AHC: Unify the Democrats in 1860

In August, Jefferson Davis attempted to broker a compromise under which Douglas, Breckinridge, and John Bell, would all withdraw in favor of a compromise candidate. Both Breckinridge and Bell readily agreed to the plan, but Douglas was opposed to compromising.

So what if Douglass went along with the plan? Who do you think would be a likely compromise candidate? The unified ticket doesn't need to win the election, it just needs to be the only [major] ticket opposing Lincoln.

P.S. If you think Douglass breaking bread with Breckenridge is too ASB, just assume Douglas dies in a well timed butter churning accident and the compromise candidate still happens.
 
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That's Davis's story, but we have to ask whether it is true:

"Shortly before he accepted the presidential nomination of the Richmond convention, Breckinridge met with Jefferson Davis and Robert Toombs. In his memoirs, Davis states that the subject of the meeting was to persuade Breckinridge to accept the nomination, so that Davis might have the leverage to convince both Bell and Douglas to leave the race in favor of a compromise candidate who could save the Union (Davis, 1890: p. 52). According to Davis, Breckinridge and later Bell supported the ‘‘fusion’’ idea and agreed to withdraw, but Douglas obstinately refused to leave the racedthus, the fusion plan failed. Nevertheless, Davis’s biographers speak in grand terms about his efforts to avoid secession and the coming war through his meetings with Breckinridge, Bell, and Douglas. For example, William C. Davis (1991: p. 282) states that 'in one of the most statesmanlike efforts of his career, [Davis] tried to avert calamity by taking the same sort of managerial hand in affairs that he exercised in the Missouri Compromise repeal.'

"Is this story true? Though most historians accept these events as fact, the primary evidence for much of this is sparse. Aside from Davis’s own memoirs--written in 1881, two decades after th efact--there is *no* evidence that (a) Bell agreed to leave the race, (b) Davis met with Douglas, or (c) Douglas refused to leave the race. In fact, there are no known letters or other documents that suggest that Bell ever considered leaving the race; yet, there is primary evidence that Douglas was willing to leave the race (see Crenshaw, 1969; Wells, 1971; Johannsen, 1961, 1965). Though Davis’s version of events is now widely accepted, there is good reason to believe that his memory might have been something less than perfect. Given that Douglas (d. 1861), Bell (d. 1869), and Breckinridge (d. 1875) all had died long before Davis released his memoirs, and therefore could not contradict (or substantiate) his claims, Davis may have concocted the fusion scenario in an attempt to rehabilitate his reputation."
http://faculty.virginia.edu/jajenkins/ES.pdf

For similar skepticism, see Damon Wells, *Stephen Douglas: The Last Years 1857-1861*: "Davis's account is strangely lacking in details. He never tells us if his proposals were submitted in writing, or if a conference actually took place between the three candidates. There is no record to suggest that Douglas either met or corresponded with Davis at any time in the summer of 1860. The Little Giant mentioned a proposal to withdraw from the race only twice during the entire campaign and in doing so made no mention of Davis. Douglas and his followers would have distrusted any such scheme. The Jefferson Davis of 1860 was not the Davis of 1861 who led a South with some pretensions to unity. There was no guarantee that he could make good on his promise to withdraw Breckinridge and Bell from the race. Douglas further reasoned that if he withdrew, no Democrat could be elected, but if Breckinridge pulled out, Douglas still might win. Even should Douglas lose, he would still be in firm control of the Democratic party. Finally, the most likely compromise candidate would be Horatio Seymour of New York, whom Douglas had gone to great lengths to block at Baltimore." http://books.google.com/books?id=7BmCBAAAQBAJ&pg=PT245

Assuming Davis's account is true, who might a compromise candidate have been? As noted, the name that is usually mentioned is Horatio Seymour, former (and future) governor of New York. Of course, Seymour could get every vote that Douglas, Bell, and Breckinridge combined got in California, Oregon, and New Jersey (the only states where Lincoln got any electoral votes without getting an actual majority of the vote) and Lincoln would still win. http://psephos.adam-carr.net/countries/u/usa/pres/1860.txt The only question is whether Seymour's home-state advantage--combined with the possibility that some voters would rather vote for an individual than for a fusion slate of electors--would enable him to carry New York. I doubt it. The Douglas/Bell/Breckinridge fusion ticket in New York got only 46.3 percent of the vote. Seymour might do better than that, but I doubt he could make it to 50 percent.
 
