Biography:

John Bell was a US Representative and Senator from Tennessee. Born near Nashville, Tennessee, in 1796, he worked as a lawyer in Franklin, Tennessee, and served as a member of the Tennessee State Senate before being elected to the US House of Representatives in 1827. He served seven terms in the House (1827-1841), during which time he served one term as Speaker of the House (1833-1835) and chaired the Committee on Indian Affairs and Committee on the Judiciary. Initially a Jacksonian Democrat, Bell switched his loyalties and joined the Whig party during the 1830s. He was appointed by President William Henry Harrison as Secretary of War in 1841 but resigned later that year, after John Tyler, who became president following Harrison's death, refused to adopt a Whig agenda. Bell was later elected to the US Senate, serving two terms (1847-1859) during which time he changed party affiliations repeatedly, serving as, respectively, a member of the Whig, Opposition, and Know-Nothing parties.
In 1860, Bell changed his party affiliation yet again, becoming the presidential candidate for the newly founded Constitutional Union Party. The Constitutional Union Party officially took no position on slavery, declaring that it endorsed "no political principle other than the Constitution . . . the Union . . . and the Enforcement of the Laws." Their slogan was "No North, no South, no East, no West. Nothing but the Union." Bell was a Southern slaveholder but had opposed the expansion of slavery in the 1850s and did not support secession, arguing that it was unnecessary because the US Constitution already protected slavery.
The Constitutional Unionists did not believe they could win the election outright; their strategy was to gain votes that might otherwise go to other, stronger candidates. If no candidate in the 1860 presidential race won the number of electoral votes necessary to win the election, the decision would go to members of the House of Representatives, giving Bell would have a stronger chance of success. Seeing Lincoln as the biggest threat, supporters of the Constitutional Union Party created "fusion tickets" that combined the non-Republican candidates (besides Bell, these were John C. Breckinridge of the Southern Democratic Party and Stephen Douglas of the Democratic Party) into a single-candidate ticket in some strategically important states. Most support for the Bell came from Southern states in which slavery was legal, and he carried the border states of Kentucky, Tennessee, and Virginia. Ultimately, Lincoln won the election.
Although he had initially opposed secession, Bell  supported the Confederacy after the outbreak of the Civil War. He died at his home near Cumberland Furnace, Tennessee, in 1869