We have often discussed whether the electoral defeat of Abraham Lincoln in the 1864 election might have created a scenario in the Confederacy could have won its independence. Because this question is so complex, I thought I'd post a thread devoted to it.
There are several things to consider. By 1864, the Northern public was quite clearly tired of the war, with the enormous casualties, as well as the high taxes, inflation, conscription and general disruption it caused. There was also a very large portion of the population, perhaps the majority, which was uncomfortable with emancipation and feared job competition from newly-freed slaves.
Because of all this, it is clear that Lincoln could have lost the election if the Union armies had not achieved considerable success during the 1864 campaign season. IOTL, the victories achieves at Mobile Bay, Atlanta, and in the Shenandoah Valley persuaded the Northern public that the Union was, indeed, winning the war and that the cost they were bearing was actually worth something. Had Union arms not enjoyed such success, it is clear that Northern voters would have shown Mr. Lincoln the door.
Since Lincoln beat McClellan in the electoral college 212 to 21, it looks like a blowout. But the truth is that McClellan lost New York by a hairsbreadth (less than half a percentage point), and several other states by rather small margins.
As shown here, a swing of a mere 33,000 votes in critical states would mathematically have enabled McClellan to secure enough electoral votes to win the election. If the Confederates had been successful during the 1864 campaign season, it is very easy to see how the Northern public might have turned Lincoln out.
The next question is whether a McClellan victory would have mattered when it came to the question of the Confederacy's survival. Although the 1864 Democratic platform specifically called for a cease-fire and a negotiated restoration of the Union, McClellan himself was a War Democrat who personally rejected this approach. Many argue that if McClellan won, he would simply have continued the war anyway, thus dooming the Confederacy to inevitable defeat.
But there are a few issues with this point of view. First of all, it's important to point out that McClellan only released his letter repudiating the peace plank only after the victories at Mobile and Atlanta had begun to turn public opinion in favor of continuing the war. Had those victories not occurred, would McClellan have remained wedded to the idea of restoring the Union by force, or would be have allowed his ambition to persuade him to adopt the position of the Peace Democrats?
Furthermore, it is generally assumed that McClellan was planning on dropping the abolition of slavery as a condition of peace. If he did this, would Republicans have continued to support the war effort? Would they have been willing to continue the fight, with all its consequent losses of blood and treasure, if their ultimate goal of abolishing slavery was no longer going to be achieved?
Additionally, McClellan would only have become President with the support of the Peace Democrats, which can be seen in the fact that George Pendleton, a Copperhead congressman from Ohio, was chosen as his VP candidate. As Lincoln himself astutely pointed out in his famous memorandum that August, McClellan would have "secured his election on such ground" that it would basically be impossible for him to resist the political pressure to offer a truce to the Confederates and attempt a negotiated restoration of the Union.
Any attempted negotiation would have obviously failed, since Jefferson Davis would have automatically rejected any proposals that did not grant the Confederacy its independence. But having accepted a cease-fire so that the negotiations could take place, would the McClellan administration have had the political capital to resume hostilities after the negotiations had failed? Would the Northern public, which doubtless would have breathed a sigh of relief at news of the initial cease-fire, have been willing to launch the war all over again after months, possibly a year, of peace? Against an enemy that would have spent the intervening time restoring its strength and recovering from the damage the war had inflicted up until then?
Anyway, I look forward to an informative and respectful discussion.