Presidential elections were held in the United States on November 4, 1856. Democratic nominee James Buchanan defeated Republican nominee John C. Frémont and Know Nothing/Whig nominee Millard Fillmore. The main issue was the expansion of slavery as facilitated by the Kansas–Nebraska Act of 1854. Buchanan defeated President Franklin Pierce at the 1856 Democratic National Convention for the nomination. Pierce had become widely unpopular in the North because of his support for the pro-slavery faction in the ongoing civil war in territorial Kansas, and Buchanan, a former Secretary of State, had avoided the divisive debates over the Kansas–Nebraska Act by being in Europe as the Ambassador to the United Kingdom.
Presidential elections were held in the United States on November 6, 1860. The Republican Party ticket of Abraham Lincoln and Hannibal Hamlin won a national popular plurality, a popular majority in the North where states had already abolished slavery, and a national electoral majority comprising only Northern electoral votes. Lincoln's election thus served as the main catalyst of the states that would become the Confederacy seceding from the Union. This marked the first time that a Republican was elected president. It was also the first presidential election in which both major party candidates were registered in the same home state; the others have been in 1904, 1920, 1940, 1944, and 2016. Lincoln's 39.7% of the popular vote is to date the lowest for any winner not decided by a contingent election.
Presidential elections were held in the United States on November 8, 1864, near the end of the American Civil War. Incumbent President Abraham Lincoln of the National Union Party easily defeated the Democratic nominee, former General George B. McClellan, by a wide margin of 212–21 in the electoral college, with 55% of the popular vote. For the election, the Republican Party and some Democrats created the National Union Party, especially to attract War Democrats.
The Constitutional Union Party was a political party which stood in the 1860 United States elections. It mostly consisted of conservative former Whigs from the Southern United States who wanted to avoid secession over slavery and refused to join either the Republican Party or Democratic Party. The Constitutional Union Party campaigned on a simple platform "to recognize no political principle other than the Constitution of the country, the Union of the states, and the Enforcement of the Laws".
Southern Democrats are members of the U.S. Democratic Party who reside in the Southern United States.
The 1860 Democratic National Conventions were a series of presidential nominating conventions held to nominate the Democratic Party's candidates for president and vice president in the 1860 election.
The 1860–61 United States House of Representatives elections were held on various dates in various states between August 6, 1860, and October 24, 1861, before or after the first session of the 37th United States Congress convened on July 4, 1861. The number of House seats initially increased to 239 when California was apportioned an extra one, but these elections were affected by the outbreak of the American Civil War and resulted in over 56 vacancies.
The 36th United States Congress was a meeting of the legislative branch of the United States federal government, consisting of the United States Senate and the United States House of Representatives. It met in Washington, D.C. from March 4, 1859, to March 4, 1861, during the third and fourth years of James Buchanan's presidency. The apportionment of seats in the House of Representatives was based on the 1850 United States census. The Senate had a Democratic majority, and the House had a Republican plurality.
The National Union Party, commonly the Union Party or Unionists, was a wartime coalition of Republicans, War Democrats, and border state Unconditional Unionists that supported the Lincoln Administration during the American Civil War. It held the 1864 National Union Convention that nominated Abraham Lincoln for president and Andrew Johnson for vice president in the 1864 United States presidential election. Following Lincoln's successful re-election and assassination, Johnson tried and failed to sustain the Union Party as a vehicle for his presidential ambitions. The coalition did not contest the 1868 elections, but the Republican Party continued to use the "Union Republican" label throughout the period of Reconstruction.
The Illinois Republican Party is the affiliate of the Republican Party in the U.S. state of Illinois founded on May 29, 1856. It is run by the Illinois Republican State Central Committee, which consists of 17 members, one representing each of the state's congressional districts. Once the dominant party in Illinois, the state GOP has become a minority party within the last few decades, holding little power in the state. The current chairman is Kathy Salvi, who has served since 2024.
Stephen Arnold Douglas was an American politician and lawyer from Illinois. A U.S. Senator, he was one of two nominees of the badly split Democratic Party to run for president in the 1860 presidential election, which was won by Republican candidate Abraham Lincoln. Douglas had previously defeated Lincoln in the 1858 United States Senate election in Illinois, known for the pivotal Lincoln–Douglas debates. He was one of the brokers of the Compromise of 1850, which sought to avert a sectional crisis; to further deal with the volatile issue of extending slavery into the territories, Douglas became the foremost advocate of popular sovereignty, which held that each territory should be allowed to determine whether to permit slavery within its borders. This attempt to address the issue was rejected by both pro-slavery and anti-slavery advocates. Douglas was nicknamed the "Little Giant" because he was short in physical stature but a forceful and dominant figure in politics.
The 1858–59 United States Senate elections were held on various dates in various states. As these U.S. Senate elections were prior to the ratification of the Seventeenth Amendment in 1913, senators were chosen by state legislatures. Senators were elected over a wide range of time throughout 1858 and 1859, and a seat may have been filled months late or remained vacant due to legislative deadlock. In these elections, terms were up for the senators in Class 2.
The 1988 United States elections were held on November 8 and elected the president of the United States and members of the 101st United States Congress. Republican Vice President George H. W. Bush defeated Democratic Governor of Massachusetts Michael Dukakis. Despite Dukakis' defeat, the Democratic Party built on their majorities in Congress.
The 1960 United States elections were held on November 8, and elected the members of the 87th United States Congress. Democratic Senator John F. Kennedy narrowly defeated Republican incumbent Vice President Richard Nixon in the presidential election, and although Republicans made gains in both chambers of Congress, the Democratic Party easily maintained control of Congress.
The political career of John C. Breckinridge included service in the state government of Kentucky, the Federal government of the United States, as well as the government of the Confederate States of America. In 1857, 36 years old, he was inaugurated as Vice President of the United States under James Buchanan. He remains the youngest person to ever hold the office. Four years later, he ran as the presidential candidate of a dissident group of Southern Democrats, but lost the election to the Republican candidate Abraham Lincoln.
The 1884 United States elections were held on November 4, electing the members of the 49th United States Congress. The election took place during the Third Party System. The Democratic governor Grover Cleveland of New York defeated Republican secretary of state James G. Blaine in the presidential election. In Congress, the Republicans retained control of the Senate while Democrats maintained control of the House of Representatives. This marks the last election in U.S. history in which the Democratic president came to office without unified control of Congress.
The 1856 United States elections elected the members of the 35th United States Congress and the President to serve from 1857 until 1861. The elections took place during a major national debate over slavery, with the issue of "Bleeding Kansas" taking center stage. Along with the 1854 elections, these elections occurred during the transitional period immediately preceding the Third Party System. Old party lines were broken; new party alignments along sectional lines were in the process of formation. The Republican Party absorbed the Northern anti-slavery representatives who had been elected in 1854 under the "Opposition Party" ticket as the second-most powerful party in Congress. Minnesota and Oregon joined the union before the next election, and elected their respective congressional delegations to the 35th Congress.
The 1832 United States elections elected the members of the 23rd United States Congress. Taking place during the Second Party System and a political conflict over the re-authorization of the Second Bank of the United States, the elections were contested between Andrew Jackson's Democratic Party and opponents of Jackson, including the National Republicans. Though the Democrats retained the presidency and the House, they lost their Senate majority. The Anti-Masonic Party also fielded the first notable presidential candidacy from a third party.
The 1860 United States presidential election in Virginia took place on November 6, 1860, as part of the 1860 United States presidential election. Voters chose 15 representatives, or electors to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.
