WI the 1860 Democrat Convention saved the Union from Civil War?
ae597
Institute Hall in Charleston for ten weeks of agonizing soul-searching
which concluded with the nomination of compromise candidate Jeff Davis
who would triumph at the Presidential election in the fall...
Naraht
Sigh...
If this group has an FAQ, this belongs here.
From the Wikipedia article on the 1860 election.
"The split in the Democratic Party was not a decisive factor in
Lincoln's victory. Lincoln captured less than 40% of the popular vote,
but almost all of his votes were concentrated in the free states, and
he won every free state except for New Jersey. He won outright
majorities in enough of the free states to have won the Presidency by
an Electoral College vote of 169-134 even if the 60% of voters who
opposed him nationally had united behind a single candidate."
Other fun information on the 1860 election includes that according to
the "How close were Presidential Elections?" page section for 1860,
the fewest votes to change the election would have given Breckinridge
(not Douglas!) the election. However in the minimum votes scenario,
Minnesota would have had to go from roughly 2/3 Lincoln 1/3 Douglas
and 2% for Breckinridge to a plurality for Breckinridge. :)
David Tenner
news:5da15ce3-6d4e-4869...@f30g2000yqa.googlegroups.com :
> On Feb 8, 9:44 pm, ae597 <althistor...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On April 23rd 1860, the Democrat Party gathered at the South Carolina
>> Institute Hall in Charleston for ten weeks of agonizing soul-searching
>> which concluded with the nomination of compromise candidate Jeff Davis
>> who would triumph at the Presidential election in the fall...
>>
>> http://www.todayinah.co.uk/index.php?story=39561-O
>
> Sigh...
>
> If this group has an FAQ, this belongs here.
>
> From the Wikipedia article on the 1860 election.
> "The split in the Democratic Party was not a decisive factor in
> Lincoln's victory. Lincoln captured less than 40% of the popular vote,
> but almost all of his votes were concentrated in the free states, and
> he won every free state except for New Jersey. He won outright
> majorities in enough of the free states to have won the Presidency by
> an Electoral College vote of 169-134 even if the 60% of voters who
> opposed him nationally had united behind a single candidate."
>
It is, however, possible (if unlikely) that a single candidate against
Lincoln would have done better than all his OTL opponents combined.
The reason for this is that in OTL some Northerners may have voted for
Lincoln because they didn't want to see the election go into the House,
where no one knew what the outcome might be--there might be a "corrupt
bargain" as allegedly had happened in 1824-5, and there might even be a
prolonged deadlock, meaning that the Vice President chosen by the Senate
(who would presumably be Breckinridge's running mate Lane) would act as
President. (Republicans did mention this possibility during the campaign;
one of their slogans was "Lincoln or Lane.") It was pretty clear that
Lincoln was the *only* candidate who stood any chance of getting an
outright majority in the Electoral College and thus avoiding a fight in
the House. Even in states like New York, where there *was* a "fusion"
anti-Lincoln ticket, this consideration may have held down the anti-
Lincoln vote a bit. (One of the problems of standard tables of the 1860
election results like that at
http://psephos.adam-carr.net/countries/u/usa/pres/1860.txt is that they
ignore the existence of fusion tickets in some states. Thus the
"Douglas" vote in New York was really for a fusion ticket, as was the
"Breckinridge" vote in Pennsylvania--though a few hard-core Douglasites
insisted on running a ticket of their own in that state--and the "Bell"
vote in Texas was for a Bell-Douglas fusion ticket. However, as long as
there was no *nationwide* anti-Lincoln single candidate, voting for fusion
on a state level--e.g., voting for a mixed slate of Douglas, Bell, and
Breckinridge electors in New York--would not solve the problem of the
election going into the House; it would if anything make it more likely.)
It is doubtful that many voters were influenced by this consideration, but
maybe just enough so that a single candidate could have defeated Lincoln
even in Illinois and Indiana, where he got a majority of the votes in OTL
(as well as California and Oregon, where he got a plurality, and New
Jersey, where the electoral vote was split). (As against this, of course,
there were probably a few northern Democrats who would vote for no
Democratic candidate other than Douglas--though certainly there were far
fewer such Democrats than Douglas imagined.)
