Kenesaw Mountain Landis: Baseball Hall of Fame Class of 1944

No one was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1943.

Born: November 20, 1866 (named after a Civil War battle where his father was wounded)

1887: Applied to bar

1888: Went to Law School

1893-1895: Secretary to Senator Walter Q. Gresham

1895-1905: Law practice

1905-1922: U.S. District Court Judge for Northern Illinois (Appointed by Theodore Roosevelt)

1907: Fined Standard Oil $29 million for violating federal rebate laws

1915: Presided over hearings regarding the Federal League and the Reserve Clause

1916: Baby Iraene Case

1917-1919: Issued stiff sentences to draft dodgers and those opposed to World War I

1919: White Sox conspire to throw World Series

1920-1944: Baseball Commissioner

1921: Banned 8 White Sox for life

1921: Forced John McGraw to sell his interest in a race track

1921: Banned Eugene Paulette for life for throwing games

1921: Banned Joe Gedeon for his involvement in the Black Sox affair (Landis banned 18 players total for involvement with gambling)

1933: Landis supported first All Star Game

1934: Ejected Ducky Medwick from Game 7 of the World Series for the player’s own protection

1941: Offered to shut the major leagues down for World War II.

1943: Banned Phillies owner William D. Cox for betting on his own team

Died: November 25, 1944

1944: Elected to the Hall of Fame

Morgan Bulkeley: Baseball Hall of Fame Class of 1937

Who the heck is Morgan Bulkeley?

Born: December 26, 1837

1853: His father helped found Aetna Life Insurance

1861: Joined the Union Army. Served under General McClellan.

1862: Fought in the Peninsula Campaign.

1865: Returned to private life.

1872: Helped found the United States Bank of Hartford and became its first president.

1874: Formed the Hartford Blue Dukes, a professional baseball team. That same year, he entered politics.

1876: Helped found the National League and served as its first president. Bulkeley helped perpetuate the myth that Abner Doubleday created baseball.

1880: Won Hartford's Mayoral Election. Served as mayor for eight years.

1888: Won a disputed gubernatorial race. Served one term as Connecticut's from 1889-1893.

1905-1911: US Senator

November 6, 1922: Died after serving 43 years as president for Aetna.

1980s Movies Top 10

There are the ones I think were the best done...not necessarily my favorites (although some are).

The Empire Strikes Back

The Wrath of Khan

Raiders of the Lost Ark

Full Metal Jacket

Gandhi

A Christmas Story

Glory

A Soldier’s Story

Field of Dreams

Caddyshack

The Greatest TV Episodes #1-10

1. MASH: Abyssinia Henry (1975): “Lieutenant Colonel... Henry Blake's plane... was shot down... over the Sea of Japan. It spun in. There were no survivors."


2. Newhart: The Last Newhart (1990): The ending is now legendary. Bob wakes up next to Suzanne Pleshette and mentions his dream about being a Vermont innkeeper.

3. Monty Python’s Flying Circus: The Spanish Inquisition (1970): Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition! The inquisition ran amok appearing seven times throughout the episode.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uprjmoSMJ-o

4. I Love Lucy: Lucy Does a TV Commercial (1952): Lucy is recruited to do a commercial for Vitameatavegamin. It’s a health elixir filled with 23% alcohol. After several takes, Lucy becomes Homer Simpson.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2m1Nubw8XJw

5. A Charlie Brown Christmas (1965): Charlie Brown searches for the meaning Christmas in the midst of modern commercialism. In the meantime, Snoopy wins money, money, money.

6. The Bob Newhart Show: Over the River and Through the Woods (1975): What happens when the guys are left alone on Thanksgiving? Lots of drinking!! A drunk Bob is a must see and you can’t cook a turkey at 5000 degrees. Somehow, it ends up in the dishwasher as opposed to the stove. In the end, it’s time for Moo Goo Gai Pan!

7. Cheers: Thanksgiving Orphans (1986): No one has Thanksgiving plans except Diane (which involves a Pilgrim costume). Carla invites the gang to dinner and disaster follows. Vera even shows!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FgZjqa4RrLE

8. Seinfeld: The Boyfriend (1992): Keith Hernandez joins the gang. The episode contains the infamous magic loogey scene in which Newman and Kramer are spat on by a second spitter (Roger McDowell).