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Assuming Davis's account is true, who might a compromise candidate have been? As noted, the name that is usually mentioned is Horatio Seymour, former (and future) governor of New York.

Seymour is an interesting choice, though a do agree it would be a longshot to carry New York. Any thoughts as to the Vice-President? Might it be a southerner to balance the ticket?
 
And was there really any point?

Any compromise candidate would presumably have to be more pro-Southern than Douglas, so would do worse than Douglas in the North. Doesn't that pretty well guarantee a Lincoln win?
 
And was there really any point?

Any compromise candidate would presumably have to be more pro-Southern than Douglas, so would do worse than Douglas in the North. Doesn't that pretty well guarantee a Lincoln win?

And who's to say that a unified Democratic ticket would still be able to defeat Lincoln?

Remember, even if you combined ALL of the non-Lincoln votes together into one hypothetical candidate, Lincoln STILL would have won despite winning less than 40% of the popular vote against a "candidate" that would have won over 60%. That kinda blows your mind but it's mathematically true...Lincoln basically campaigned in only half of the country, and his vote totals showed that. It was the electoral college that saved him in the end, and even a unified Democratic ticket probably wouldn't have been able to defeat him.
 
And was there really any point?

Any compromise candidate would presumably have to be more pro-Southern than Douglas, so would do worse than Douglas in the North. Doesn't that pretty well guarantee a Lincoln win?

Douglas didn't do all that well in the North IOTL, Lincoln won nearly every northern state by incontestable margins. That being said a Democratic victory is indeed slim.

Remember, even if you combined all of the non-Lincoln votes together into one hypothetical candidate, Lincoln stillwould have won.

You're right, if we merge every non-Lincoln vote, he still wins the election with 169 electoral votes despite winning only 39.82% of the popular vote. This is why the challenge is less about derailing Lincoln and more about finding out what kind of candidate the Democrats could all agree on.
 
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... see Damon Wells, *Stephen Douglas: The Last Years 1857-1861*: "Douglas and his followers would have distrusted any such scheme. The Jefferson Davis of 1860 was not the Davis of 1861 who led a South with some pretensions to unity. There was no guarantee that he could make good on his promise to withdraw Breckinridge and Bell from the race."

That's certainly a factor. Robert E. Lee's take on the matter was that Douglas should be "statesman-like" and withdraw in favor of Breckinridge. Like most Southerners, he defined statesmanship and patriotism and common sense as "doing what the South wanted".

Douglas had a different view, of course. When Lincoln showed him the proclamation of a state of rebellion and call for 75,000 troops, Douglas told him he should call for 200,000, adding "You do not know the dishonest purposes of those men as I do."

ObWI: Douglas has a breakdown during the campaign, and is too ill to continue. He does withdraw in favor of Breckinridge, out of sheer indifference and depression.

What happens to the November vote? The OTL result in Pennsylvania suggests that Breckinridge could hold nearly all of the Douglas vote, but I wonder... OTL, Republicans didn't waste much time attacking Breckinridge, who was no threat to them and whose voters were either Southerners or confirmed Doughfaces. If Douglas is out and only Breckinridge remains, the Republicans will be eager to remind everyone in the North that the Democrat ticket is headed by an outright pro-slavery man.

Could as much as a third of Douglas' free-state vote shift to Lincoln? Douglas had just over 1.2M such votes; that shift would give Lincoln 2.3M out of 4.7M cast. If another 100K Douglas voters stayed home, Lincoln might have a majority!
 
I've always described the 1860 results as "Lincoln won 60% of the vote in 60% of the states" (well, this is basically what happened IOTL - give or take a few percentage points - but without a split Democratic challenge it would be all the more blatant).

Wonder if the perceived ridiculousness of such a result (assuming it, or something similar to it, still happens) would be enough for a reform of the Electoral College... at least if somehow there's no Civil War (such talks would be pretty unpopular after an OTL-like war).
 

Anaxagoras

Banned
If Douglas is out and only Breckinridge remains, the Republicans will be eager to remind everyone in the North that the Democrat ticket is headed by an outright pro-slavery man.

