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1858-eo] Lincoln elected President. 445 branded as a party apostate by his Democratic presidential rivals ; the schism broke up the Charleston Convention, and severed the Democratic party into two irreconcilable factions. The prudent attitude which Lincoln maintained in his speeches between the extremes of radical and conservative opinion on the slavery issue rendered him the most suitable man to unite the somewhat heterogeneous elements of the new Republican party ; and the National Republican Convention at Chicago in May, 1860, nominated him for President of the United States on the third ballot, over Seward, Chase, Cameron, Bates, and other prominent leaders. Six months later the suffrages of the American people con- firmed the choice of the Chicago Convention. In the election of November 6, 1860, the popular vote chose a constitutional majority of presidential electors, who a month later (December 5) cast 180 votes for Lincoln. Of the other three candidates, Breckinridge received 72 votes, Bell 39, and Douglas 12, Lincoln's majority over them collectively being 57. Practically it was the vote of the eighteen Free States of the Union against the vote of the fifteen Slave States divided among three candidates. Even had there been only one instead of three opposing candidates, Lincoln would still have been returned by the electoral college. A complete fusion of the opposition vote, such as wholly or partly occurred in five States, would have only diminished his electoral majority to 35. The verdict thus expressed gave notice to the South that its dream of slavery extension was over, and that thereafter the North held the political balance of power. But it is to be remarked that a majority of the popular vote, even when the States of the Confederacy were excluded, was against him. He was the choice of a minority a fact which renders his career as President still more remarkable. While this portended no danger to the Slave States, South Carolina immediately led off in the long-meditated scheme of secession. Already a month before, her then governor had sounded other Slave State executives on the project; and, though receiving but meagre assurance of support, he now convened his legislature in special session, and sent it a revolutionary message. In response, that body provided for promptly choosing a State convention, and enacted various military measures. On December 20, 1860, the newly elected convention passed an ordinance of secession. A week earlier, on December 14, about one-half of the senators and representatives in Congress from the Slave States issued at Wash- ington a manifesto addressed "To our Constituents," in which they announced that the honour, safety, and independence of the southern people required the organisation of a Southern Confederacy, and that the primary object of each slave-holding State ought to be its speedy and absolute separation from a union with hostile States. Such a recommendation naturally brought the elements of revolution CH. XIV.