9. I Love Lucy: Job Switching (The Candy Factory): (1952): Anyone that has ever worked can relate to Lucy and Ethel’s predicament.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wp3m1vg06Q

10. The Civil War (1990): For five nights in 1990, people watched PBS! No one knows for sure if anyone has watched PBS since.

Greatest Movie Scenes: 101-105

101. The Pencil Trick: The Dark Knight (2008): Heath Ledger's greatest scene. It almost made me pee my pants laughing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QehZjjwb7-I

102. Lector gets loose: Silence of the Lambs (1991): Classical music provided the background as Hannibal Lector beats a guard to death and skins another.

103. There’s Character: Glory (1989): The 54th Massachussets charges into Fort Wagner. Robert Gould Shaw (Mathew Broderick) eats a minie ball which rallies his troops. The men run into a cannon. The end was poignant as Shaw is buried shoeless with his men in a common grave.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2c_BvVBd-Q

104 Phone Home: ET: The Extraterrestrial (1982): An iconic 80s scene.

105. Pickett’s Charge: Gettysburg (1993): More Civil War action. If you want to know why the Civil War cost 600,000 lives, watch this scene.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GupEJXlNKCE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-iT0Hmu5bXY

Presidential Legacies: Civil War and Reconstruction

This next grouping is intimately tied to the Civil War and Reconstruction. The war began in 1861 and ended in 1865 consuming Lincoln’s Presidency. Lincoln toyed with Reconstruction in the occupied South. However, he died before being able to start Reconstruction in the South. The Reconstruction issue dominated Johnson’s Presidency and led to his impeachment. In the North, Reconstruction waned as an issue in the Grant Years before ending with the election of Rutherford B. Hayes.

Abraham Lincoln (1861-1865): We know the story. The South left the Union and Lincoln brought them back. Lincoln knew he had the edge, but could not find a general to win the war. They all wanted to be Napoleon. Instead, he got guys like Ambrose Burnside. Eventually, he found Grant and the South was pounded into submission.

While on the way to reunification, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation. Technically, this freed no one, but Lincoln turned the war into a battle against slavery. This undercut the South. They were now the bad guys and the Civil War became a moral war. Lincoln worked on the 13th Amendment to end slavery. He died before it passed.

Andrew Johnson (1865-1869): At first, Johnson appeared to be the right man to punish the South. He talked tough and announced tough policies. Then, he worked to get the Southern states readmitted as quickly as possible with the pre-war status quo. This angered the Republicans. A war between the executive and legislative branches began.

During the 1866 Congressional Elections, Johnson went campaigned against the GOP. Presidential campaigning was unheard of. They were supposed to sit at home and rest on their records while others campaigned. People were suspicious. He compounded his miscalculation by giving the same speech from stop to stop. It was reprinted in the papers. The audience in Cleveland recited the speech as Johnson tried to give it. He melted down. The Republicans won a decisive victory and Johnson was irrelevant.

The Republicans worked to help blacks in the South while Johnson worked to undermine their rights. The two branches of government continued to collide and Johnson was finally impeached. He survived conviction in the Senate. Johnson’s interference in Reconstruction gave a defeated South new life. It helped lead to the Ku Klux Klan, Night Riders, and other paramilitary terror groups in the South. The country remained at war despite the peace at Appomattox. As a result of Johnson’s actions, the South continued to resist and eventually reclaimed the South and instituted Jim Crow. Perhaps if Lincoln had survived, a second Reconstruction in the 1960s would not have been needed.

U.S. Grant (1869-1877): Grant’s Administration avoided Reconstruction where possible to concentrate on economic development. As money flowed from the Feds, a series of scandals rocked the Grant Administration. Grant’s presidency suffered from the most presidential scandals until the Clintons came to town.

While the administration dealt with scandal, it dealt with a destabilizing force in the South. The Klan was running wild. Grant sent in the troops, declared martial law, and crushed the Klan. The KKK would not be a problem again until the 20th century. However, once the economy tanked, and Northerners decided it best to let the South decide their own fate, Grant was powerless to stop Klan-like groups from emerging in Mississippi and spreading throughout the South.

Rutherford B Hayes (1877-1881): Rutherford B. Hayes lost the popular vote in 1876. However, three states had suspicious returns. Without Florida, Louisiana, and South Carolina, Samuel Tilden was one electoral vote short of the presidency. Hayes needed all three states to be president. Democrats worked hard in these states to suppress the vote and stuff the ballot box. Republicans cried foul. Eventually, the two parties cut a deal. Hayes would be president. In return, the military occupation of the South would end. This is a case where the president’s legacy is tied directly to something out of his control. Hayes was a good president and became a hero in Paraguay. However, he is best remembered as Rutherfraud B. Hayes and the Compromise of 1877.

