In Franklin County, John Breckinridge won a majority in six precincts, most of them in the far northern and western belt of the county, where few blacks lived and farmers planted corn not wheat.

Precincts that went for Breckinridge were significantly poorer than either the precincts that Lincoln won or those that were closely contested. Breckinridge precincts had an average household wealth and farm value below the county average, and their farms tended to grow relatively more corn and less wheat that the county average. Breckinridge's highest level of support came in the Concord precinct, where the average household wealth was about $3,500 and average farm value just $2,050. The county average in Franklin for household wealth was about $5,800 and for farm value $7,300. Farms in the Breckinridge precincts, such as Lurgan and Concord, planted far more corn, nearly 40 percent of their total crop, and far less wheat, just 18 percent of their total crop mix, than either the county average or the Lincoln districts. These districts had significantly fewer black residents; at least two of them were all-white townships.

African American Residence by Town, Franklin County, 1860 (table)

Franklin County, Pa., Agricultural Production (map)

Franklin County, Pa., Election of 1860 (map)

Politics, Franklin County, 1860 Presidential Election Precinct Comparison (table)

Politics, Franklin County, High Breckinridge Precincts in the 1860 Presidential Election (table)

Politics, Franklin County, High Douglas Precincts in the 1860 Presidential Election (table)

Politics, Franklin County, High Lincoln Precincts in the 1860 Presidential Election (table)

Politics, Franklin County, Party Activists, 1859-60 (table)

Politics, Franklin County, 1860 Presidential Voting by Precinct (table)

Related Historiography

Paul Bourke and Donald Debats, Washington County: Politics and Community in Antebellum America (Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995).

Robert William Fogel, Without Consent or Contract: The Rise and Fall of American Slavery (New York: W. W. Norton, 1989).

William E. Gienapp, "The Crisis of American Democracy: The Political System and the Coming of the American Civil War," Why the Civil War Came (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996): 81-124.

Michael F. Holt, The Political Crisis of the 1850s (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1992).

Michael F. Holt, Forging a Majority: The Formation of the Republican Party in Pittsburgh, 1848-1860 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1969).

Michael F. Holt, The Rise and Fall of the American Whig Party: Jacksonian Politics and the Onset of the Civil War (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999).

James M. McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988).

James M. McPherson, Ordeal by Fire: The Civil War and Reconstruction (New York: Knopf, 1982).