The United States Of America

The Constitution And Democracy

Constitutional Union Party
Constitutional Union Party, a political party organized for the United States election of 1860. It comprised old-line Whig and remnants of the American party. Persuaded that the agitation over the slavery question could lead only to the disruption of the Union, its founders presented no platform other than a vague appeal for adherence to the Constitution, the Union, and the laws of the United States.

Meeting in Baltimore in May 1860, the party nominated John Bell of Tennessee for president and Edward Everett of Massachusetts for Vice President. In the November election the Constitutional Union party found its greatest strength among conservatives in the border states, where the effects of civil conflict were especially feared, although the ticket was supported throughout the nation.

Bell trailed the Republican candidate, Abraham LINCOLN , and the two Democratic nominees, Stephen A. Douglas and John C. BRECKINRIDGE , receiving 591,658 popular votes (only 12.6% of the total). He carried the states of Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee with 39 Electoral votes. Leaders of the party, in the ensuing months, called for reconciliation of the sections through a compromise of the slavery issue, but without success.

With the coming of the Civil War the Constitutional Union Party disappeared from the political scene.

Robert W. Johannsen
University of Illinois