1860 constitutional crisis and war of Succession/Northern Secession

Ouch! Well, I'll try to take your criticism like a man and respond to any valid points you make. Glad you liked "Mound of Spring" though. Hope to get back to it soon.

You're a big boy and a veteran. No one is going to break your heart with a stern critique.

What got me thinking along these lines is that the 1860 elections were incredibly lopsided in the distribution of the Electoral college Vs popular vote. If the Democratic ticket had remained united, and all the states would have voted as OTL the sheer imbalance of the legal and popular parameters of legitimacy, combined with the polarized political discussion would have created an unprecedented, and non-repeated constitutional crisis.

I think you're a little confused here. Bear in mind that the vote for the Bell-Everett "Constitutional Union" ticket were basically all former Whigs. Bell-Everett drew 12.6% of the vote nationally; 40.4% in the slave states.
That's according to the nominal figures usually quoted. However, those figures don't account for the "fusion" tickets which were on the ballot in several states.

Those votes would not be consolidated with the regular Democrat vote.

Agreed- absent an earlier POD. The vote went the way it did because of it's timing. Pro-slavery voters preceded northerners in immigrating into Kansas (it does, after all, abut Missouri). Had they made a larger and earlier impact on the states demographic they might have pulled off a Leecompton in 1854, or 1855.

Dave Tenner has looked at this in detail on soc.history.what-if. Southerners were a narrow majority of the first wave of settlers in Kansas, but at that time (1855) Kansas was far short of the number of inhabitants considered necessary for statehood. Over the next several years, the population grew about 10-fold, and about 3/4 of the newcomers were from the free states of the North, mainly Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois.

So there never was any demographic window for Kansas to be a slave state.

All this does not mean that southerners would necessarily form the majority in Kansas- but a majority would not be needed. Since they were better and earlier established, wealthier, and enjoyed the backing of fraudulent voters from Missouri and large minority could pull off a Leecompton without transgressing sufficiently for congress to investigate.

I guess another way of sidestepping the whole issue would be keeping Kansas as part of the Indian territory for another decade.

I don't think that's really practical. After the Mexican War, there was a stream of settlement to the Far West, and eastern settlement spreading west from the Mississippi and out of the states and territories that abutted
the river.





Agreed- this was the first watershed moment where Douglas lost the sympathies of southern democrats while retaining those of the North. And it's the reason he failed to secure the Democratic nomination at the Charelston convention. And that's why I'm focusing on this juncture.

So for Douglas to win the Democratic nomination and still be a viable candidate north of the Ohio, the clash between southern sympathies and popular sovereignty needs to be finessed.

Keeping Kansas part of Indian territory sounds like a better and better solution to that dilemma.

Must crash. More later.
 
You're a big boy and a veteran. No one is going to break your heart with a stern critique.



I think you're a little confused here. Bear in mind that the vote for the Bell-Everett "Constitutional Union" ticket were basically all former Whigs. Bell-Everett drew 12.6% of the vote nationally; 40.4% in the slave states.
That's according to the nominal figures usually quoted. However, those figures don't account for the "fusion" tickets which were on the ballot in several states.

Those votes would not be consolidated with the regular Democrat vote.



Dave Tenner has looked at this in detail on soc.history.what-if. Southerners were a narrow majority of the first wave of settlers in Kansas, but at that time (1855) Kansas was far short of the number of inhabitants considered necessary for statehood. Over the next several years, the population grew about 10-fold, and about 3/4 of the newcomers were from the free states of the North, mainly Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois.

So there never was any demographic window for Kansas to be a slave state.



Must crash. More later.

Hope to hear more. I do appreciate your critique even if it kills my idea.

Regarding Kansas demographics, my understanding was that the later, overwhelming, wave of northern immigrants focused on kansas mostly because of the activities of the Transcontinental survey team.

If the central route for the railway is ruled out at the outset (because of the avaliability of the cheaper southern route) then would Kansas have attracted quite so many settlers? Wouldn't the earlier trickle from Missouri and points south continue to build up strength? And even if it does not, and Pawnee, Omaha, Cheyene, Arapho and COmanchee continue to be pressed into the Indian territory might the statues quo not remain for a few more years?

Regarding the Whigs- everything I read suggests that they were in their death throes, and that they made a comeback of sorts in 1860 only because they offered a palatable alternative to border staters who opposed secession while supporting slavery. The fact that they failed to make a post civil war comeback supports this view.

