He carried every Northern state except Missouri and New Jersey. He received one hundred and eighty electoral notes. Breckenridge carried every Southern state except the "border states" of Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee, and received seventy-two electoral votes. Bell carried the three "border" Southern states and Douglas carried Missouri and New Jersey. There was no doubt as to Lincoln's election. He had received a great majority of the electoral votes. But his opponents had received more popular votes than he had received. He was therefore elected by a minority of the voters.

Lincoln had been elected by a minority of the people. He had been elected by the people of one section. Other Presidents had been chosen by minorities. But Lincoln was the first man to be chosen President by the people of one section. The Republicans, moreover, had not elected a majority of the members of the House of Representatives, and the Senate was still in the hands of the Democrats. For two years at least the Republicans could not carry out their ideas. They could not repeal the Kansas-Nebraska Act. They could not admit Kansas to the Union as a free state. They could not carry out one bit of their policy. In their platform they had declared that they had no intention to interfere with slavery in the states. Lincoln had said over and over again that Congress had no right to meddle with slavery in the states.