Presidential Legacies: The Crisis Presidents 1849-1861

After the Mexican War, slavery became the dominant issue in the United States. Democrats supported unrestricted slavery. The Whig Party crumbled over the issue with Northerners becoming Republicans and opposing the institution. Southern Whigs eventually became Confederates. As a result, each president from Taylor to Lincoln had their legacy intimately tied to the issue of slavery.

Zachary Taylor (1849-1850): When California wanted admission to the Union, Taylor supported it even when it was clear they would enter as a Free State. The South felt betrayed. Taylor was a Louisiana slave holder, but he opposed the spread of slavery. When a compromise was put forth that would allow California to enter Free while strengthening slavery elsewhere, Taylor opposed it and threatened to start hanging Democrats. Then, he died.

Millard Fillmore (1850-1853): While Taylor opposed the Compromise of 1850, Fillmore supported it. California entered the US as a free state. Utah and New Mexico entered without restrictions of slavery. A tough fugitive slave law was enacted and the interstate slave trade was banned. The Fugitive Slave Law was a particularly heinous creation. Persons of color had no rights if they were accused of being a runaway. So, slave catchers could go North and haul free persons back to the South with impunity under Federal Law. The Compromise was meant to quell sectionalism. Instead, it helped inflame sectionalism especially after Harriet Beecher Stowe published "Uncle Tom's Cabin."

Franklin Pierce (1853-1857): Franklin Pierce had no backbone. When Stephen Douglas marched into the White House and demand he support the Kansas-Nebraska Act, Pierce folded like a card table. The act split Kansas and Nebraska up into two states. The people of each state could vote on whether they would be a slave state or a free state. It was assumed Nebraska would vote free and Kansas would go slave. Nebraska voted to ban slavery. Kansas was a mess. Several Chicago style elections and an in-state civil war left Pierce in ruins.

James Buchanan (1857-1861): Buchanan attempted to pacify the South. He tried to force a pro-slavery Constitution onto Kansas. He failed. He tried to start a war with the Mormons to bring about national unity. He failed. After Lincoln's election, the South seceded from the union. Buchanan did nothing. James Buchanan was the worst president in history.

Presidents and War Service

Revolutionary War

George Washington
James Monroe
Andrew Jackson

War of 1812

James Madison (as President)
James Monroe (as Secretaries of War and State)
Andrew Jackson
William Henry Harrison
John Tyler (Militia Service; saw no action)
James Buchanan

Mexican War

Zachary Taylor
Franklin Pierce
U.S. Grant

Civil War

Millard Fillmore (after his presidency; Major in Buffalo militia home guard; saw no action)
Andrew Johnson (military governor of Tennessee)
U.S. Grant
Rutherford B. Hayes
James Garfield
Chester Arthur
Benjamin Harrison
William McKinley

Spanish American War

Theodore Roosevelt

World War I

Harry Truman
Dwight Eisenhower (saw no action)

World War II

Dwight Eisenhower
John F. Kennedy
Lyndon Johnson
Richard Nixon
Gerald Ford
Ronald Reagan (saw no action)
George H.W. Bush

Korea

Jimmy Carter (US Navy)

Vietnam

George W. Bush (Reserves; no action)

Gulf War I, Gulf II, Afghanistan, War on Terror

None yet

History Bracketology: Greatest American Final

Washington beat Lincoln.

Greatest American Bracketology Elite 8

Elite 8
Early America
1. George Washington- vs. 2. Thomas Jefferson- (Washington wins; had a big lead and held on)

Antebellum through Civil War
1. Abraham Lincoln vs. 3. Andrew Jackson- (Lincoln landslide)

Recon through WW2
7. Theodore Roosevelt- vs. 12. Albert Einstein (TR landslide)

Modern
1. Martin Luther King Vs. 2. Ronald Reagan (King wins; Reagan led, King took a big lead, Reagan rallied, but fell just short.)

