1860 Presidential Election

1860 VAP uses the Census national resident population age 21 and over: 14,880,000, published in Table 1 of Nonvoting Americans (P23-102, April 1980). Voting age was 21 in every state. This population includes women, enslaved adults and other people barred from voting. “Did Not Vote” is a population comparison residual, not a count of eligible people who chose not to vote. South Carolina’s legislature selected its electors without a presidential popular vote. The APP popular-vote series covers 32 states and assigns some fusion tickets to a single candidate; it is not a count of unique direct votes for each nominee. Stephen A. Douglas and John Bell have distinct colors and separate segments in both the electoral and population charts. DC could not vote for president until 1964. Alaska was Russian territory; Hawaii was an independent kingdom. Kansas, Nebraska, Nevada and other western jurisdictions had not yet become states. Present-day West Virginia was part of Virginia, so its residents are represented in Virginia’s results rather than as a separate state. Population is rounded to thousands. A state VAP comparison map is unavailable here because 1860 state population estimates have not been verified.