AHC: South secedes one year early

"People often ask how the South could have won the Civil War. Answer: Secede one year sooner."--Sean Trende

https://twitter.com/SeanTrende/status/941425241724682241

Challenge: Make it happen. Of course Trende admits later in the thread "Absolutely -- that [Lincoln's election] was the trigger. But they should have seen the writing on the wall given population/tech disparities and left while they still had a sympathetic ear in Washington. I'M EXTREMELY GLAD THEY DIDN'T IN ...CASE ANYONE IS MISUNDERSTANDING ME."

Is there anything that could make the South secede late in Buchanan's administration before Lincoln was elected? John Sherman being elected Speaker of the House? Doubtful that would be enough even for South Carolinians. John Brown escapes and a Radical Republican governor refuses to extradite him (and helps him slip over to Canada)? Anything?

(I think it's unfair to say that Buchanan was sympathetic to secessionists, btw--he was sympathetic to southern grievances, but did not consider secession a proper remedy for them. But it is true that he would not have dealt with secession effectively in early 1860 any more than he did in early 1861.)
 
Best I can think of is having Buchanan nominate a northerner in 1856 (or have a southerner president and northerner vp) and have the president get assassinated causing tensions to increase and the South to secede

It's much more easier to get the North to secede before 1861 though if Breckinridge or President Pro Tempore Benjamin Fitzpatrick become president via assassination and exact vengeance on the North
 
Best I can think of is having Buchanan nominate a northerner in 1856 (or have a southerner president and northerner vp) and have the president get assassinated causing tensions to increase and the South to secede

It's much more easier to get the North to secede before 1861 though if Breckinridge or President Pro Tempore Benjamin Fitzpatrick become president via assassination and exact vengeance on the North

(1) Buchanan's running mate, whether northern or southern, is going to be pro-southern politically because by 1856 that's what the Democrats were.

(2) It is true that after Buchanan's election in 1856, some northern antislavery radicals concluded that the struggle against slavery was hopeless within the Union, and tried to make common cause with the Garrisonians in a "disunion convention" in Worcester, MA in 1857. They sent out invitations to several prominent Republicans--who all turned them down. Even a Radical like Henry Wilson advised the Convention to "leave all the impotent and puerile threats against the Union to the Southern slave propagandists." https://books.google.com/books?id=Wl38uYb85DgC&pg=PA141

I just don't see northern secession being a serious movement unless Breckinridge or Lane or someone similar wins in 1860, and even then I don't think it will be successful.
 
IIRC, James Buchanan ended up getting sick on his inauguration day at the National Hotel and there was a rumor going about that he was poisoned. I’ll have to conduct more research on whether there is any validity to that claim though. However, over 30 people at the hotel contracted dysentery and ultimately died (among them included John G. Montgomery and John Quitman, who were sitting members of the U.S. House of Representatives). If you wanted to go the route of Breckinridge becoming president then you might have a shot at it with a scenario where Buchanan contracts dysentery but doesn’t recover.
 
I am gonna propose different scenario: make South secede one year later. And under specific circumstances too.
Have president elect attempt to keep South in Union as states begin to secede by making more effort to support Corwin amendment. States which were planning to secede but had not yet done so, decide adopt wait and see tactic. After few months of squabbles, amendment passes in Congress, and president Lincoln praises the effort of national legislature to maintain national unity. With CSA seemingly aborted, Southern States that already seceded including South Carolina, decide that secession might not work out with only couple states, so they mumble a bit that they'll "probably Union rejoin if amendment is ratified".
Pro-compromise Union politicians double their efforts to make enough states ratify amendment in response. Unfortunately for them, abolitionists double their efforts to stop it.
After about half states ratified amendment, everything does into gridlock. Northern States are angry at fugitive state laws, and will not budge. Even if seceded southern states rejoined the union, there would still not be enough states to ratify. Seceded southern states make compact, that they'll rejoin the Union if there is enough support for amendment that their support will swing the issue. Compromise union politicians travel to last few states that did not formally rejected amendment, and go on to make speeches about importance of compromise and coexistence, some go as far as to blame abolitionists for refusing to address South's legitimate grievance. Of course they'd do so: they're already politically committed to the compromise, they sunk too much of their political capital into Southern amendment.
To no avail, compromise is rejected, and remaining Southern States that clung onto Union formally secede, CSA is formed in late 1862. By that time, not enough would buy the idea that South has to be integrated by force. Moderates are angry at abolitionist that they ruined their chance for preserving Union, and make them look like a fools personally, so they adopt view that South had legitimate grievances and were willing to compromise, was it not for the radicals. In 1864 USA recognizes CSA, and 1865 abolishes slavery with compensation to owners.
 
Let's not forget, even before the election of 1860, things were already getting ugly. Especially after John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry.
 
It might be impactful because of the geographic distribution of the pre-war US Army. You could get some talented officers being precluded from service for both sides because they are stuck fighting Indians in Washington state or dealing with the aftermath of the Mormon crisis. And the Kansas issue had not truly been settled yet.
 
IIRC, James Buchanan ended up getting sick on his inauguration day at the National Hotel and there was a rumor going about that he was poisoned. I’ll have to conduct more research on whether there is any validity to that claim though. However, over 30 people at the hotel contracted dysentery and ultimately died (among them included John G. Montgomery and John Quitman, who were sitting members of the U.S. House of Representatives). If you wanted to go the route of Breckinridge becoming president then you might have a shot at it with a scenario where Buchanan contracts dysentery but doesn’t recover.


I remember seeing an article once about Washington's water supply coming from a low lying area that was likely infested with microbes. The theory was that the contaminated water is what really killed Harrison and Taylor (as well as Polk, who died four months after leaving office).

If the city had the same water source in 1857, the inaugural outbreak could have the same cause.
 
Best I can think of is having Buchanan nominate a northerner in 1856 (or have a southerner president and northerner vp) and have the president get assassinated causing tensions to increase and the South to secede

It's much more easier to get the North to secede before 1861 though if Breckinridge or President Pro Tempore Benjamin Fitzpatrick become president via assassination and exact vengeance on the North
I looked it up, and apparently there was only one northerner who received delegate votes for the vice presidential ballot, Major General Benjamin Butler of Massachusetts. However, he was a supporter of the Compromise of 1850 and Pierce, and an opponent of abolition, running on a pro-slavery platform in the 1859 gubernatorial race in his state. He also supported Breckenridge, then Davis, at the 1860 convention.

However, he did become a huge opponent of secession and recommended that Buchanan, during his lame duck period, arrest and charge the secessionists with treason, and he returned to the Army during the war, being a key leader in the capture of New Orleans and later its military governor, whose leadership remains controversial to this day. Finally, as a congressman after the war, he wrote the Klan Act of 1871 and helped to write the Civil Rights Act of 1875.

It's hard to find many pro-secession Democrats, especially after the formation of the Republican Party. The other three candidates for the 1856 nomination were Pierce, the incumbent president, Douglass, and Cass, the latter two who supported popular sovereignty. A ton of northerners supported Breckenridge in 1860, interestingly. I can't find any Democrats who were anti-slavery enough to prompt a walkout of the South who had significant support within the party.
 
Top