Sweet 16: Greatest American

Early America
1. George Washington vs. 5. James Madison (GW wins)
2. Thomas Jefferson vs. 3. Alexander Hamilton (Jefferson wins)

Antebellum through Civil War
1. Abraham Lincoln vs. 13. John Quincy Adams (Lincoln wins)
2. John Marshall vs. 3. Andrew Jackson (Jackson wins)

Recon through WW2
1. FDR vs. 12. Albert Einstein (Einstein wins)
6. Henry Ford vs. 7. Theodore Roosevelt (TR wins)

Modern
1. MLK vs. 4. Dwight Eisenhower (MLK wins)
2. Ronald Reagan vs. 14. Richard Nixon (Reagan wins)

Greatest American Bracketology Round 2

Round 2

Early America
1. George Washington- 8. Lewis and Clark (Washington wins)
2. Thomas Jefferson- 7. John Adams (TJ wins)
3. Alexander Hamilton - 6. Thomas Paine (Hamilton wins)
4. Ben Franklin - 5. James Madison (Madison wins)

Antebellum through Civil War
1. Abraham Lincoln- 9. William Lloyd Garrison (Lincoln wins)
2. John Marshall-10. Frederick Douglass (Marshall wins)
3. Andrew Jackson - 6. Henry Clay (Jackson wins)
13. JQ Adams - 12. Joseph Smith (Adams wins)

Recon through WW2
1. FDR- 9. Andrew Carnegie (FDR wins)
2. Thomas Edison - 7. TR (TR wins)
14. JP Morgan - 6. Henry Ford (Ford wins)
4. JD Rockefeller - 12. Albert Einstein (Einstein wins)

Modern
1. MLK - 9. LBJ (King wins)
2. Ronald Reagan- 10. Robert Oppenheimer (Reagan wins)
14. Richard Nixon - 6. Jonas Salk (Nixon wins)
4. Dwight Eisenhower - 12. George Marshall (Ike wins)

The Greatest American #1s vs. #16s

It's the time of year where brackets reign, so I thought we could do some bracketology history style. A few years back, Atlantic Monthly listed their 100 greatest Americans. I took the list, broke it into 4 brackets and ranked people according to the Atlantic Monthly rankings. So, the people and the rankings come from that mag.

I have 64 Americans, broken into 4 brackets, each bracket with Americans seeded 1-16.

Here are the 1s vs. 16s. I have placed this on some message boards and will tabulate the votes at the end of the week. Feel free to vote (or not)...

Early American Bracket
1. George Washington vs. 16. Nathaniel Greene

Well, there would be no USA without George. He won the Revolutionary War, was the first president, set many precedents, established American neutrality, the national bank, first census, etc etc etc.

Greene was a Revolutionary General. He fought Cornwallis and drove the British nuts. He played cat and mouse with Cornwallis all the way to Yorktown.

Antebellum and Civil War
1. Abraham Lincoln vs. 16. John C Calhoun

Lincoln won the Civil War, freed the slaves, kept the union together.

Calhoun threatened secession and was a staunch states' rights activist and slaveholder.

Reconstruction through WWII
1. FDR vs. 16. Eleanor Roosevelt (no I did not plan this)

FDR gave us the New Deal, saved capitalism, modernized government, and won WWII saving Western Civilization.

Eleanor Roosevelt was a well respected activist for the rights of the downtrodden, leader at the UN, and First Lady.

Modern Era
1. Martin Luther King Jr. vs. 16. Betty Friedan

MLK led the Civil Rights Movement and made white America look in the mirror.

Betty Friedan analyzed domestic America and argued that housewives did not like their lot in life.

Greatest Movie Battles

Now for something different...here are my top 10 movie battles...

1. Omaha Beach (Saving Private Ryan): Actual Omaha Beach Vets claimed it was too real.

2. Battle of Stirling (Braveheart): Completely inaccurate; but Mel gives a great speech.

3. Pearl Harbor (Tora Tora Tora): The defining moment in perhaps the defining World War II film.

4. Little Round Top (Gettysburg): Out of Ammo? Affix bayonets and charge! The Rebs won't know what hit them!

5. The Death Star (Star Wars): No one had ever seen anything like this before. Now, the ending might be considered cliche.

6. Germania (Gladiator): Does a great job showing the Roman Tortoise and Roman Discipline; Shows how they could conquer.

7. Ft. Wagner (Glory): As the dead are buried, they are all shoeless...symbolic of the whole film.

8. Helicopter Raid (Apocalypse Now): Flight of the Valkyries, Robert Duval, Napalm, Surfing; an allegory for the entire Vietnam War.