So it is not very likely that a coalition candidate could have defeated
Lincoln in 1860, but it is not something one can mechanically be sure of
simply by adding up his opponents' combined OTL votes.
(Another possibility, of course, is that the division in the Democratic
party depressed Democratic turnout, but this is questionable--turnout in
1860 was very high, especially by modern standards.)
Anyway, there is no way Douglasites could have swallowed Jefferson Davis
as a compromise candidate--Davis had even opposed the Compromise of 1850
(though unlike his fellow Mississippian Quitman he had not advocated
secession as a response, and would later acquiesce in the Compromise).
Davis himself suggested that his old friend ex-President Pierce be
nominated--certainly the corruption in the Buchanan administration made
Pierce look good in comparison--but Pierce refused to be a candidate.
Perhaps the best compromise candidate would be former governor Horatio
Seymour of New York, who might have done better than the 46.3 percent that
the fusion anti-Lincoln ticket in that state did in OTL--though probably
not sufficiently better to carry the state.
All this of course assumes the anti-Douglas Southern Democrats *wanted* to
defeat Lincoln, rather than to see him win and have an excuse for
secession. My own view on this is as follows: When the Southerners
insisted on a Democratic plank endorsing a slave code for the territories
(at least "if necessary") they knew that this created a risk of the party
splitting, and a Republican victory (which perhaps could not have been
avoided anyway) being very likely. Whether or not they viewed this as a
positive good, it was a risk they were willing to take. If "true"
Democrats nominated a ticket and adopted a platform that would respect
"Southern rights" as the Southerners understood them (e.g., an
interpretation of *Dred Scott* that rejected the "Freeport Doctrine" as
well as free-soilism) and if that ticket could win in November--either
outright or by winning in the House--well and good. No need to secede from
the central government if you control it. If not, a Republican victory
would presumably lead to secession and to a southern confederacy, unless
the Republicans yielded to the threat of secession and repudiated their
platform. Any of thse outcomes, so far as the Southern Democrats were
concerned, would be better than a Democratic victory with an equivocal
platform and/or a candidate like Douglas. (Note that the Southerners
insisted that the convention vote on the platform first, and on the
nominees later. If the convention were to vote on the candidate first,
there was a danger it might reject the hated Douglas and select a fairly
moderate Southerner, and that this would appease just enough Southerners
that a watered-down platform--e.g., one "agreeing to disagree" on the
proper interpretation of *Dred Scott*--would be adopted.)
--
David Tenner
dte...@ameritech.net
Naraht
> It is, however, possible (if unlikely) that a single candidate against
> Lincoln would have done better than all his OTL opponents combined.
True, the question of course becomes who...
>
> The reason for this is that in OTL some Northerners may have voted for
> Lincoln because they didn't want to see the election go into the House,
> where no one knew what the outcome might be--there might be a "corrupt
> bargain" as allegedly had happened in 1824-5, and there might even be a
> prolonged deadlock, meaning that the Vice President chosen by the Senate
> (who would presumably be Breckinridge's running mate Lane) would act as
> President. (Republicans did mention this possibility during the campaign;
> one of their slogans was "Lincoln or Lane.")
The question then is for each of the 4 candidates, who would they have
supported if they came in 4th.
My *guess* is that Lincoln would support Douglas, Bell would support
Douglas, and Breckinridge would support Bell. I have no idea who
Douglas would have supported.
It was pretty clear that
> Lincoln was the *only* candidate who stood any chance of getting an
> outright majority in the Electoral College and thus avoiding a fight in
> the House. Even in states like New York, where there *was* a "fusion"
> anti-Lincoln ticket, this consideration may have held down the anti-
> Lincoln vote a bit. (One of the problems of standard tables of the 1860
> election results like that athttp://psephos.adam-carr.net/countries/u/usa/pres/1860.txtis that they
> ignore the existence of fusion tickets in some states.
Wikipedia at least indicates it, but even there it is confusing (to be
fair the entire election was confusing)
> Thus the
> "Douglas" vote in New York was really for a fusion ticket, as was the
> "Breckinridge" vote in Pennsylvania--though a few hard-core Douglasites
> insisted on running a ticket of their own in that state--and the "Bell"
> vote in Texas was for a Bell-Douglas fusion ticket. However, as long as
> there was no *nationwide* anti-Lincoln single candidate, voting for fusion
> on a state level--e.g., voting for a mixed slate of Douglas, Bell, and
> Breckinridge electors in New York--would not solve the problem of the
> election going into the House; it would if anything make it more likely.)
