Did 1860 Presidential Campaigns Take Secession Seriously?

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In the 1860 election campaign, Douglas "made titanic efforts to focus the campaign upon the danger to the Union". Breckinridge forces "insisted upon their devotion to the union" downplaying the "fact that under certain circumstances they would become disunionists".
Lincoln's forces believed that, as James Russel Lowell described it, the threat of secession was an "old Mumbo-Jumbo".
<David M. Potter, The Impending Crisis: America Before the Civil War 1848-1860. (New York: Harper Collins, Inc., 1976), p.431.>
How did these views influence the election? Should Lincoln's campaign- and Lincoln himself- have been more aware of the seriousness of the threat of secession?
 
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