9. Helms Deep (LOR: The Two Towers): The greatest land battle in fantasy/sci fi movie history

10. Battle of the News Crews (Ron Burgundy): Brick killed a man with a trident!

The Average Joes

Continuing my categorization of the 42 (43 if you count Cleveland twice) presidents. These are the Average Joes. They did not do a bad job, but were not great either. As a result, they are lumped together here. Once again, they are listed chronologically.

1. John Tyler (1841-1845): Tyler took over when Harrison died after one month. He had two major accomplishments. Firstly, Tyler was the first Veep to assume the presidency upon the death of his predecessor. He asserted the right of a Vice President to be President and not just serve as an interim president. This was highly controversial. Second, he annexed Texas on his way out of office. On the downside, Tyler ran as a Whig, but was really a Democrat. When the Whigs passed legislation and sent it to him, he vetoed it. His cabinet resigned and he became a man without a party. After leaving office, he supported the Confederacy during the Civil War.

2. Zachary Taylor (1849-1850): Taylor did not do much in office. He died about a year and a half into office. When California wanted to enter the Union a free state, he supported their petition which caused a firestorm. Despite owning slaves, he opposed the expansion of slavery and the Compromise of 1850. Taylor also threatened to hang anyone that threatened secession from the Union.

3. Rutherford B Hayes (1877-1881): Due to the nature of his elevation to the presidency, he did not get much done and promised to serve only one term. He ended Reconstruction as part of the deal to get the White House, busted the Railroad Strike of 1877, signed a bill to allow women to argue cases before the Supreme Court, and arbitrated the end of The War of Triple Alliance between Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay against Paraguay. His decision made him a hero in Paraguay.

4. Calvin Coolidge (1923-1929): After the corrupt administration of Warren Harding, Coolidge was a breath of fresh air. He kept spending down and cut taxes. Coolidge also signed immigration reform measures. Additionally, he gave citizenship to American Indians and oversaw the first regulations on transportation and radio. Coolidge's Secretary of State, Frank B. Kellogg, negotiated the Kellogg-Briand Pact which renounced and outlawed war. He was elected in his own right in 1924, but declined to run again in 1928.

5. Gerald R. Ford (1974-1977): Ford entered office as a result of Watergate. He started out with a very high approval rating, but decided to pardon Nixon which ended his honeymoon. His rationale was two-fold. First, he feared Nixon's health would continue to deteriorate and he'd die if the pressure was not released. Second, he felt it was better to spare the country the pain of a trial. It was a profile in courage, but cost him the 1976 election. For this, he is known as the "Great Healer." During his term, the economy faltered as a result of government welfare programs and an end of the Vietnam War. Ford's WIN program attempted to fix inflation, but it raised unemployment. Ford admitted it was "too gimmicky." The Vietnam War came to a crashing end as the Communists illegally entered Saigon and the US mounted a day and night rescue mission (you can see the ladder to the helicopter at the US embassy at the Ford Museum). Most importantly, he got the USSR to sign the Helsinki Accord which bound the Soviets to maintain human rights. This treaty sparked Solidarity and signalled the beginning of the end for the Soviets.

The Greats

There are three presidents that deserve to be in a category all their own. They are the saviors. Each one faced a crisis that could have destroyed the country and steered the country through. At various points in their presidencies, America could have ceased being America. They are listed chronologically.
1. George Washington. When Washington took office, no one was sure what the Constitution meant. He put the skin on the skeletal document. On top of this, his force of will kept people in line. He was not dictatorial. Instead, people worshiped and respected him. When Jeffersonian clubs threatened to tear the country apart, he told them to disband and they did. When Whiskey Rebels threatened the government's authority, he put down their revolt (and then pardoned them). Washington was no king. Instead of serving for life, he stepped down after two terms. On his way out, he warned against factionalism and foreign alliances/entanglements. Had Washington not been president, there was a real chance the U.S. would have broken up into 13 countries.
2. Abraham Lincoln. The South left the Union and Lincoln forced them to come back. Along the way, he freed the slaves, limited states' rights, modernized government, and centralized federal power. If someone else had been president during the war, the U.S. and C.S.A. would have been two countries. Many wanted to let the South go. Lincoln said no and used everything in his power to keep them from leaving.
3. Franklin Roosevelt. FDR faced two crises. The Great Depression ravaged America and the government seemed helpless. His New Deal did not end the depression, but it gave people hope, modernized government, saved capitalism, and staved off revolution. While Germany produced Hitler, America produced Roosevelt. FDR was quick to recognize the Nazi threat and mobilized as best he could for war. When it came, he put the full force of the United States into winning it. His advocacy of basic human rights and stance against fascism helped save the world.