Does anyone have any information on how Douglas and Breckinridge felt
about each other personally? I've seen information that indicates that
Douglas and Lincoln didn't dislike each other as much and their
supporters might.
Hmm. Wikipedia doesn't have information on the Texas fusion, any clue
on a good source for that?
>
> It is doubtful that many voters were influenced by this consideration, but
> maybe just enough so that a single candidate could have defeated Lincoln
> even in Illinois and Indiana, where he got a majority of the votes in OTL
> (as well as California and Oregon, where he got a plurality, and New
> Jersey, where the electoral vote was split). (As against this, of course,
> there were probably a few northern Democrats who would vote for no
> Democratic candidate other than Douglas--though certainly there were far
> fewer such Democrats than Douglas imagined.)
I doubt a non-Illinoisian Democrat would have gotten as many votes in
Ilinois as Douglas did (With both Douglas and Lincoln from Illinois).
I think other states may be more likely.
(And I'm still researching how Douglas got more votes than Lincoln in
New Jersey, but only got 3 EVs where Lincoln got 4)
>
> So it is not very likely that a coalition candidate could have defeated
> Lincoln in 1860, but it is not something one can mechanically be sure of
> simply by adding up his opponents' combined OTL votes.
Agreed, but the political phrase that applies is "You can't beat
somebody with nobody" :)
>
> (Another possibility, of course, is that the division in the Democratic
> party depressed Democratic turnout, but this is questionable--turnout in
> 1860 was very high, especially by modern standards.)
>
> Anyway, there is no way Douglasites could have swallowed Jefferson Davis
> as a compromise candidate--Davis had even opposed the Compromise of 1850
> (though unlike his fellow Mississippian Quitman he had not advocated
> secession as a response, and would later acquiesce in the Compromise).
> Davis himself suggested that his old friend ex-President Pierce be
> nominated--certainly the corruption in the Buchanan administration made
> Pierce look good in comparison--but Pierce refused to be a candidate.
> Perhaps the best compromise candidate would be former governor Horatio
> Seymour of New York, who might have done better than the 46.3 percent that
> the fusion anti-Lincoln ticket in that state did in OTL--though probably
> not sufficiently better to carry the state.
Pierce is a possibility, thought even if he were willing, I doubt that
his wife Jane would be willing to go to DC. (Jane Pierce may have been
the only First Lady in US history to give Mary Todd Lincoln a run for
the money in Melancholia)
Even if Seymour does carry New York, it takes Lincoln from 180 down to
155 which is still enough for Lincoln to win. (Lincoln needs 152 of
303 EVs)
>
> All this of course assumes the anti-Douglas Southern Democrats *wanted* to
> defeat Lincoln, rather than to see him win and have an excuse for
> secession.
Hello "Fire-eaters". :)
Rich Rostrom
> Another possibility, of course, is that the division in the Democratic
> party depressed Democratic turnout, but this is questionable--turnout in
> 1860 was very high, especially by modern standards.
As may be... but I can't help thinking that
the apparent futility of Douglas's candidacy
discouraged some who would have voted
or campaigned for him, costing him votes.
There was also the opposition of the
Buchanan administration.
Suppose the Democrats had united behind
Douglas - perhaps if no Dred Scott decision
to override "popular sovereignty".
Douglas would sweep the slave states and
the West Coast, and could win Illinois and
sweep New Jersey. That leaves him with
144 EV and Lincoln with 159 EV (152 needed
to win). If one other state flips (Pennsylvania,
Ohio, or Indiana?), Douglas wins.
I agree that Davis as a compromise candidate
is an absurdity.
David Tenner
news:d3c8272a-5968-4e39...@l18g2000yqm.googlegroups.com :
>
> Suppose the Democrats had united behind
> Douglas - perhaps if no Dred Scott decision
> to override "popular sovereignty".
