While 1856 Republican presidential nominee John C. Frémont had met with failure, party gains were made throughout the Northern United States as the sectional crisis over slavery intensified.

Horace Greeley, Ebenezer R. Hoar, and Edwin D. Morgan were interested in holding the 1860 convention in a border state.

[1] Party leaders sought to hold their 1860 nominating convention in the burgeoning Middle Western trade center of Chicago, then a city of some 110,000 people.

[2] The rapidly designed and constructed building proved well fit for the purpose, featuring excellent lines of sight and stellar acoustics, allowing even an ordinary speaker to be heard throughout the room.

[5] Slave and border states with substantial delegations under the rules (but with small actual party organizations) included Kentucky (23), Virginia (23), and Missouri (18).

[6] With the convention called to order on May 16, former U.S. Representative David Wilmot of Pennsylvania was elected temporary chairman of the gathering.

[3] Upon his election, Wilmot delivered the keynote speech to the convention, in which he declared that: A great sectional and aristocratic party, or interest, has for years dominated with a high hand over the political affairs of this country.

It is our purpose, gentlemen, it is the mission of the Republican Party and the basis of its organization, to resist this policy of a sectional interest....

The reading of the platform was received with stormy applause and an immediate move followed to adopt the document unanimously and without amendments.

The matter was hastily reconsidered by the convention, and with the addition of the amendment the disgruntled Mr. Giddings returned to his seat, crisis resolved.

Also running were John C. Frémont, William L. Dayton, Cassius M. Clay, and Benjamin Wade, who might be able to win if the convention deadlocked.

[9] As the convention developed, however, it was revealed that frontrunners Seward, Chase, and Bates had each alienated factions of the Republican Party.

He had also been abandoned by his longtime friend and political ally Horace Greeley, publisher of the influential New-York Tribune.

Greeley and Schuyler Colfax were interested in his candidacy, but he failed to receive a large amount of support from northern or border state delegates.

He set about ensuring that he was the second choice of most delegates, realizing that the first round of voting at the convention was unlikely to produce a clear winner.

Lincoln did not attend the convention in person, and left the task of delegate wrangling to his friends Leonard Swett, Ward Hill Lamon, and David Davis.

[15] Lincoln's combination of a moderate stance on slavery, long support for economic issues, his western origins, and strong oratory proved to be exactly what the delegates wanted in a president.

Presidential Balloting / 3rd Day of Convention (May 18, 1860) Senator Hannibal Hamlin of Maine was nominated for vice president, defeating Cassius M. Clay of Kentucky.