"I would much like to visit the old home, and old friends of my boyhood, but I fear the chance of doing so soon is not very good.
"Your friend and sincere well-wisher,
"A. Lincoln."
The election was held on the sixth of November, 1860, and the result showed a popular vote for Lincoln of 1,857,600; for Douglas, 1,365,976; for Breckenridge, 847,953, and for Bell, 590,631. In the electoral college, Lincoln received 180 votes, Breckenridge, 72, Bell 39, and Douglas 12.
Because of an election of a Northern man for President, and fearing their "peculiar institution" was in danger, the Southern States began the organization of the Southern Confederacy, and when Mr. Lincoln was inaugurated, March 4, 1861, seven Southern States had passed ordinances of secession, followed later by four other States. Jefferson Davis, of Mississippi, was chosen President of the Southern Confederacy.
Mr. Lincoln's inaugural address was noted for its sentiments of good will and forbearance, yet he strongly indicated his purpose to maintain the Union. He stated that he had no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with slavery where it then existed, and that the people of the South could have no war unless they became the aggressors.
Stephen A. Douglas, Mr. Lincoln's old political rival, and who was also a presidential candidate at the time of Mr. Lincoln's election, held Mr. Lincoln's hat while he read his inaugural address, and stated to those near him, "If I can't be President, I can hold his hat." James Parton, the historian, said of Mr. Douglas: "On the breaking out of the Rebellion, in 1861, Stephen A. Douglas gave his hand to President Lincoln and engaged to stand by him in his efforts to save the country. But his days were numbered. During his herculean labors of the previous year he had sustained himself by deep draughts of whisky; and his constitution gave way at the very time when a new and nobler career opened up before him." He died in Chicago, June 3, 1861, at the age of forty-eight years, and only three months after Mr. Lincoln's inauguration.