It's not accurate to label Breckinridge "an outright pro-slavery man". The only defense Breckinridge ever made of slavery was to say that the Constitution did not give the federal government the authority to interfere with it (an opinion also held by Lincoln). He didn't like the Fire-Eaters and avoided close association with them. Breckinridge himself owned no slaves in 1860 and had previously been attacked in his congressional races for alleged abolitionist leanings. In fact, Bell supporters attacked Breckinridge during the 1860 election for the fact that he was not himself a slave owner. There's even some evidence that Breckinridge had been a subscriber to one of Frederick Douglass's newspapers.
 
something to keep in mind is that the party required a two thirds majority to select a candidate and that it was the total number of delegates not just the one 's present and that the deep south was committed to it's position even at the cost of a divided party.
 
It's not accurate to label Breckinridge "an outright pro-slavery man". The only defense Breckinridge ever made of slavery was to say that the Constitution did not give the federal government the authority to interfere with it (an opinion also held by Lincoln). He didn't like the Fire-Eaters and avoided close association with them. Breckinridge himself owned no slaves in 1860 and had previously been attacked in his congressional races for alleged abolitionist leanings. In fact, Bell supporters attacked Breckinridge during the 1860 election for the fact that he was not himself a slave owner. There's even some evidence that Breckinridge had been a subscriber to one of Frederick Douglass's newspapers.

it is true that Breckinridge was not a fire-eater like Rhett or Yancey (though he did have their support). However, he was pro-slavery in the political sense in that he supported federal protection of slaveholders' rights to take slaves into all territories, by a federal slave code if necessary:

1. That the Government of a Territory organized by an act of Congress is provisional and temporary, and during its existence all citizens of the United States have an equal right to settle with their property in the Territory, without their rights, either of person or property, being destroyed or impaired by Congressional or Territorial legislation.
2. That it is the duty of the Federal Government, in *all* its departments [my emphasis--DT] , to protect, when necessary, the rights of persons and property in the Territories, and wherever else its constitutional authority extends.
3. That when the settlers in a Territory, having an adequate population, form a State Constitution, the right of sovereignty commences, and being consummated by admission into the Union, they stand on an equal footing with the people of other States, and the State thus organized ought to be admitted into the Federal Union, whether its constitution prohibits or recognizes the institution of slavery. http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/disp_textbook.cfm?smtID=3&psid=3951

This was opposed not only to the Republican demand for the prohibition of slavery in the territories but also to the Douglasite "popular sovereignty" position. It is not quite the most pro-slavery position imaginable, since it apparently calls for a federal slave code for the territories only if "necessary." (A real extremist, Albert Gallatin Brown of Mississippi, did not think his fellow Mississippian Jefferson Davis went far enough when he called for a federal slave code "if necessary." Brown thought that Kansas had shown that such a code *was* necessary and that the Democrats should demand its immediate passage. ) But it was still pretty pro-slavery. The Douglaistes had at least shown some willingness to compromise. Instead of demanding an outright pro-popular-sovereignty plank, their platform stated that "Inasmuch as difference of opinion exists in the Democratic Party as to the nature and extent of the powers of a Territorial Legislature, and as to the powers and duties of Congress, under the Constitution of the United States, over the institution of slavery within the Territories, Resolved, That the Democratic party will abide by the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States upon these questions of Constitutional law." http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/disp_textbook.cfm?smtID=3&psid=3950
 

TFSmith121

Banned
It's also worth pointing out that even though as a

It's also worth pointing out that even though as a Kentuckian and a pro-slavery partisan, he could have maintained neutrality or even stood as a Union Democrat, like William O. Butler - he was "officially" loyal until after Polk's invasion, I believe.

Instead he went south and took up a CSA commission...

Given his later career, I wonder how successful a candidate he actually would have been; I mean, Bell won Kentucky, after all.

Best,
 
STILL would have won despite winning less than 40% of the popular vote against a "candidate" that would have won over 60%.
If he's facing only one opposition candidate though and still wins despite losing the popular vote could we see more popular anger about that?

As in more than just the South feels his win was illegitimate?
 
If he's facing only one opposition candidate though and still wins despite losing the popular vote could we see more popular anger about that?

As in more than just the South feels his win was illegitimate?

As in instead of a Confederacy we see the South try to declare their candidate to be the "true" President? That's an interesting thought, but most of the fire-eaters were dead set on succession... it's a tricky case.
 
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