Grant Takes Command: 1868 and 1872 Elections

The 1868 election was up for grabs. Abraham Lincoln was dead. Incumbent President Andrew Johnson was politically dead. The Republican Party was in a bit of trouble. They overstepped their authority in Congress and impeached Johnson. He escaped removal as public opinion was against impeachment. Despite escaping, Johnson was not popular in the North.
Northerners did not like Johnson, but they disliked Reconstruction as well. The Democrats attempted to feed into this. Their candidate was Horatio Seymour. Seymour had the worst name of any nominee before 2008. He also ran as a white supremacist.
The Democrats won the White Vote by a fraction, but lost the Black Vote by a wide margin. The Republicans nominated U.S. Grant. Grant was moderate, not tied to the Radicals in Congress, and the most popular man in the country. He defeated the South in the Civil War and defeated them again for the White House.
Four years later, Grant won re-election 56% to 44%. The economy was good and he was still the popular war hero. His opponent, Horace Greeley, had the second worst name for a presidential candidate ever. He also died before the election ended. Six different candidates split Greeley's electoral votes up.
Grant turned out to be a lousy president. This kept him from being nominated for a third term in 1876. However, he was probably superior to the alternatives offered up by the Democrats of the time.

Mac Will Bring the Union Back: 1864

Lincoln believed he would lose his bid for re-election in 1864. The Civil War had dragged on since 1861 and people were tired and frustrated. Undaunted, Lincoln was renominated. He then moved to form a National Union ticket. He dumped his loyal Vice-President Hannibal Hamlin for Andrew Johnson. Johnson was the only southern senator to remain loyal to the union. Johnson proved more loyal to the Union during the war than the Democratic candidate.
The Democrats nominated Union General George B. McClellan. During the war, McClellan proved an able organizer and kept his casualty rates relatively low. His troops loved him. However, he was also arrogant and overly cautious. His caution kept him from pressing the war and cost him his job.
The Democrats thought they had the perfect candidate to unseat Lincoln. They promised, "Mac will bring the Union back!" They planned to negotiate a peace with Jefferson Davis. On the other hand, Lincoln promised to press the war and warned voters not "to change horses in the middle of a stream." George W. Bush borrowed this line in 2004. However, without battlefield success, Lincoln was pessimistic about his chances.
Lincoln made plans for the transition to a McClellan Administration. Everyone believed Mac would win until General Sherman intervened. On September 2, 1864, William Tecumseh Sherman took Atlanta. Northerners could see an end to the war. The Democrats looked bad. Why would anyone vote to end the war when Sherman showed it could be won?
The result was predictable. Lincoln won in a landslide. He received 55% of the total vote and 70% of the soldiers' vote. Lincoln's re-election spelled doom for the Confederacy. The CSA hoped to negotiate an end to hostilities with the Democrats. Lincoln would not negotiate.

The Final Straw: Lincoln's Election:1860

In 1860, there were two presidential elections in the United States. One took place in the North and one in the South. The South decided they did not like either the Republican or Democratic nominees and refused to allow them on their ballots. The split allowed Abraham Lincoln to win with 40% of the vote.
The Republicans believed they could win and needed a moderate candidate to allay fears they were extremists. They settled on Lincoln. Lincoln was a party organizer and moderate. He was also from a key state, Illinois.
The Democratic Convention was chaos. Stephen Douglas refused to allow provision in the party platform calling for Federal protection of slavery. He won the nomination, but the Southern delegates bolted and nominated Vice President John C. Breckinridge as the "National" Democratic candidate.
Meanwhile, the remnants of the Whig Party decided to form a "Constitutional Union" Party. This party wanted to keep the union together and disliked both the Democratic and Republican Parties. They nominated John Bell.
In the North, the election was between Lincoln and Douglas. In the South, it was Bell vs. Breckinridge. Since the Republicans were a Northern Party, the bulk of the population lived in the North, and the Democrats split, Lincoln captured the White House with just 40% of the vote. Shortly thereafter, South Carolina left the union. Lame Duck James Buchanan did nothing. Before he was even in office, Lincoln had a Civil War on his hands.