"The election of Mr. Lincoln would be a calamity, but the triumph of the Southern seceders who broke up the Democratic Party at Charleston and Baltimore is a greater danger. They seek to force a federal slave code upon the territories against the will of the people, thereby destroying the great principle of popular sovereignty upon which our party and the Union rest. If we yield to their demands, we consent to the doctrine that Congress must actively establish and protect slavery everywhere, even where the local population has voted to exclude it."
—Stephen A. Douglas, campaign speech, 1860
The debate described in the excerpt most directly contributed to which of the following outcomes in the presidential election of 1860?
- AThe rejection of popular sovereignty by Northern voters, who increasingly embraced the immediate and uncompensated abolition of slavery throughout the nation.
- BThe emergence of a consensus among Southern Whigs and Democrats that federal tariff policies, rather than the expansion of slavery, posed the greatest threat to Southern autonomy.
- The division of the Democratic Party into regional factions, which allowed the Republican candidate to win the presidency through a purely sectional electoral majority.Cevap
- DThe unification of border-state moderates under a platform advocating for the federal government's right to restrict slavery in the territories.
Cevap
The division of the Democratic Party into regional factions, which allowed the Republican candidate to win the presidency through a purely sectional electoral majority.
The division of the Democratic Party into Northern and Southern factions split the Democratic vote, while the Constitutional Unionist Party carried the border states. This fragmentation allowed Abraham Lincoln, the Republican candidate, to carry the populous Northern and Western states and win a majority in the Electoral College without winning any electoral votes in the South.
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Political Realignment and the Election of 1860