. Green deftly analyzes Abraham Lincoln and effectively overturns the view of the Republican as a passive candidate. James L. Huston provides an innovative reconsideration of Stephen A. Douglas in defeat with an insightful look at the Little Giant's campaign tours of the South. Using the lens of honor, A. James Fuller scrutinizes John C. Breckinridge in an enlightening study of the Southern Democratic candidate's campaign. In another groundbreaking essay, Fuller reconsiders Constitutional Unionist John Bell as a Whig who stood for the Republican principle of compro- mise. The biographical theme continues in John R. McKivigan's splendid examination of Frederick Douglass as he carefully guides the reader through the changing attitudes and ambivalence of the abolitionist perspective.As Douglas G. Gardner demonstrates in his fine exposition of the historiographical themes involved with the election, The Election of 1860 Reconsidered includes interdisciplinary concerns and new lines of inquiry. Addressing matters of interest to political scientists as well as historians, Thomas E. Rodgers takes up the issue of voter turnout in a sophisticated analysis that emphasizes ideology. Political culture and context allow A. James Fuller to make revealing interdisciplinary connections while using the state of Indiana as a case study to test and refute realignment theory. Turning to observations from across the Atlantic, Lawrence Sondhaus offers a new approach to the election in his penetrating study of how Europeans viewed and misunderstood the U.S. presidential race.This remarkable collection breathes new life into political history and will serve as a primer for a generation of scholars interested in understanding the most important election in American history.

Sujets

• Histoire
• USA
• United States of America
• History of the Americas
• American Civil War
• États-Unis
• Guerre de Sécession

Informations

• Publié par: The Kent State University Press
• Date de parution: 22 mars 2013
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781612776224
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

The Election of 1860 Reconsidered
CIVIL WAR IN THE NORTH
Series Editor, Lesely J. Gordon, University of Akron
Broken Glass: Caleb Cushing and the Shattering of the Union
John M. Belohlavek
Banners South: A Northern Community at War
Edmund J. Raus
“Circumstances are destiny”: An Antebellum Woman’s Struggle to Define Sphere
Tina Stewart Brakebill
More Than a Contest between Armies: Essays on the Civil War
Edited by James Marten and A. Kristen Foster
August Willich’s Gallant Dutchmen: Civil War Letters from the 32nd Indiana Infantry
Translated and Edited by Joseph R. Reinhart
Meade’s Army: The Private Notebooks of Lt. Col. Theodore Lyman
Edited by David W. Lowe
Dispatches from Bermuda: The Civil War Letters of Charles Maxwell Allen, U.S. Consul at Bermuda, 1861–1888
Edited by Glen N. Wiche
The Antebellum Crisis and America’s First Bohemians
Mark A. Lause
Orlando M. Poe: Civil War General and Great Lakes Engineer
Paul Taylor
Northerners at War: Reflections on the Civil War Home Front
J. Matthew Gallman
A German Hurrah! Civil War Letters of Friedrich Bertsch and Wilhelm Stängel, 9th Ohio Infantry
Translated and Edited by Joseph R. Reinhart
“They Have Left Us Here to Die”: The Civil War Prison Diary of Sgt. Lyle G. Adair, 111th U.S. Colored Infantry
Edited by Glenn Robins
The Election of 1860 Reconsidered
Edited by James A. Fuller
THE ELECTION OF 1860 RECONSIDERED

