Breckinridge wins the election of 1860

How does Breckinridge alter history?


  • Total voters
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As to the cause -- California and Oregon running Fusion Tickets would be a good start; with that much done, you really only need to change less than 36,000 votes in Illinois and Indiana. With that, Lincoln's tally in the Electoral College falls to 149, and the election is thrown to the House.

As to the effect -- with respect to @Kerney and @Anaxagoras -- I'm not so sure Breckinbridge would have done much or any good at keeping the slavery issue from further testing apart the country. We shouldn't forget that at the time if the election, a "second Dred Scott" (Lemmon v People) was making its way through the courts, with the Taney Court poised to tell the free states that they were obliged to give every respect southern "property" brought into their jurisdiction.
 
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The Democratic Party had a rule 3/5 were needed for the nomination which means the south had a veto and if things didn't go the way they wanted they could prevent anybody getting nominated. In that case you would get what happened in 1860.

Actually two-thirds, not three-fifths. But that just makes the point stronger.
 
Lincoln had a majority (over 50%) of the popular vote in every free state except CA, OR, and NJ. If the opposition vote in those three states had been united, Lincoln would have got 11 fewer electoral votes, leaving him with 169 EV. There were 303 EV total, so Lincoln needed only 152 to win.
You're right. Since I posted that, I looked at the actual numbers; to my surprise, Lincoln did indeed win a majority as you said.
 

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Maybe. ButBreckenridge's supporters would make it hard from to pick up support from the North. The southern Democrats basically put wanted polices northern Democrats could not stomach. The southern's wanted to reopen the slave trade and have Kansas be a slave state regardless of what the people wanted. In 1860 Southern Democrats wanted everything and when they couldn't they walked out. In sum what southers wanted the northers didn't and vice-versa

Have Breckenridge chose a VP from Philadelphia. A pro southern city and puts Pennsylvania in play
 
Breckinridge IMO would have a good chance in the House. Remember that the voting is on a one-delegation, one-vote basis--which gave the South disproportionate weight. The breakdown of the delegations was as follows: Fifteen were controlled by Republicans. Thirteen were controlled by Breckinridge Democrats (eleven slave states plus California and Oregon). One state--Illinois--was controlled by Douglas Democrats. Bell supporters controlled one state (Tennessee). Three states (Kentucky, Maryland, and North Carolina) were equally divided between Breckinridge Democrats and Bell supporters. (Bell's supporters used a variety of party names--American, Oppositionists, Constitutional Unionists, etc. A few may even still have called themselves Whigs...) Breckinridge can win if he gets one "American" each in KY, MD and NC and three in TN. I think it quite possible that he can do so. The Americans/Oppositionists were after all Southerners, and if it was clear that Bell could not win, they would likely prefer Breckinridge to a "black Republican." (Henry Winter Davis would be an obvious exception.) True, the Americans/Oppositionists might just keep the House deadlocked by continuing to vote for Bell. But that would be rather pointless, because it would just mean the vice-president chosen by the Senate would become president--and that would certainly be Breckinridge's running mate Lane, the Oregon "doughface."
The only problem with this is that it assumes that none of the Douglas or Northern Democrats defect to Lincoln or refuse to vote for Breckenridge, which I find unlikely. The votes of Congressman John Logan of Illinois and George Cobb of New Jersey would have been key to the vote of their State delegations in the House, and I reasoned when doing my D'Hondte series that they'd opt for Lincoln over Breckinridge, if for nothing else then the undue influence Southern Democrats might have in that administration. I supposed that other defections would also be possible, but those were the most important ones which I could more or less directly reason. Of course that can be partially offset by electing more Democrats to the House, but then it is a gamble whether these new additions would themselves vote for Breckinridge or not.
 
The only problem with this is that it assumes that none of the Douglas or Northern Democrats defect to Lincoln or refuse to vote for Breckenridge, which I find unlikely.
The question here isn't, "Do all the Northern Democrats vote for Breckinbridge?", it's "Do enough of them vote for Lincoln to give him the Presidency?" And even in your scenario, the Democratic Senate voted for Joseph Lane for Vice President easily enough; that would make elevating Lincoln a bit awkward, considering that would just put the Southern Democrats one assassination away from the presidency. And as OTL shows, there will be attempts.
 
Such would probably occur in the House, and would cause great controversy in the North obviously. Most ominously for the Union is that Lemmon v. New York is making its way to the Supreme Court and, given the Court's composition, will most likely result in the complete eradication of the Free-Slave difference in states. Under such circumstances, a Northern secession becomes entirely possible in my estimation.