The problem with this is that his opposition to the admission of Kansas under
the Lecompton Constitution had already fatally weakened Douglas in the
South--and remember that the two-thirds rule made southern support
essential--even before the "Freeport Doctrine." Lincoln, incidentally,
recognized this, and was not at all surprised by Douglas's respose at
Freeport: "[Douglas] cares nothing for the South; he knows he is already
dead there."
http://lincoln.lib.niu.edu/cgi-bin/philologic/getobject.pl?c.2283:1.lincoln
*If* there had been no Dred Scott decision and *if* Douglas had come out for
Lecompton--or at the very least for the compromise English bill [1]--he might
get enough southern support to win the nomination. (I rather doubt it,
though; even before *Dred Scott* some Southerners were suspicious of Douglas
as an advocate of "squatter sovereignty" which was one reason he failed to
get enough southern support for the nomination in either 1852 or 1856. But
without *Dred Scott* and without Lecompton, Douglas would at least be an
acceptable candidate for most Southerners, if not their first choice.) But
given the narrowness of Douglas's OTL 1858 victory over Lincoln, any
equivocation over Lecompton would put his Senate seat in grave jeopardy.
[1] But if Douglas had supported English's compromise in OTL, maybe some
Southerners would have opposed it? To quote an old post of mine, "One thing
that I have always wondered about is in fact why Southerners voted for the
English bill--it should have been obvious that Kansans would use it to reject
Lecompton even though this would mean a delay in Kansas becoming a state.
(BTW, the frequently-made claim that the English bill was a "bribe" to
Kansans of land grants in return for voting for Lecompton is erroneous. The
Lecompton Constitution had come to Congress with a demand for really huge
land grants. The English bill actually scaled these grants down, and
provided for a referendum by Kansans as to whether they would still accept
Lecompton with these lesser land grants. It was a "bribe" only in the sense
that if Kansans voted for Lecompton, they could be admitted as a state
immediately, whereas otherwise they would have to wait.) It did avoid the
hated (by Southerners) alternative of outright resubmission of Lecompton by
casting resubmission as a vote on land grants, but that was quite obviously a
fig leaf. One reason Southerners supported it may be that they realized
there was no other way to break the Senate-House deadlock on Lecompton--but
many of them might have preferred a deadlock to a resolution likely to be
unfavorable to the South. Another reason for southern support of the English
bill may be simply that Douglas (after some hesitation) came out against it,
and by that time Southerners were inclined to think that anything Douglas
opposed must be all right..."
http://groups.google.com/group/soc.history.what-if/msg/982aafb3661040e1
--
David Tenner
dte...@ameritech.net
David Tenner
news:5ea90418-7333-467c...@q2g2000pre.googlegroups.com :
>
> Hmm. Wikipedia doesn't have information on the Texas fusion, any clue
> on a good source for that?
>
Dale Baum, *The Shattering of Texas Unionism: Politics in the Lone Star
State during the Civil War Era* (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University
Press, 1998):
"The 1860 presidential balloting had already ripped apart the fragile
Opposition, or 'Union Democratic', coalition that had elected Houston to
the governorship...The John C. Breckinridge-Joseph Lane Southern Rights
Democratic ticket had easily defeated the Houston-endorsed John Bell--
Stephen A. Douglas 'fusion" ticket."
http://books.google.com/books?id=ug2yCtf7ZagC&pg=PA43
Why the spectacular decline in the "Union Democratic" coalition from
Houston's victory over Governor Runnels in 1859 to Breckinridge's easy
victory in the state in 1860? (According to Baum, p. 41, nearly three-
fiths of Houston's 1859 supporters subsequently voted for Breckinridge.)
One reason was the general sharpening of sectional tensions following John
Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry; another, as I have noted
http://groups.google.com/group/soc.history.what-if/msg/407824eadbe9ce0c
was the great "slave arson" panic of the summer of 1860; the leading book
on this is Donald E. Reynolds, *Texas Terror: The Slave Insurrection
Panic of 1860 and the Secession of the Lower South* (Baton Rouge:
Louisiana State University Press 2007). Beyond that, Dale Baum has
suggested that Houston's comeback in 1859 was something of a fluke,
anyway: "In hindsight, however, Governor Runnel's defeat for reelection
in the 1859 governor's race was an aberration. A temporary voter
disapproval of his administration, along with opposition to the extreme
pro-slavery wing of his party, precipitated his ouster from office. Only
on the surface of Texas politics had Houston's dramatic comeback victory
won for him a true measure of vindication...His 1859 victory merely
testified to the unpopularity of fire-eating rhetoric at a time when the
South had not yet suffered from the double trauma of, first, experiencing
on its own soil a genuine northern abolitionist attempt to foment slave
rebellion and second, losing its dominion, which had been assured for
years prior to 1860 buy the influence of its slaveholders in the national
Democratic party, over the American political system."
