How did abraham lincoln become president in USA?
The Democratic party was seriously divided. Stephen Douglas was the candidate for the Northern Democrats, and the Lincoln Douglas debates took place in the Illinois US Senate race of 1858, lots of people get confused because both were presidential candidates in 1860. For the Southern democrats there was John Breckenridge, the Constitutional Union party was represented by John Bell, and the Republican Party’s second candidate was Abraham Lincoln of Illinois. Its often the case that a divided party will elect its principal opponent. This was what got Woodrow Wilson elected in 1912 when Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft split the Republican vote, and almost got Thomas Dewey elected in 1948 when Harry Truman and Strom Thurmond split the Democratic vote.