Edited by A. James Fuller
The Kent State University Press • Kent, Ohio
© 2013 by The Kent State University Press, Kent, Ohio 44242
All rights reserved
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 2012037934
ISBN 978-1-60635-148-2
Manufactured in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
The election of 1860 reconsidered / edited by A. James Fuller.
   p. cm. — (Civil War in the North)
Includes index.
ISBN 978-1-60635-148-2 (hardcover) ∞
1. Presidents—United States—Election—1860. 2. United States—Politics and government—1857–1861. I. Fuller, A. James.
E440.E45 2012
324.973—dc23
2012037934
17   16   15   14   13         5   4   3   2   1
For the Civil War Study Group
Contents
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction: The Election of 1860 Reconsidered
A. James Fuller
1 The Political Organizer: Abraham Lincoln’s 1860 Campaign
Michael S. Green
2 The 1860 Southern Sojourns of Stephen A. Douglas and the Irrepressible Separation
James L. Huston
3 A Forlorn Hope: Interpreting the Breckinridge Campaign as a Matter of Honor
A. James Fuller
4 The Last True Whig: John Bell and the Politics of Compromise in 1860
A. James Fuller
5 Frederick Douglass and the Abolitionist Response to the Election of 1860
John R. McKivigan
6 Saving the Republic: Turnout, Ideology, and Republicanism in the Election of 1860
Thomas E. Rodgers
7 The Election of 1860 and Political Realignment Theory: Indiana as a Case Study
A. James Fuller
8 The View from Abroad: Europeans Look at the Election of 1860
Lawrence Sondhaus
9 “An Inscrutable Election?”: The Historiography of the Election of 1860
Douglas G. Gardner
Contributors
Index
List of Illustrations
Fig. 1. The Election of 1860
Fig. 2. Hon. Abraham Lincoln
Fig. 3. The Republican Convention in the Wigwam
Fig. 4. Lincoln Campaign Banner, 1860
Fig. 5. Lincoln and Douglas in a Political Foot Race
Fig. 6. The National Game
Fig. 7. Storming the Castle
Fig. 8. The Lincoln Quick Step
Fig. 9. Hon. Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois
Fig. 10. Stephen Finding His Mother
Fig. 11. Taking the Stump
Fig. 12. Douglas Campaign Banner
Fig. 13. Hon. John C. Breckinridge
Fig. 14. President James Buchanan, 1860
Fig. 15. William L. Yancey
Fig. 16. Jefferson Davis between 1858 and 1860
Fig. 17. Progressive Democracy—Prospect of a Smash Up
Fig. 18. The Undecided Political Prize Fight
Fig. 19. Congressional Surgery
Fig. 20. Hon. John Bell of Tennessee
Fig. 21. John J. Crittenden, Senator from Kentucky
Fig. 22. The Political Quadrille
Fig. 23. Bell Campaign Banner, 1860
Fig. 24. Bell and Everett, Grand National Union Banner for 1860
Fig. 25. The Union, the Constitution and the Enforcement of the Laws
Fig. 26. Frederick Douglass, 1860
Fig. 27. William Lloyd Garrison
Fig. 28. Hon. Gerrit Smith of New York
Fig. 29. Hon. Oliver P. Morton, Governor of Indiana in 1861
Fig. 30. Jesse D. Bright, Senator from Indiana
Fig. 31. His Royal Highness, Albert Edward, Prince of Wales
Fig. 32. William H. Seward, Senator from New York
Fig. 33. Hon. Charles Sumner of Massachusetts
Fig. 34. Grand procession of Wide-Awakes
Acknowledgments
In the months surrounding the 150th anniversary of the election of 1860, scholars around the country gathered for conferences dedicated to analyzing this event. One such meeting was the third annual symposium of the Civil War Study Group on September 17, 2010. Hosted by the Institute for the Study of War and Diplomacy at the University of Indianapolis and funded by an Eli Lilly InQuery Grant, the symposium featured papers by four historians. More than twenty scholars offered their responses in the cordial discussions that followed each reading. Those papers became the foundation for this book. Charged with organizing the symposium and writing one of the papers, I saw the possibilities for something more and began to think about what a book-length reconsideration of the election of 1860 might include. I sought out other scholars who might be able to contribute. The result is a collection of essays, each of which stands on its own as an insightful study of the election.
The authors themselves deserve my thanks. Jack McKivigan participated in the symposium and graciously agreed to include his superb essay on Frederick Douglass, which reinforces his well-deserved reputation as a leading historian of abolitionism. Doug Gardner allowed me to conscript him into service for the meeting and applied his wit, insight, and elegant writing style to the historical literature. He learned the duties of friendship the hard way by agreeing to write on a subject outside the scope of his own immediate interests. Mike Green did an old friend a favor and, as usual, wrote a fine piece of scholarship. His essay here demonstrates that his work on Lincoln, the Republicans, and the politics of the 1850s is authoritative and groundbreaking. Jim Huston came on board and produced an excellent chapter on Stephen Douglas. His timely work and amiable attitude are models of professionalism, as is his essay. Tom Rodgers made such insightful comments at the symposium that I asked him to contribute to the book. He agreed to do so, although it was late in the process. Working under the looming shadow of a rapidly approaching deadline, he wrote a first-rate essay that is a tremendous addition to this volume. Larry Sondhaus was supportive of my ideas about the symposium and the book from the very beginning. When asked to contribute, he wrote about the European view of the election as only an accomplished and prolific scholar can. His exceptional chapter proves his dedication as a friend, a department chair, and a historian.
Joyce Harrison at Kent State University Press saw the value of this project and offered helpful guidance throughout the process. The series editor, Lesley Gordon, supported my idea for this collection; her insightful criticisms made this a better book. The two readers for the press offered excellent suggestions and constructive criticism aimed at improving the volume. Krista Kinslow is always willing to proofread and ask questions that make me write more clearly. I greatly appreciate her help and encouragement while I wrote my essays and during the revision process. My late wife, Brenda, displayed great patience with my work during her losing struggle with ovarian cancer and I regret that she did not live to see this project appear in published form. I also wish to thank my son, Carson, for sometimes managing, somehow, to contain his four-year-old enthusiasm while Daddy was trying to write and edit. I dedicate this book to the little band of scholars who make up the Civil War Study Group, founded in 2008 by Stephen E. Towne. Their friendly encouragement and willing participation have created an intellectual community that inspires each of us to undertake new projects in the field about which we all are so passionate.
A. James Fuller Indianapolis, Indiana Fall 2012
Introduction
The Election of 1860 Reconsidered
A. James Fuller
The most important presidential election in American history took place in 1860. The electoral contest marked the culmination of the sectional conflict and led to the secession of the Southern states and the beginning of the Civil War. Over the past century and a half, scholars have offered a number of different interpretations of the election, but surprisingly few works have been dedicated exclusively to the presidential contest itself. Most explanations of the campaign appear in general histories or in biographies of Abraham Lincoln or the other presidential candidates. Although nearly every succeeding generation of historians has managed to produce at least one full-length study, scholarship on the election of 1860 remains relatively rare. The sesquicentennial anniversary of the election offered an opportunity to fill this gap in the literature. Historians have taken up the cause, producing several new books on the subject, including this one. 1
This volume reconsiders the election and offers fresh insights on the campaigns for the presidency. In his concluding essay, Douglas G. Gardner examines the historiographical tradition regarding the election, noting that scholars across the generations have focused on Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas, with scant attention paid to the other candidates or to other related topics. Two of the essays clearly fall into that scholarly tradition—Michael S. Green argues that Lincoln played the ro