http://books.google.com/books?id=ug2yCtf7ZagC&pg=PA41
>
> (And I'm still researching how Douglas got more votes than Lincoln in
> New Jersey, but only got 3 EVs where Lincoln got 4)
At one time, that puzzled me, too. It would have been easy to explain if
New Jersey had chosen electors by congressional district, but it did not.
However, I found the explanation in Horace Greeley's *The American
Conflict*:
"[I]n New Jersey the refusal of part of the Douglas men to support the
'Fusion' ticket (composed of three Douglas, two Bell, and two Breckinridge
men), had allowed four of the Lincoln Electors to slip in over the two
Bell and the two Breckinridge Electors on the regular Democratic ticket.
The three Lincoln Electors who had to confront the full vote of the
coalesced anti-Republican parties were defeated by about 4,500 majority."
http://books.google.com/books?id=AwIpAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA328
(It should be noted that most New Jersey Douglasites voted for the entire
fusion ticket. But in a close election, it only took a minority of the
Douglasites refusing to vote for non-Douglas electors to give Lincoln a
majority of the state's electoral vote.)
Incidentally, on the same page Greeley uses a table of state-by-state
popular votes somewhat different from the conventional ones: he apportions
the votes for "fusion" tickets in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvnia, and
Rhode Island "according to the estimated strength of the several
contributing parties": thus he estimates the anti-Lincoln vote in New
York as 208,329 Douglas, 50,000 Breckinridge, and 50,000 Bell. For Texas,
however, he gives the entire anti-Breckinridge vote to Bell: "This anti-
Breckinridge vote was cast for a 'Fusion' Electoral ticket, but almost
entirely by old 'Whigs' or Bell men." Actually, Houston, for example, had
never been a Whig; but he did become a supporter of the American (Know-
Nothing) Party and of the Consitutional Union Party (the successor to the
Whig and American Parties) which nominated Bell in 1860. (Houston in fact
had been a rival of Bell's for the Consitutional Unionist presidential
nomination.) What is true is that there don't seem to have been many
Douglas supporters in Texas.
--
David Tenner
dte...@ameritech.net
synthi...@yahoo.com
books I respect that talk about the economics. Someone has stated
firmly that the southern economy did not work without expansion.
An 1850's banking law had shut the regular farmers out of borrowing,
so only the ~250 yuppie families could borrow to buy land. Slavery is
inefficient, costing 2/3 as much as regular workers, but yielding only
1/2 the value. Any new territories would be heavily worked over by
agents to give them to the southern bosses. Here again, I don't
remember clearly, but when it came to new states voting whether to go
slave or free there was a lot of funding for ballot box stuffing, vote
buying, and maybe political assassination.
Without the war, there would still be strife. There may have been some
trouble with the repression of the white farmers, although the movie
cliche of repression leading to rebellion isn't all that common in
real life.
Nils K. Hammer
ref:
Bitterly Divided
http://www.amazon.com/dp/1595581081/?tag=googhydr-20&hvadid=2572769471&ref=pd_sl_828sojbq0s_b
David Tenner
news:5ea90418-7333-467c...@q2g2000pre.googlegroups.com :
>
> The question then is for each of the 4 candidates, who would they have
> supported if they came in 4th.
> My *guess* is that Lincoln would support Douglas,
I think that Lincoln--and most Republicans--would prefer Bell to Douglas
for the folowing reasons:
(1) Bell shared the Whig background of Lincoln and the majority of
Republicans.
