1860 Constitutional Union Convention in the context of "Edward Everett"

A United States presidential election was held on November 6, 1860. The Republican Party ticket of Abraham Lincoln and Hannibal Hamlin emerged victorious.

In 1860, the United States was divided over the issue of slavery. Four major political parties nominated candidates in the 1860 presidential election. Incumbent president James Buchanan, a Democrat, did not seek re-election. The anti-slavery Republican Party nominated Abraham Lincoln, a former one-term Whig Representative from Illinois, for president. Its platform promised not to interfere with slavery in the South, but opposed extension of slavery into the territories. A group of former Whigs and Know Nothings formed the Constitutional Union Party, which sought to avoid disunion by resolving divisions over slavery with some new compromise. The 1860 Constitutional Union Convention put forward former Tennessee Senator John Bell for president. After the 1860 Democratic National Convention adjourned without agreeing on a nominee, a second convention nominated Illinois Senator Stephen A. Douglas as the Democratic presidential candidate. Douglas's support for the concept of popular sovereignty, which called for each territory's settlers to decide locally on the status of slavery, alienated many radical pro-slavery Southern Democrats. With President Buchanan's support, Southern Democrats held their own convention, nominating Vice President John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky for president.

The Constitutional Union Party was a political party which stood in the 1860 United States elections. It mostly consisted of conservative former Whigs from the Southern United States who wanted to avoid secession over slavery and refused to join either the Republican Party or Democratic Party. The Constitutional Union Party campaigned on a simple platform "to recognize no political principle other than the Constitution of the country, the Union of the states, and the Enforcement of the Laws".

The Whig Party collapsed in the 1850s due to a series of crises over slavery. Many former Whigs joined the new, anti-slavery Republican Party, but others joined the nativist American Party. The American Party declined after the 1856 elections, and for the 1860 elections John J. Crittenden and other former Whigs formed the Constitutional Union Party. The 1860 Constitutional Union Convention nominated John Bell of Tennessee for president and Edward Everett of Massachusetts for vice president. Party leaders hoped to force a contingent election in the House of Representatives by denying any one candidate a majority in the Electoral College.