A train wreck at Andover

On January 6, 1853, President-Elect Franklin Pierce, his wife, Jane, and his son, Ben, were involved in a train wreck near Andover, Massachusetts. The President-Elect and his wife survived the crash, but their 11 year old son was killed.

But what if the entire family had been killed in the accident?

Obviously, the Vice President-Elect, William R. King of Alabama, will be sworn in as President. However, King had tuberculosis...indeed, he had resigned from his position in the Senate and gone to Cuba for health reasons in December 1852, and in OTL took his Vice Presidential oath in Cuba on March 14, 1853...and would die of it on April 18, 1853, less than a month-and-a-half after assuming office.

So, as of April 18, 1853, the President Pro-Tempore of the Senate, David R. Atchison of Missouri, becomes President of the United States.

Just to give a clue to what sort of President he might have made, consider his actions as Senator...

Wikipedia said:
As a Senator, Atchison was a fervent advocate of slavery and territorial expansion. He supported the annexation of Texas and the U.S.-Mexican War. Atchison and Missouri's other Senator, the venerable Thomas Hart Benton, became rivals and finally enemies, though both were Democrats. Benton declared himself to be against slavery in 1849, and in 1851 Atchison allied with the Whigs to defeat Benton for re-election.

Benton, intending to challenge Atchison in 1854, began to agitate for territorial organization of the area west of Missouri (now the states of Kansas and Nebraska) so it could be opened to settlement. To counter this, Atchison proposed that the area be organized and that the section of the Missouri Compromise banning slavery there be repealed in favor of popular sovereignty, under which the settlers in each territory would decide themselves whether slavery would be allowed.

At Atchison's request, Senator Stephen Douglas of Illinois introduced the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which embodied this idea, in November 1853. The Act became law on in May 1854, establishing the Territories of Kansas and Nebraska.

Border Ruffians

Douglas (and Atchison) had assumed that Nebraska would be settled by Free-State men from Iowa and Illinois, and Kansas by pro-slavery Missourians and other Southerners, thus preserving the numerical balance between free states and slave states. In 1854 Atchison helped found the town of Atchison, Kansas as a pro-slavery settlement. The town (and county) were named for him.[1]

In fact, while Southerners welcomed the opportunity to settle Kansas, very few actually chose to do so. Instead, most free-soilers preferred Kansas. Furthermore, anti-slavery activists throughout the North came to view Kansas as a battleground and formed societies to encourage free-soil settlers to go to Kansas and ensure that both Kansas and Nebraska would become free states.[2]

It appeared as if the Kansas Territorial legislature to be elected in March 1855 would be controlled by free-soilers and ban slavery. This was viewed as a breach of faith by Atchison and his supporters. An angry Atchison called on pro-slavery Missourians to uphold slavery by force and "to kill every God-damned abolitionist in the district" if necessary.[3] He recruited an immense mob of heavily armed Missourians, the infamous "Border Ruffians". On the election day, March 30, 1855, Atchison led 5,000 Border Ruffians into Kansas. They seized control of all polling places at gunpoint, cast tens of thousands of fraudulent votes for pro-slavery candidates, and "elected" a pro-slavery legislature.[2]

So now we have a President in office who was quite willing to use armed force to promote the pro-slavery agenda. What would be the ramifications? Earlier Civil War? Northern secession? Thoughts?
 
Atchison only has one year to cause trouble. He would guarantee a Bloody Kansas takes place, which moves the US toward Civil War.

The question is, who becomes the next president?

If it is Buchanan (2 years early), then the nation probably muddles through for 4 more years (unless Buchanan's plans to make Cuba a state derail things). But he probably does not get reelected in 1958 - so maybe the Civil War happens two years early???

If Cass is the one elected back in 1954, instead of Buchanan, then maybe the Civil War is avoided altogether.
 
Changing the election cycle?

After the special election in the fall if 1853, would the election cycle now be permanently changed, so the next elextion woukld be in 1857? That would sure make politics complicated forever after, with the presidential election not matching up with the Senatorial and House elections.
If the cycle does stay the same, with the replacement president having a short term, then 1856 is the next normaly scheduled election.

And if it was unclear in the law, it could lead to an interesting power struggle/Supreme Court decision/Congressional debate as to when the next presidential election should be held.

Depending on who the president elected in the special election, it could be a controversy along sectional lines, perhaps even leading to an earlier civil war.

Does anyone know what the law was here?
 
Under the then succession law there would have been a Presidential election in the fall of 1853.

Atchison only has one year to cause trouble. He would guarantee a Bloody Kansas takes place, which moves the US toward Civil War.

True, but I think you are underestimating the amount of damage he could cause in that time. Atchison could cause a LOT of problems in one year. Atchison was one of the most, if not the most, extreme of the pro-slavery politicians of the age. He might force a crisis over enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Act in the Northern States, maybe even sending troops in to ensure enforcement. He might send troops to support William Walker's expedition to Mexico, involving the USA in another war with Mexico. And these are just a couple of ways he could have really shaken things up, possibly enough that some Northern States decide to leave the Union.

Furthermore, it is possible that, when the election comes up in the fall of 1853, there is an earlier split in the Democratic Party, with the Southern Democrats supporting Atchison and the Northern branch of the party promoting some other, less pro-slavery candidate. In such a circumstance, an anti-slavery Whig could very well be elected, which could set off the chain reaction of Southern secession as happened in 1860 in OTL.

Any way you look at it, Atchison in the White House...even if only for a year...is not good news for the Union.
 
John D Feerick in his book "The 25th Amendment" says that the 1792 successsion law (which applied up to the 1880s) seemed to have contemplated a 4 year term for the specially elected President. The actual text of the Act cited in the apendix is less than 100% clear.

I thought that in OTL the Kansas Nebraska Act was passed in 1854.

I wonder how much damage a pro Slavery President (worse than Pierce) could have done by March 1854.

Who would be the likely Candidates for an 1853 election???
 
Top