1860 election

[Thomas Thorne]

I have yet to see any comparison between this years' election and 1860.

The idea of an old fashioned open political convention actually deciding who the candidate will be, is fascinating and was the norm during most of our history.

On a purely static analysis, Lincoln would have won a majority of the 1860 electoral vote with only 39% of the popular vote even if Douglas, Breckinridge and Bell's popular vote had been combine.

The political history of the 1850's can be interpreted as how the Democratic Party threw away its majority in the free states by catering to Southern Democrats demands for the expansion of Slavery.

That Stephen Douglas who had carried so much water for the South and his devoted following in the North could be lumped in with the Republicans by Southern Democrats in 1860 is striking. There is evidence that many of Douglas's followers in the Kansas Nebraska fracas subsequently became Republicans after Douglas revolted against Buchanan and the South for their repudiation of Douglas's conception of popular sovereignty.

Tom