Best way to prevent the US Civil War

Which is the best option to prevent the Civil War?

  • 1800 POD

    Votes: 22 62.9%
  • 1824 POD

    Votes: 1 2.9%
  • 1828 POD

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • 1841 POD

    Votes: 2 5.7%
  • 1844 POD

    Votes: 4 11.4%
  • 1850 POD

    Votes: 1 2.9%
  • 1852 POD

    Votes: 1 2.9%
  • 1853 POD

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • 1860 POD

    Votes: 4 11.4%

  • Total voters
    35
This IMO, you would need to build a mercantile class along the southern coast that was both even (or larger) in size to the slave owners while also having more lucrative careers that way a southern block made up of people with money and influence who didn't get that way through slavery (thus doesn't see an attack on slavery as an attack on their livelihood.) You don't need to go too much further back than the revolution for this, you just need the mercantile class to be at least a large minority (of the wealthy, that is) by 1800 and have some of them start investing in the industrial revolution early on thus curbstomping the slaveowners grasp on power in the south.

Other than that I just don't see it being possible to prevent a powerful, slave owning, class from becoming ingrained enough in the political culture that a civil war becomes inevitable.
A counterbalance to the slave economy a the creation of a mercantile class would do it. Outside of New Orleans and Charleston the lack of good harbors and the south antithesis to internal improvements prevent this.
 
New theory says it wasn't pneumonia, but tainted drinking water:

https://www.mnn.com/health/fitness-...-deaths-3-presidents-linked-white-house-water


Do we know exactly what period that tainted spring was used for?

This could provide a bumper crop of PoDs, since it implies that any POTUS in this era - say any from Andrew Jackson through Andrew Johnson, and maybe more - could have dropped dead at any moment. In particular, if it happens to any of Tyler, Fillmore, Pierce, or Johnson, it could trigger an election in a year not divisible by four, and thus alter the dates of all subsequent elections. Where would one start?
 
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Do we know exactly what period that tainted spring was used for?

This could provide a bumper crop of PoDs, since it implies that any POTUS in this era - say any from Andrew Jackson through Andrew Johnson, and maybe more - could have dropped dead at any moment. In particular, if it happens to any of Tyler, Fillmore or Pierce, it could trigger an election in a year not divisible by four, and thus alter the dates of all subsequent elections. Where would one start?

Jackson dying at New Orleans in 1815?
 
Your 1860 option would work, but the "somehow" is the kicker.

Its hard to think of good obvious PODs.

There were only so many Democratic politicians around who could plausibly run. Give it a year, give it a few years. But drop one off a horse, one drinks themselves to death, a few cases of pneumonia, maybe a hotel burns down, a train derailment, a heart attack, whatever. Bad luck. Spread out is better, but a couple dying at or just before the convention might be necessary. The factions of the time were ludicrously uncompromising, but they were only human; you can't rally a significant fraction of the party around a dog-catcher.

Maybe a Dem wins; maybe no one wins and the House steps in. It'd be a (proverbial this time) train-wreck, but Lincoln could be out. The next administration would be focused on another compromise.

....But honestly I'm not sure I agree with the first premise. It could easily still be a matter of kicking the can down the road.
 
Throw it out there:

1800 or 1824 POD - Gold discovered in California.

First date may mean an independent California when the Spanish Empire goes to pieces, or the Spanish might prioritize it and hold on due to low population, or it may end up staying with Mexico as several provinces. What it won't be is American.

Second date allows for two of those same options.

All of those scenarios raise the tantalizing prospect that other areas may be off limits to US expansion as well. Oregon perhaps, Texas, New Mexico. Less growth means less tension and less magical thinking.
 
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