So, what do we already know about that election? Most Americans know how the election of Lincoln led to the secession of the slave south and ushered in four years of bloody civil war. And many Americans may remember how the Democratic Party split in 1860, which helped catapult Lincoln to the presidency – despite only receiving 39% of the popular vote.
Fewer Americans can name all four presidential candidates or perhaps even explain the platform of the Constitutional Union Party (spoiler alert: they supported the Constitution and the Union without a firm stance on the hot button issue of slavery).
Yet everyone knows that presidential candidates require running mates for what John Adams once called, “the most insignificant office that ever the Invention of man contrived or his Imagination conceived”: the Vice Presidency. While obscure to us today, these figures possessed enough political renown in their own time to be considered viable candidates for this position.
Who were these men who could have held such a sway during the worst war our country has ever seen?
