It was in fact not a question of construction of the clause in the Kansas-Nebraska bill but of the Constitution itself. If Congress had no power to legislate on the subject, then it could delegate none, and if there was such a thing as "squatter sovereignty" it extended to all other subjects as well as to slavery, and the settlers in the territories might set up for themselves without any authority from Congress, which would involve some very extraordinary consequences, including that even of disposing of the public lands. The squatter sovereignty view of the question was one not to be tolerated; and it applied to the Utah and New Mexico bills as well as to that in regard to Kansas and Nebraska. The great mass of Southern Whigs agreed with the Southern Democrats in their way of interpreting the principle, but they did not regard the question as one of sufficient practical importance to make a fight over, and old party divisions and feuds prevented a coalescence of all of the Southern men. Though considered by many an abstract question, as it certainly was so far as it applied to Kansas and Nebraska, it seemed to divide the Democratic party into two wings, a Northern and a Southern one, with some adherents to either wing from the opposite section. This division resulted in the nomination of two sets of candidates by the Democratic party--Douglas of Illinois and Johnson of Georgia by the Northern wing, and Breckenridge of Kentucky and Lane of Oregon by the Southern wing. The Republican free-soil or abolition party nominated Lincoln of Illinois and Hamlin of Maine, while the Southern Whigs and a remnant of Northern Whigs, who had not fused with the free-soilers and abolitionists, nominated Bell of Tennessee and Everett of Massachusetts. The advocates of this latter ticket proposed to sink every other issue and stand for "The Union, the Constitution, and the enforcement of the Laws." At the election in 1860, Lincoln and Hamlin received the majority of the popular vote in nearly all of the Northern states and by that vote alone secured a majority of the votes of the electoral colleges, but they lacked very nearly 1,000,000 votes of receiving a majority of the combined popular vote of the United States. In this election the Southern people were unanimous in their opposition to Lincoln and Hamlin though divided as to the other candidates, the few thousands of votes given on the border for the Republican ticket, being given by Northern men who had emigrated across the line, and amounting to a very inconsiderable fraction.