Constitutional Union Party

THE CONSTITUTIONAL UNION Party was one of several short-lived parties that materialized in the politically turbulent years preceding the American Civil War. Founded in December 1859, by Kentucky's John J. Crittenden and other conservative, pro-compromise legislators in the border slave states, the fleeting party pinned its improbable hopes on a simple, albeit vague, platform: to recognize no political principle other than “the Constitution of the country, the union of the states, and the enforcement of the laws.”

Like the Know-Nothing Party during their campaign for the presidency in 1856, the Constitutional Unionists also remained ambiguous about the central political issue of the day. Conspicuously absent from both platforms was a position on the bitterly divisive issue of slavery. The strategy in the 1860 election was to frame the issue of stability as paramount. By presenting a simple platform that appealed to nationalism and unity, the Constitutional Union Party essentially hoped to trump the slavery issue by ignoring it. But this would prove unlikely in a four-way presidential race including the Republican Abraham Lincoln.

Fueled by the collapse of the once-formidable Whig Party, the Constitutional Union effort was a last-ditch attempt to prevent a secessionist movement in the south. The highly controversial Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 had galvanized deep geopolitical fractures that threatened the stability of the union by opening the door to settlements of the two new states, and granting settlers the right to decide for themselves if slavery would be legal. The new law effectively reversed the policy laid out in the Missouri Compromise, which would have maintained equilibrium between the number of slave states and anti-slave states. It was a popular belief that the nation would split because of the issue, but the Constitutional Unionists maintained that unity was essential.

The party's only national convention was held in Baltimore, in May 1860, attended mostly by former Know-Nothings and elderly southern Whigs. The party nominated Tennessean John Bell as their presidential candidate. A former speaker of the House of Representatives and U.S. senator, Bell was the only southern senator to vote against the Kansas-Nebraska Act. Governor Sam Houston of Texas was also strongly considered for the nomination, but his disdain for campaigning and absence at the convention relegated him to second place. Had Houston gone to Baltimore and given a speech to the party faithful, he may have gotten the support needed for the nomination. Instead, Bell and his vice presidential nominee Edward Everett, the ex-governor, and statesman from Massachusetts were nominated.

For the most part, the Constitutional Unionists were ridiculed and scorned because of their refusal to take a position on slavery during the campaign of 1860. The party garnered 590,901 votes, 12.6 percent of the popular vote in the November election.

It also captured a total of 39 Electoral College votes in the border states of Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee; states which potentially had the most to lose if the union were to dissolve. But the sectional split of the Democrats into northern and southern factions made for a crowded race. The Constitutional Unionists finished fourth, behind the southern Democratic candidate John C. Breckinridge and the second place candidate, northern Democrat Stephen Douglas. But the Bell-Everett showing in the mid-south was no match for Abraham Lincoln and the surging Republican Party as it solidified itself as a perennial player in the American system.

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