{"id":3077,"date":"2010-07-26T14:38:15","date_gmt":"2010-07-26T19:38:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/?p=3077"},"modified":"2010-07-26T22:31:55","modified_gmt":"2010-07-27T03:31:55","slug":"election-of-1860-john-breckinridge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/2010\/07\/26\/election-of-1860-john-breckinridge\/","title":{"rendered":"Election of 1860 – John Breckinridge"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a> After southern Democratic delegates in Baltimore, Maryland refused to accept Senator Stephen Douglas<\/a> as a candidate for the election of 1860, they nominated<\/a> Vice President John C. Breckinridge<\/a> on June 23, 1860. Soon after Breckinridge’s campaign biography was published, which one can read online at archive.org<\/a>. Some editors saw Breckinridge’s campaign and, in particular his supporters, as a serious threat to the Union. The Lowell (MA) Citizen & News<\/em>, which supported the Republican party, warned that the group’s ultimate goal was secession. \u201cThere [were] many prominent southern supporters of Breckinridge and Lane <\/a>who go for that ticket \u2026[because it] will be most likely to achieve\u2026a dissolution of the Union,\u201d the Citizen & News<\/em> argued<\/a>. Southern newspapers like the Charlestown (VA) Free Press<\/em>, which supported the Constitutional Union party, reached a similar conclusion. \u201cNo sane man can doubt that a dissolution of the Union is the ultimate object of the Seceders who put up Breckinridge and Lane as their leaders,\u201d as the Free Press<\/em> concluded<\/a>. Editors who backed other candidates wanted Breckinridge to explain what actions he would recommend in the event of a Republican victory in November 1860. After a speech in Lexington, Kentucky, the Richmond (VA) Whig<\/em> noted <\/a>that \u201c[Breckinridge] did not say<\/em>, nor did he dare say<\/em>, what course he would advise the Seceding and Disunion party\u2026to take in case a Black Republican President\u201d win the election. The (Jackson) Mississippian<\/em>, however, used the same speech to reach the opposite conclusion. \u201cIt [was] a great speech, perfectly overwhelming in its refutation of the charges\u2026of \u2018disunion,\u2019\u201d as the Mississippian<\/em> explained<\/a>. (The full text of Breckinridge’s speech is available in an articled published on the New York Times’<\/a><\/em> website<\/a>). Breckinridge, as the Mississippian<\/em> argued<\/a>, \u201chad always been the able and faithful champion of \u2018the Union, the Constitution, and the equality of the States.\u2019\u201d Breckinridge attempted to bridge the sectional divide after Lincoln\u2019s victory in November 1860, but twelve months after the election he joined the Confederate army as a brigadier general. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After southern Democratic delegates in Baltimore, Maryland refused to accept Senator Stephen Douglas as a candidate for the election of 1860, they nominated Vice President John C. Breckinridge on June 23, 1860. Soon after Breckinridge’s campaign biography was published, which one can read online at archive.org. Some editors saw Breckinridge’s campaign and, in particular his […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[77,171],"tags":[158],"class_list":["post-3077","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-antebellum-1840-1861","category-historic-periodicals","tag-campaigns-elections"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3077","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3077"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3077\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3080,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3077\/revisions\/3080"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3077"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3077"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3077"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}