The Temper of the Southern Mind as the 1860 Election Approached

Americans who think today’s elections are bitter should look back at 1860. As the presidential election approached that fall, the country was more divided than at any time in its history. In South Carolina, the Charleston Mercury reported that Minute Men were organizing across the state “for any emergency that may arise in the present perilous position of the Southern States.”

The Charleston Mercury

The Charleston Mercury was owned by Robert Barnwell Rhett, one of the South’s most outspoken defenders of states’ rights, and edited by his son. For years, the paper had argued that the Southern states would only be safe if they governed themselves. By 1860, many South Carolinians agreed.

The Minute Men of 1860

In the fall of 1860, volunteer companies calling themselves Minute Men formed in towns and districts across South Carolina. The name was a deliberate tribute to the Minute Men of 1775, who had stood ready to defend their communities at a minute’s notice during the American Revolution. Members often wore blue cockades on their hats and pledged to defend their state if it came to that.

A Four-Way Race

The election of 1860 was unlike any other. The Democratic Party split in two. Northern Democrats nominated Stephen Douglas, while Southern Democrats chose John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky. A new Constitutional Union Party nominated John Bell of Tennessee. The Republicans nominated Abraham Lincoln.

Lincoln was not even on the ballot in ten Southern states. On November 6, 1860, he won the presidency with about 40 percent of the popular vote, carrying almost no support outside the North. Breckinridge carried most of the South.

What Came Next

South Carolina did not wait long. On December 20, 1860, a convention in Charleston voted unanimously to leave the Union. Within weeks, six more states followed, and in February 1861 they formed the Confederate States of America.

Read about how the Confederacy grew in our post on the 7, 11 and 13 rebel states, and browse our Confederate flag collection.

Source: Civil War Obsession: The Temper of the Southern Mind, as the 1860 Election Approached

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