d slavery
restriction--and, reaching beyond even this, the issue so clearly
presented by Lincoln whether the States ultimately should become all
slave or all free. In the whole history of American polities the
voters of the United States never pronounced a more deliberate
judgment than that which they recorded upon these grave questions at
the Presidential election in November, 1860.

From much doubt and uncertainty at its beginning, the campaign swept
onward through the summer months, first to a probability, then to an
assurance of Republican success. In September the State of Maine
elected a Republican governor by 18,000 majority. In October the
pivotal States gave decisive Republican majorities: Pennsylvania
32,000 for governor, Indiana nearly 10,000 for governor, and Ohio
12,000 for State ticket and 27,000 on Congressmen. Politicians
generally conceded that the vote in these States clearly foreshadowed
Lincoln's election. The prophecy not only proved correct, but the tide
of popular conviction and enthusiasm, rising still higher, carried to
his support other States which were yet considered uncertain.

The Presidential election occurred on November 6,1860. In seventeen of
the free-States--namely, Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode
Island, Connecticut, Vermont, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana,
Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, California, and
Oregon--all the Lincoln electors were chosen. In one of the
free-States (New Jersey) the choice resulted in 4 electors for Lincoln
and 3 for Douglas, as already explained. This assured Lincoln of the
votes of 180 Presidential electors, or a majority of 57 in the whole
electoral college. The 15 slave-States were divided between the other
three candidates. Eleven of them--Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware,
Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, North Carolina,
South Carolina, and Texas--chose Breckinridge electors, 72 in all.
Three of them--Kentucky, Tennessee, and Virginia--chose Bell electors,
39 in all; and one of them--Missouri--Douglas electors, 9 in number,
which, together with the 3 he received in the free-State of New
Jersey, gave him 12 in all: the aggregate of all the electors opposed
to Lincoln being 123.

The will of the people as expressed in this popular vote was in due
time carried into execution. As the law prescribes, the Presidential
electors met in their several States on the 5th of December, and cast
their official votes a