(2) Bell, though a slaveholder--and remember that Lincoln had supported
such slaveholders as Henry Clay and Zachary Taylor--was not a zealot for
slavery expansionism. He opposed the Kansas-Nebraska bill as well as the
Lecompton Constitution. (In fact, he was the only southerner in the
Senate to oppose both the Kansas-Nebraska bill and Lecompton. Even
Houston backed Lecompton.) As late as 1856, he could refer to slavery as
an "accidental and enforced blemish":
http://books.google.com/books?id=-JRBAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA71
This was of course a more benign view of slavery than that taken by anti-
slavery Northerners whom Bell ridicules here as "political virtuosos and
philanthropists" but also quite different from what had become the
standard southern view that slavery was a positive good.
By contrast, Douglas had long been a leader of a party most future
Republicans disliked long before they became Republicans. And above all,
he was the man responsible for the Kansas-Nebraska Act: the Republicans
could never forgive him for this, even when he was helping them defeat
Lecompton.
In any event, the issue is academic because it is extremely unlikely that
*both* Bell and Douglas could have made it into the House. With Lincoln
guaranteed a majority of the northern vote, and Breckinridge a prohibitive
favorite in every Lower South state except perhaps closely-contested
Louisiana http://psephos.adam-carr.net/countries/u/usa/pres/1860.txt it
was almost certain that if no candidate got a majority in the Elctoral
College, the race in the House would be between Lincoln, Breckinridge, and
*either* Bell or Douglas.
If the Republicans saw that they just could not get a majority of
delegations in the House--they controlled fifteen delegations, but as I
have noted at
http://groups.google.com/group/soc.history.what-if/msg/5e891869176a37e5
their chances of getting the remaining two necessary were probelmnatic,
probably involving winning over one Illinois Douglasite and unseating a
narrowly elected Breckinridge-Lane man from Oregon--they could
theoretically, if united, elect Bell in combination with Bell's own
supporters ("Americans," Oppositionists" etc.) and perhaps a few Douglas
Democrats. But very likely *some* Republicans, especailly the more
radical ones and those of Democratic background--and also those
representing districts with large numbers of "foreigners" who would
remember Bell's support for the nativist Fillmore ticket in 1856--might
refuse to go along. And even if the Republicans did back Bell *en masse*
some of the latter's southern supporters will have second thoughts about
voting for a man who owed most of his support to "Black Republicans."
> Bell would support
> Douglas, and Breckinridge would support Bell. I have no idea who
> Douglas would have supported.
Dogulas would probably support Bell, despite their coming from different
party backgrounds. The mutual hatred of the Buchanan and Douglas wings of
the Democratic party was so great that probably either candidate would
prefer Bell to a rival "Democrat."
--
David Tenner
dte...@ameritech.net
Richard Gadsden
Feb 2011 19:11:13 -0600, dte...@ameritech.net (David Tenner) wrote:
> Dogulas would probably support Bell, despite their coming from
> different party backgrounds. The mutual hatred of the Buchanan and
> Douglas wings of the Democratic party was so great that probably
> either candidate would prefer Bell to a rival "Democrat."
This provokes the interesting question of whether *Breckinridge* might
throw the election to Bell in the House.
In a deadlocked House (premise), neither Lincoln, nor Breckinridge can
win, as who would switch their vote from Bell to either?
Neither would wish to throw to Douglas - and if it is Douglas in third,
then the election will be much more bitter, however resolved (President
Lane?) but either Lincoln or Breckinridge could try to give the election
to Bell - though whether either could take their parties with them
solidly enough would be a tough question; both would need to move
virtually every state into the Bell column.
The compromise solution that really would save the Union would be for
both Lincoln and Breckinridge to advise their supporters to vote for Bell
and small numbers of hardliners on both sides to be unable to prevent the
compromise.
I have no real idea what Bell would have been like as President - he
seems to have been in the minority who would accept slavery being
excluded from the territories, was anti-Lecompton, but was a slaveholder
himself and would do nothing about slavery in the states where it was
already established.
With Bell as President and Lane as Vice-President, would Kansas be
admitted as a free state? Perhaps so, which would sound the death knell
for slavery outside the extant slave states.
Of course, there is then the question of Dred Scott.
--
Richard Gadsden
"I disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death
your right to say it" - Attributed to Voltaire
ae597
wrote:
> In article <Xns9E89C32B7CBEDdtennerameritech...@216.168.3.30> on Fri, 11
Enclosed is the variant of John Bell as the Compromise Candidate
(proposed by David Tenner)
http://www.todayinah.co.uk/index.php?story=39496-N