History Buffs show Visitors how 1860 Election was Carried Out

But also, said history buff Tom Downes, because a candidate for president was considered too good to campaign for himself. "[Abraham] Lincoln sat in his house in Springfield. It was his electors who kissed the babies," said Downes, a machinist who is also captain of a Civil War re-enactment unit in northeast Ohio. Downes and other members of the Eighth Ohio Volunteer Infantry, which usually does war re-enactments, gave the public a taste of the 1860 presidential election yesterday at James Garfield's historic house on Mentor Ave. - where Garfield himself sat through his election 20 years later.