Because of its extraordinary Consequences and because of Abraham Lincoln\'s place in the American pantheon, the presidential Election of 1860 is probably the most studied in our history.
His attention to the little-studied role of the Buchanan Administration, and of perceived threats to the preservation of the Union, clarifies the true dynamic of the 1860 presidential election, particularly in its early stages..
He brings to light how the campaigns of the Republican Party and the National (Northern) Democrats and the Constitutional (Southern) Democrats and the newly formed Constitutional Union Party were not exclusively regional.
Holt explores the sectional politics that permeated the Election and foreshadowed the coming Civil War.
Grounding his history in a nuanced retelling of the pre-1860 story, Michael F.
Also of critical importance was the corruption of the incumbent administration of Democrat James Buchanan--and a nationwide revulsion against party.
However significantly slavery figured in the election, The Election of 1860 reveals the key importance of widespread opposition to the Republican Party because of its overtly anti-southern rhetoric and seemingly unstoppable rise to power in the North after its emergence in 1854.
Most critically, the book counters the common interpretation of the Election as a referendum on slavery and the Republican Party\'s purported threat to it.
In The Election of 1860 a preeminent scholar of American history disrupts this familiar narrative with a clearer and more comprehensive account of how the Election unfolded and what it was actually about.
Breckinridge in the slaveholding South.
But perhaps for the same reasons, historians have focused on the contest of Lincoln versus Stephen Douglas in the northern free states and John Bell versus John C.
Because of its extraordinary Consequences and because of Abraham Lincoln\'s place in the American pantheon, the presidential Election of 1860 is probably the most studied in our history
