Article: Election of 1860

Article 2 : Election of 1860

Introduction

In this paper we are going to analyse the article of “Abraham Lincoln, Stephen Douglas, and the Election of 1860” written by Michael Streich.

The main purpose of this article is that, the election of 1860 is one of the most important elections of the American history and had a greta impact on the future. If Abe Lincoln were not elected we probably wouldn't have had the Civil War for at least a couple of years. His election upset the South so much that they seceded from the Union. But on the other hand he was, in my personal opinion, the greatest president this country has ever had and it would have been very difficult for even the greatest president to keep our Union together at that point. This because it was on very shaky ground and probably would have went to war no matter who was elected.

Thesis Statement

Some blame the Democrats, and especially the Southern Democrats, for Abraham Lincoln's election in 1860. The split in the Democratic Party that summer is said to have opened the door for the new Republican Party. Because the divided Democrats could not agree on a candidate, this theory goes, the split in the party allowed Lincoln to capture the White House with a mere 39 percent of the popular vote.

Body/ Discussion

The design of the study is description and literature baesd. The literature od the article semonstrates that the central issue of the presidential election of 1860 was bound to be slavery. Battles over the spread of slavery to new territories and states had gripped the United States throughout the 1850s, and were especially intensified by the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854.

Following the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, Abraham Lincoln, who had essentially given up on politics after one unhappy term in Congress in the late 1840s, returned to the political arena. In his home state of Illinois, Lincoln began attacking the legislation and particularly its author, Senator Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois.

Results of the study

When Douglas ran for reelection in 1858, Lincoln opposed him in Illinois. Douglas won that election, but the seven Lincoln-Douglass Debates they held across Illinois were mentioned in newspapers around the country, raising Lincoln's political profile.

In late 1859, Lincoln was invited to give a speech in New York City. He crafted a speech denouncing slavery and its spread, which he ...