Politicians today as well as yesterday must appeal to the masses to have any chance at being elected into office. Leading up to and during the election of 1860, with tensions rising between the North and South, the issue of slavery was a key to winning the election. Abraham Lincoln “had repeatedly affirmed that Congress had no constitutional right to interfere with slavery in the South” (Enduring Vision, p. 399). This modest view is what won him the Republican nomination as presidential candidate as well as a victory in the 1860 election over Democrat Stephen Douglas, who wrote the Nebraska-Kansas Act and was very adamant about popular sovereignty in the new territories concerning slavery. Due to pressures from radicals within the Republican Party Lincoln would change from his modest, self-contained antislavery standpoint to making emancipation of the slaves a war goal of the civil war. He was just practicing good politics to ensure his re-nomination and his re-election in 1864.The Republicans lost the election of 1856 by a very small margin and knew that if they wanted to win in ’60 they would have to present a candidate that appealed to a larger audience. With the development of a couple of new federal programs and a candidate, Lincoln, who shared the modest “non-interference” view on slavery with the previous President the Republicans carried enough votes to win the election. From the very beginning Lincoln was used almost as a puppet to win votes and insure victory for his Republican Party members and many Southerners believed that he would be a “front man for more John Browns” (Enduring Vision, p. 400). The South believed this so strongly that by February 1, 1861 seven states had seceded from the Union. Lincoln put great faith in his southern supporters and believed that the secession would not last long because of the loyalist support. He was wrong; men living in the South who supported ...
