For above all else he wished to avoid the stirring of any dissension upon side issues or minor points; his hope was to see all opponents of the extension of slavery put aside for a while all other matters, refrain from discussing troublesome details, and unite for the one broad end of putting slavery where "the fathers" had left it, so that the "public mind should rest in the belief that it was in the way of ultimate extinction." He felt it to be fair and right that he should receive the votes of all anti-slavery men; and ultimately he did, with the exception only of the thorough-going Abolitionists.
It was not so very long since he had spoken of the Abolitionist leaders as "friends;" but they did not reciprocate the feeling, nor indeed could reasonably be expected to do so, or to vote the Republican ticket. They were even less willing to vote it with Lincoln at the head of it than if Seward had been there.[[109]] But Republicanism itself under any leader was distinctly at odds with their views; for when they said "abolition" they meant accurately what they said, and abolition certainly was impossible under the Constitution. The Republicans, and Lincoln personally, with equal directness acknowledged the supremacy of the Constitution. Lincoln, therefore, plainly asserted a policy which the Abolitionists equally plainly condemned. In their eyes, to be a party to a contract maintaining slavery throughout a third of a continent
was only a trifle less criminal than aiding to extend it over another third. Yet it should be said that the Abolitionists were not all of one mind, and some voted the Republican ticket as being at least a step in the right direction. Joshua R. Giddings was a member of the Republican Convention which nominated Lincoln. But Wendell Phillips, always an extremist among extremists, published an article entitled "Abraham Lincoln, the Slave-hound of Illinois," whereof the keynote was struck in this introductory sentence: "We gibbet a Northern hound to-day, side by side with the infamous Mason of Virginia." Mr. Garrison, a man of far larger and sounder intellectual powers than belonged to Phillips, did not fancy this sort of diatribe, though five months earlier he had accused the Republican party of "slavish subserviency to the Union," and declared it to be "still insanely engaged in glorifying the Union and pledging itself to frown upon all attempts to dissolve it." Undeniably men who held these views could not honestly vote for Mr. Lincoln.
The popular vote and the electoral vote were as follows:[[110]] —
Li: Abraham Lincoln, Illinois.
Do: Stephen A. Douglas, Illinois.
Br: John C. Breckenridge, Kentucky.
Be: John Bell, Tennessee.
| Popular Vote | Electoral Vote | |||||||
| Li | Do | Br | Be | Li | Do | Br | Be | |
| Maine | 62,811 | 26,693 | 6,368 | 2,046 | 8 | — | — | — |
| New Hampshire | 37,519 | 25,881 | 2,112 | 441 | 5 | — | — | — |
| Vermont | 33,808 | 6,849 | 218 | 1,969 | 5 | — | — | — |
| Massachusetts | 106,533 | 34,372 | 5,939 | 22,231 | 13 | — | — | — |
| Rhode Island | 12,244 | [[B]]7,707 | — | — | 4 | — | — | — |
| Connecticut | 43,792 | 15,522 | 14,641 | 3,291 | 6 | — | — | — |
| New York | 362,646 | [[B]]312,510 | — | — | 35 | — | — | — |
| New Jersey | 58,324 | [[B]]62,801 | — | — | 4 | 3 | — | — |
| Pennsylvania | 268,030 | 16,765 | [[B]]178,871 | 12,776 | 27 | — | — | — |
| Delaware | 3,815 | 1,023 | 7,337 | 3,864 | — | — | 3 | — |
| Maryland | 2,294 | 5,966 | 42,482 | 41,760 | — | — | 8 | — |
| Virginia | 1,929 | 16,290 | 74,323 | 74,681 | — | — | — | 15 |
| North Carolina | — | 2,701 | 48,539 | 44,990 | — | — | 10 | — |
| South Carolina[[A]] | — | — | — | — | — | — | 8 | — |
| Georgia | — | 11,590 | 51,889 | 42,886 | — | — | 10 | — |
| Florida | — | 367 | 8,543 | 5,437 | — | — | 3 | — |
| Alabama | — | 13,651 | 48,831 | 27,875 | — | — | 9 | — |
| Mississippi | — | 3,283 | 40,797 | 25,040 | — | — | 7 | — |
| Louisiana | — | 7,625 | 22,861 | 20,204 | — | — | 6 | — |
| Texas | — | — | 47,548 | [[B]]15,438 | — | — | 4 | — |
| Arkansas | — | 5,227 | 28,732 | 20,094 | — | — | 4 | — |
| Missouri | 17,028 | 58,801 | 31,317 | 58,372 | — | 9 | — | — |
| Tennessee | — | 11,350 | 64,709 | 69,274 | — | — | — | 12 |
| Kentucky | 1,364 | 25,651 | 53,143 | 66,058 | — | — | — | 12 |
| Ohio | 231,610 | 187,232 | 11,405 | 12,194 | 23 | — | — | — |
| Michigan | 88,480 | 65,057 | 805 | 405 | 6 | — | — | — |
| Indiana | 139,033 | 115,509 | 12,295 | 5,306 | 13 | — | — | — |
| Illinois | 172,161 | 160,215 | 2,404 | 4,913 | 11 | — | — | — |
| Wisconsin | 86,110 | 65,021 | 888 | 161 | 5 | — | — | — |
| Minnesota | 22,069 | 11,920 | 748 | 62 | 4 | — | — | — |
| Iowa | 70,409 | 55,111 | 1,048 | 1,763 | 4 | — | — | — |
| California | 39,173 | 38,516 | 34,334 | 6,817 | 4 | — | — | — |
| Oregon | 5,270 | 3,951 | 5,006 | 183 | 3 | — | — | — |
| Totals | 1,866,452 | 1,375,157 | 847,953 | 590,631 | 180 | 12 | 72 | 39 |
Messrs. Nicolay and Hay say that Lincoln was the "indisputable choice of the American people," and by way of sustaining the statement say that, if the "whole voting strength of the three opposing parties had been united upon a single candidate,
Lincoln would nevertheless have been chosen with only a trifling diminution of his electoral majority."[[111]] It might be better to say that Lincoln was the "indisputable choice" of the electoral college. The "American people" fell enormously short of showing a majority in his favor. His career as president was made infinitely more difficult as well as greatly more creditable to him by reason of the very fact that he was not the choice of the American people, but of less than half of them,—and this, too, even if the Confederate States be excluded from the computation.[[112]]