On November 6, 1860, Abraham Lincoln became the 16th president of the United States by winning only 40% of the popular vote. He was the first Republican to win the presidency, and he faced a democratic party that was hugely divided over the slavery issue. There were three other candidates: Southern Democrat John C. Breckinridge(for slavery), Constitutional Union candidate John Bell, and Northern Democrat Stephen Douglas(for each territory to decide on allowing slavery or not), a U.S. senator for Illinois. Lincoln had run against Stephen Douglas for a U.S. Senate seat in 1858 and had lost, but it had made him well-known across the nation then helped him to win the Republican party’s presidential nomination in 1860. When Lincoln won the presidency that year, the Southern states threatened to leave the Union if the Republicans gained the White House.
The Southern states began leaving the Union that winter after Lincoln had won the election. Jefferson Davis was one of the leaders, and his fellow Southerners wanted to make him their president. So the states that had left the Union met in February 1861 and decided that Davis should be their president. One year after Lincoln was elected president of the United States, on November 6, 1861, Jefferson Davis was voted in to be the president of the Confederate States of America for a 6 year term. He was afraid of what lay ahead, “Upon my weary heart was showered smiles, plaudits, and flowers, but beyond them I saw troubles and thorns innumerable.” He was right and only stayed president until May 5, 1865, when the Confederate government came to an end.
