John Bell (Tennessee politician) in the context of "United States Secretary of War"

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.

The 1860 Constitutional Union National Convention met on May 9, 1860, in Baltimore, Maryland. It was the only national convention ever held by the Constitutional Union Party, which was organized largely by former Whig Party members from the Southern United States who opposed secession. The convention nominated former Senator John Bell of Tennessee for president and former Secretary of State Edward Everett of Massachusetts for vice president.

Bell won the presidential nomination on the second ballot of the convention, defeating Everett, Governor Sam Houston of Texas, Senator John J. Crittenden of Kentucky, former Governor William Alexander Graham of North Carolina, Associate Justice John McLean of Ohio, and several other candidates. In the 1860 presidential election, Bell and Everett finished third in the electoral vote and fourth in the popular vote.

Elections for the 37th United States Congress, were held in 1860 and 1861. The election marked the start of the Third Party System and precipitated the Civil War. The Republican Party won control of the presidency and both houses of Congress, making it the fifth party (following the Federalist Party, Democratic-Republican Party, Democratic Party, and Whig Party) to accomplish such a feat. The election is widely considered to be a realigning election.

In the presidential election, Republican former Representative Abraham Lincoln of Illinois defeated Democratic Vice President John C. Breckinridge (who became the first incumbent vice president to lose a presidential election) and Democratic Senator Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois, as well as the Constitutional Union candidate, former Senator John Bell of Tennessee. Lincoln swept the Northern states while Breckinridge carried much of the South, foreshadowing the political alignment of the country throughout the Third Party System. At the 1860 Republican National Convention, Lincoln won on the third ballot, defeating Senator William H. Seward of New York and several other candidates. The Democratic Party split its votes after three chaotic conventions. Douglas was nominated at the second Democratic convention, while the Southern Democrats nominated Breckinridge as their own candidate in a third convention. Bell ran on a platform of preserving the union regardless of the status of slavery. Lincoln's victory made him the first Republican president. Lincoln took just under 40 percent of the popular vote, a lower share of the popular vote than any other winning presidential candidate aside from John Quincy Adams's 1824 campaign.