<Li> May 9: Former Whigs from the border states form the Constitutional Union Party and nominate former U.S. Senator John C. Bell of Tennessee for President and Edward Everett of Massachusetts for Vice President on a one - issue platform of national unity . </Li> <Li> William H. Seward of New York, Salmon P. Chase of Ohio, and Simon Cameron of Pennsylvania are leading contenders for the Republican presidential nomination, along with more moderate Abraham Lincoln of Illinois, when the Republican convention convenes in Chicago on May 16 . Lincoln supporters from Illinois skillfully gain commitments for Lincoln . On May 18, Lincoln wins the Republican Party nomination for President . The Republicans adopt a concrete, precise, and moderately worded platform which includes the exclusion of slavery from the territories but the affirmation of the right of states to order and control their own "domestic institutions". </Li> <Li> June 18: The main group of Democrats meeting in Baltimore, bolstered by some new Douglas Democrat delegates from Southern states who were seated to the exclusion of the Southern delegates from the previous session of the convention, nominate Douglas for President . </Li> <Li> June 28: Southern Democrats nominate Vice President John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky for President . Their platform endorses a national slave code . </Li>

What was the focus of the first amendment passed after the civil war