Senator John C. Breckinridge remained at home on election day in Lexington, Kentucky. While Breckinridge carried eleven southern states, it was not enough to prevent a Republican victory. Even his home state of Kentucky had failed him and voted for Constitutional Union candidate John Bell. The 1860 election marked Breckinridge’s ”first political defeat,” as historian William C. Davis notes. (By Don Sailer)
Source Citation
William C. Davis, Breckinridge: Statesman, Soldier, Symbol (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1974), 246-248.
Record Data
Date Certainty
Exact
Type
Campaigns/Elections