If Douglas somehow dodges both the Kansas and Freeport bullets without alienating Northern or Southern Democrats I don't think there would be much of a niche for the Whigs to step into. And, politicians being what they are, it seems likely that even die hard whigs would look to cash in their residual support for a place at the table with either the Democrat or Republican party.

In any event, even if they do not die out, their main effect would be to dilute the Democratic majority in the popular vote, rather than on the electoral college distribution. All the border states where Bell carried the vote OTL would have given a united democratic ticket the victory. Ditto for the West Coast.

Indiana and Illinois OTOH... Well, the Whigs got only 1.9 and 1.4 percent of the vote in those states. OTL, the vote went 47.9 for the split Democrats, 50.7 for the Republicans in Illinois, and 51.1:46.9 in Indiana. I think that gap can be narrowed if Kansas and/or Dred Scott are dodged and Buchanan has a more successful presidency+ better relation with Douglas.
 
Last edited:
IIRC that was one of the arguments against Seward at the Republican Convention- the fear that he was considered so radical he would swing those states away.

Aye. PODs to avoid this outcome are plentiful (Northwest and border states get smaller delegations, Lincoln's debates with douglas not so widely publicized, and so on). However, like I said, I'm a single POD type of guy.

If popular soverignty, Kansas or Dred scott are dodged Lincoln may not get a chance to shine Vs Douglas. Alternately, if there is no Kansas Nebraska bill the WHig party may not fall apart and Lincoln might stay a Whig... but that would reduce the polarization leading up to the 1860 election so let's quietly ignore that possibility (handwave).
 
Wasn't there a timeline somewhere where the North ended up seceding and Robert E Lee getting hanged after getting captured by the North?
 
Wasn't there a timeline somewhere where the North ended up seceding and Robert E Lee getting hanged after getting captured by the North?

Link? My take is that the North will never secede because the industrialists which were the core of Republican power and New England economic life required the West and South as a protected Market. Defy and contest Central authority, perhaps. Intentionally secede, never.
 
Link? My take is that the North will never secede because the industrialists which were the core of Republican power and New England economic life required the West and South as a protected Market. Defy and contest Central authority, perhaps. Intentionally secede, never.


That's pretty much my feeling too. It's also a reason why the British would be even less keen (despite the absence of slavery there) to support a northern secession than a southern one.

One (just) possible exception. WI in 1820 half a dozen Virginia Congressmen are a tad more far-sighted, and vote for an Amendment mandating the election of Presidential Electors by Congressional district [1]. The Amendment squeaks through the HoR, goes on to pass the Senate and is duly ratified. The next few elections are not changed, but come 1860, thanks to fusion deals that weren't made (or fell through) OTL, the Republicans lose CA and OR, and get only two electors in NJ and four in IL, while in IN, OH, PA and NY they lose just enough districts to send the election into Congress, whence Breckinridge or Lane emerges as POTUS.

They get ready for a return match in 1864, but the South hits below the belt. A number of Southern States assist several thousand reliable Democratic voters to take up residence in swing districts in Northern states, whose electors (combined with a solid anti-Republican vote in the Slave states) are just enough to allow the Dems to win again. Republican journals make indignant comparisons with the Missourian Border Ruffians in Kansas. However, it's all perfectly legal and, well mostly, non-violent.

If the same happens at the next two or three elections, and Republicans see no hope of winning in the foreseeable future, then maybe - just maybe - they get frustrated enough to contemplate secession. But even then, I would say it's the longest of long shots.


[1] See my thread Electoral College Reform - In 1820.
 
Last edited:
Regarding Kansas demographics, my understanding was that the later, overwhelming, wave of northern immigrants focused on kansas mostly because of the activities of the Transcontinental survey team.

If the central route for the railway is ruled out at the outset (because of the avaliability of the cheaper southern route) then would Kansas have attracted quite so many settlers?

The Kansas-Nebraska Act came about as a result of a deal between Douglas and the Southerners.

Douglas favored a "central" route for the transcontinental railroad, in part because of his real estate interests in Chicago. The Southerners agreed to support a central route in return for Douglas pushing the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which conditionally opened Kansas Territory to "Southern", i.e. slaveholding, settlement.

No central route, no K-N Act. However, I'm not sure that the railroad survey made a difference; the central route ran west from Omaha, not in Kansas.
 
Top