The Election of Abraham Lincoln

Drew Dickerson

AP US History

DBQ

The election of Abraham Lincoln and subsequent secession of South Carolina prompted a flurry of compromise proposals designed to halt the momentum of secession.

The most important of these came in December, when Kentucky Senator John Crittenden and his colleagues attempted to create peace between the two sections through a package of amendments and acts, which came to be known as the Crittenden Compromise. Many look at the deal as unrealistic and doomed from the beginning, because of opposition from President-elect Lincoln. But even though the proposal failed, it offered a valuable window onto the complex political landscape that winter.

Lincoln ran for presidency as the Republican candidate in the election of 1860. He ended receiving 1,866,452 popular votes (40% of overall) and 180 electoral votes out of 303.

In a bit more than a month after winning the election, Lincoln sent a letter to Senator Lyman Trumbull saying "Let there be no compromise on the question of extending slavery. Have none of it." Lincoln was determined to make the United States a slave-free nation and was not going to let anything get in the way of the Republican Party. This was the fierce attitude with which Lincoln approached the Crittenden Compromise, when it was proposed a week later.

The Crittenden Compromise, which consisted of a preamble, six constitutional amendments, and four Congressional resolutions, was one of the few final attempts to resolve the high tension situation between the North and the South. In summary, the compromise guaranteed the existence of slavery to the south and in pre-existing slavery tolerating states, and its sixth article further states that: "No future amendments of the Constitution shall affect the five preceding articles." Quite a few southern delegates supported the compromise, seeing how slavery will be granted permanent protection in the United States; however, the Republicans rejected the Crittenden Compromise. Under threat of secession from the South, Lincoln bluntly refused to consider the compromise, stating that "we are told in advance, the government shall be broken up, unless we surrender to those we have beaten: if we surrender, it is the end of us." At this point, Lincoln's advice to his fellow Republican senators and congressmen was paramount to the rejection