On November 6, 1860, Abraham Lincoln won the U.S. presidential election as the candidate of the Republican Party. He carried every free state except New Jersey, while failing to win a single slave state. His victory on an anti-slavery-expansion platform alarmed Southern leaders. Within weeks, South Carolina moved toward secession, followed by other Southern states. The election exposed deep regional divisions that politics had failed to resolve. Lincoln’s win set the stage for the secession crisis and the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861.
