President Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln nomination for Presidency of the United States

Abraham Lincoln lost the debates and Abraham Lincoln lost the election. But Abraham Lincoln won something much larger. Abraham Lincoln won the attention of the nation and the Republican Party. In 1860, when Abraham Lincoln was 52 years old, they offered him the nomination for Presidency of the United States.

In the 1800s it was considered undignified for a candidate to do his own campaigning - so Abraham Lincoln sat back and watched while his followers did it for him. Their work was made somewhat easier by the fact that the Democratic Party split into two factions, which competed against each other. In the end Abraham Lincoln won all the electoral votes needed to put him in office. But more Americans voted against Abraham Lincoln than for him, and Abraham Lincoln lost the popular vote. Nearly all of Abraham Lincoln 's popular and electoral votes came from the North. When he took the oath of office of President of the United States, it was already a nation divided.

Nation divided under Abraham Lincoln

The first state to secede from the Union was South Carolina. It was followed quickly by six others, and then four more. The Confederate States of America had been born, and for the first time in one hundred years, the future of the Union was in doubt.