The phrase “tempest in a teapot” might be applied to the political environment of 1860 as voters approached one of the most controversial elections in America’s 80-plus-year history. (Slight nod to John Adams and Thomas Jefferson’s 1800 election campaign and Adams-Jackson in 1824…) The splintered Democratic Party found itself fronting three candidates: Senator Stephen A. Douglas, Democratic Party; Vice President John Breckenridge, Southern Democrat; and John Bell, Constitutional Union.

As the Democrats whirled in circles, attempting to determine their own beliefs and which candidate most closely aligned with those beliefs, the newly minted Republican Party also faced its own dilemma. Who would be the candidate that could win a plurality of the votes and save the Union? Think about the magnitude of that challenge. A storm that had been brewing since the Philadelphia and Declaration of Independence days — pushed aside briefly every 10 years or so with another manufactured compromise — now threatened lightning, thunder, and torrential floods of death in an armed conflict. Was there anyone in the nation who was up to that challenge?

For the second time in its short history, the National Republican Party met in a convention to select a presidential candidate. Two names immediately circulated in the conversations among the delegates. New York Senator William Seward and Abraham Lincoln, a relative newcomer on the national scene, were the only serious candidates considered during that May 1860 Chicago convention. In an amazing story — and a reminder that the “outsider” sometimes vaults into the “inside” lane — after only three ballots, Lincoln was nominated with Hannibal Hamlin as his running mate.

Today, we know Abraham Lincoln as the man who always makes the list of one of the top five presidents in U.S. history, but in 1860, he was a somewhat unknown quantity. Who was this lanky, philosophically speaking Midwesterner with an “aw, shucks” brilliance?

Lincoln, an Illinois lawyer with a Kentucky frontier childhood that demonstrated his strength, fortitude, and thirst for knowledge, had come to terms with his political desire to serve when, in 1832, at only 23 years of age, he had run for the Illinois House of Representatives. He lost, but two years later, he won, campaigning as a Whig who opposed the spread of slavery. Thirteen years later, he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, where he observed the political process in an attempt to move forward. In 1849, Lincoln introduced a bill that would abolish slavery in the District of Columbia. While the bill failed to move up through the process, it would be included in the Compromise of 1850 and is often seen as the “opening door” for anti-slavery legislation.

In a heated race in 1858, Lincoln challenged incumbent Democrat U.S. Senator Stephen A. Douglas for that seat. (The Lincoln-Douglas debates remain incredible historical documents.) Lincoln was unable to overthrow the “Little Giant,” but he emerged as the poster boy for the new Republican Party and an eloquent spokesman for the issues the party considered critical to the survival of the republic.

Campaigning in those days would seem so mild compared to today’s year-long election process that includes press conferences, multiple debates, billion-dollar budgets, television and multimedia public relations, and more. In 1860, there were few campaign posters and even fewer campaign stops during the months prior to the election. Douglas, ever the orator, gave a series of speeches, and Lincoln, quite the “silver-tongued man of the people,” responded infrequently. Breckenridge and Bell trusted their supporters to vote for them with little encouragement from the candidates themselves.

When the votes were counted following the November 6, 1860, election, Lincoln had won with an Electoral College landslide but with less than 40% of the popular vote. Ooh! He was the president, but over 50% of those who had voted hadn’t voted for him. No political analyst would have predicted an easy road ahead for him, and there would be no smooth path.

What was the actual vote count? Read the numbers and reflect on the challenges Lincoln faced.

Was the Union headed into dissolution?