As far as policy goes, by 1861 it's too late to force Kansas in as a slave state but Breckenridge and Congressional Democrats can probably keep it as a territory for as long as they hold the Presidency. California tried three times in the 1850s to split itself up, and in 1859 a partition plan to hack off everything south of the 36th Parallel was agreed to overwhelmingly by the voters and signed by the State Governor but the chaos of the impending civil war prevented it from happening. Without said disorder, Southern California is probably successful in becoming the new state of "Colorado" and, given its large Pro-Southern element, could enter the Union as a slave state. With regards to the Supreme Court, Breckinridge can probably make a major difference there, as Justice Daniel will likely be replaced by Jeremiah Black (IOTL lost by one vote) and Breckinridge can appoint the successors to MacLean and Taney. Given Alabama won't be seceding until at least 1865ish, Justice Campbell will also remain on the court while Justices Catron and Wayne might retire early (They died in 1865 and 1867, respectively). By far the biggest thing Breckinridge could do, however, is revive interest in Sam Houston's plans for an invasion of Mexico (Such nearly happened in 1860) and carve out some new states.

Long term, the Civil War may or may not come; I do not believe such was inevitable. Here it could, however, come from either the North or South, depending upon how things go during Breckinridge's term. Should the war still come, the strategic picture for it will be completely different. At least four more years of industrial development and immigration will certainly benefit the North, and Lee will likely be retired from active service. On the flip side, the South will have had around six years at least of stockpiling weapons and training militias (Such was occurring throughout 1860) by 1865 as well as enough accumulated capital to buy up lots of Armstrong and Whitworth Cannon from the British. The South will also likely have a greater rail network, which carries obvious benefits to mobilization and logistics. Perhaps Birmingham, Alabama could also be developed early; In the immediate prior to the outbreak of the Civil War, a consortium of Planters and Industrialists were seeking to develop Birmingham, but the outbreak of the conflict prevented such from beginning until 1867. Here, with Breckinridge in and the Civil War averted (at least for now), the plans can go forth and the site of Birmingham will receive the railway links and investment capital it needs to become a major iron/steel production site. Should the War come later, this will be a major boon for the Confederacy, as IOTL saw the Union rapidly overrun the South's existing main suppliers in Tennessee and Western Virginia. The iron shortage was a major issue, as it resulted in Tredgar Iron Works seeing a continuous decline in quantity and quality of artillery production as well as a collapse in rail stock supplies, leading to the intense decline of the Southern rail network as the war progressed.
 
The only problem with this is that it assumes that none of the Douglas or Northern Democrats defect to Lincoln or refuse to vote for Breckenridge, which I find unlikely. The votes of Congressman John Logan of Illinois and George Cobb of New Jersey would have been key to the vote of their State delegations in the House, and I reasoned when doing my D'Hondte series that they'd opt for Lincoln over Breckinridge, if for nothing else then the undue influence Southern Democrats might have in that administration. I supposed that other defections would also be possible, but those were the most important ones which I could more or less directly reason. Of course that can be partially offset by electing more Democrats to the House, but then it is a gamble whether these new additions would themselves vote for Breckinridge or not.

First of all, the NJ delegation had a Republican majority anyway, so whether either of the two Anti-Lecompton Democrats in it votes for Lincoln (or whoever the Republicans nominate--I think they almost have to nominate a weaker candidate than Lincoln for the race to go into the House) is irrelevant. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/36th_United_States_Congress Second, George Cobb would not be voting in any case. It is the *old* Congress (the 36th) which votes; Cobb was elected to the *37th* Congress (1861-63). http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=C000546

Nevertheless, there *is* a conceivable if unlikely way Lincoln (or Seward, etc.) could have won in the House. I discussed it in a post here some months ago:

***

It's not very likely the 1860 election would *go* into the House--at least not with Lincoln as the Republican candidate--but it seems widely assumed that if it did, he couldn't win there. After all, the Republicans were two delegations short of a majority. But here is how the gossiping friend of Alexander Stephens, J. Henley Smith, thought that Lincoln could indeed could win in the House:

"Congressman Isaac N. Morris, a Douglas Democrat from Illinois, had avowed that he would vote for none but Douglas. Smith believed that Morris would eventually cast his lot with the Republicans. Also Congressman Lansing Stout of Oregon occupied a precarious seat, which was being contested by the Republicans. Inasmuch as they had organized the House, if it became necessary they would press the contest against Stout, unseat him, and win the Oregon vote and the election." Ollinger Crenshaw, *The Slave States in the Presidential Election of 1860* (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1945), pp. 68-69.

