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Before the Civil War, many people who were against secession and the division of the Union as their primary political issue formed the Constitutional Union Party. The party’s supporters were located mostly in the South and particularly in slave states that bordered free states. Its first iteration in 1850 was the Unionist Party formed of Southern politicians who supported the compromise of 1850. The new Constitutional Unionist party, formed in 1860, consisted mostly of ideologically conservative former Whigs and Know-Nothings (a nativist party of the 1840’s and 1850’s). It took no official positions, including on slavery, other than a desire to keep the union intact and support for the US Constitution, though most of its members were generally conservative. John Bell ran for president in the 1860 election under the Constitution Union Party Banner, carrying the three states of Virginia, Tennessee and Kentucky. With the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861, the party dissolved, though some of its former members were later appointed to power in the reconstruction South.