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During what is already a hot mess of an election season badpolitics-wise, a new one decided to crop up lately. Particularly popular among Libertarians in an "it's not impossible that Gary Johnson wins, guys" fashion, it states that Abraham Lincoln, 16th President of the United States, abolisher of slavery, and owner of a fantastic beard, was the last third-party candidate to ever win the presidency. Unfortunately for Mr. Johnson, such claims are simply untrue.

You see, around the time Lincoln became a political force in the US, the American two party-system was centered around the Democrats and the Whigs. Lincoln himself was a Whig until 1854, after a long period of decline for said party. The party itself dissolved at around that time, its base mostly split between the Republican Party and the "Know-Nothing" Party, later Constitutional Union.

Which is where I come to my point: I argue that the Republicans under Lincoln cannot reasonably be called a "third party". They acted more as a continuation of the "Northern Whigs" during the election, and had the added benefit that the Democrats were undergoing a split as well, with the Southern Democrats coming up second during the 1860 elections. The Republicans had been acting like a continuation of the Whigs ever since the latter collapsed, as they came in second during the 1856 election as well.

In short: Abraham Lincoln was very much part of the two-party system, and always has been. As for a relatively succesful third party candidate: you could name Teddy Roosevelt in the 1912 elections, who came in second with his Bull Moose Party. But that still wasn't a win.