(Stout had defeated David Logan--the candidate of the Republicans and informally supported by the Douglas Democrats--by only sixteen votes out of more than eleven thousand cast in 1859!
http://books.google.com/books?id=n8aMn4CxknsC&pg=PA281 Logan--who considered himself a Whig long after the party dwindled into national insignificance--had until recently been a strong critic of "Black Republicans." But once the divisions in the Democratic camp gave him a chance to win, he readily accepted the Republican nomination.)

Unseating Stout would, however, outrage many non-Republicans (Douglas, Bell, and Breckinridge supporters) who in OTL supported Lincoln and the war effort after Fort Sumter. They felt that the South had the duty to accept the election of Lincoln because he had won fair and square. If instead he wins with such dubious methods, he has not only practically the entire South against him but a huge number of Northerners as well. Moreover, Oregon alone will not elect Lincoln. It only gets him up to sixteen delegations, still one short of a majority. The Republicans also need to get at least one Douglas Democrat from Illinois--whether Morris or someone else--to vote for Lincoln, and unseating Stout would if anything make this less likely. (It's not enough for Morris to adhere to his vow to vote for nobody but Douglas. If Morris merely abstains, the delegation is tied, so Lincoln still does not win its vote.) Anyway, I am not even sure the Republicans, who only barely controlled the House, had the votes to unseat Stout.

Stout himself eventually became a Republican--could he be persuaded to vote for Lincoln in OTL? The April 1860 Lane-dominated Oregon Democratic convention had refused to consider renominating Stout.
http://books.google.com/books?id=JtxAAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA168 On the one hand, this meant that any Republican threat to unseat him would probably not move his vote, since he was a lame duck anyway. Yet on the other hand, if he had enough resentment toward his old ally Lane for not supporting his renomination, *that* just might lead him to vote for Lincoln. (Yet after his failure to be renominated, Stout attended the Charleston Convention and telegraphed Lane, then in Washington, for instructions. https://books.google.com/books?id=XSWiAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA176 So he still seems to have been a loyal Lane Democrat at this time.)
 
First of all, the NJ delegation had a Republican majority anyway, so whether either of the two Anti-Lecompton Democrats in it votes for Lincoln (or whoever the Republicans nominate--I think they almost have to nominate a weaker candidate than Lincoln for the race to go into the House) is irrelevant. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/36th_United_States_Congress Second, George Cobb would not be voting in any case. It is the *old* Congress (the 36th) which votes; Cobb was elected to the *37th* Congress (1861-63). http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=C000546
Ah, I keep forgetting that it is the Old Congress that gets the first crack at it............

So it does seem that the win in Delaware is key to Lincoln's victory, as even if Illinois swings that leaves him one delegation shy. Essentially the talks between the Breckinridge and Bell folk would have to deadlock or reach some sort of impasse for Lincoln to have a real chance, and that isn't all that likely.
 
Lincoln had a majority (over 50%) of the popular vote in every free state except CA, OR, and NJ. If the opposition vote in those three states had been united, Lincoln would have got 11 fewer electoral votes, leaving him with 169 EV. There were 303 EV total, so Lincoln needed only 152 to win.

Note, though, that the premise of the OP is simply that Breckinridge wins in 1860, not that he necessarily defeats Lincoln--there could be a Republican candidate other than Lincoln.

I am pretty sure that Seward would get less than 50 percent of the vote in both IL and IN. After all, even Lincoln got only 50.7 and 51.1 percent in those states, respectively. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_1860 Seward lacked Lincoln's Indiana-Illinois background. More important, Seward had serious problems with the nativist and conservative element in the Republican party. (Admittedly, he really was no more "radical" on slavery than Lincoln; and the "irrepressible conflict" speech was no more radical than the "house divided." But the memory of the "higher law"--taken out of context--may have made Seward seem more radical. And in any event he was considered too friendly to Catholics and immigrants. Lincoln, by contrast, kept his denunciations of the Know Nothings private...)

To say that Seward would have gotten less than 50 percent of the vote in IL and IN is of course not necessarily to say that he would have lost those states. I think it's quite likely that he would have lost IL. But IN is harder, due to Jesse Bright's hatred of Douglas, which probably doomed any chance of anti-Republican fusion on the presidential level in the state. (Breckinridge got 4.5 percent of the vote in IN, easily his best showing in the Old Northwest.)
 
Not necessarily. Let's say the Republicans lose CA (4 electoral votes), OR (3), IL (11), IN (13), and the four electoral votes Lincoln won in NJ. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_1860 The race would then go into the House. (It's conceivable that if Seward were nominated, the Republicans would lose all those states. Admittedly, it would be hard for Douglas to carry IN--given Jesse Bright's hatred of him--even against Seward. But suppose Bright decides that after all Breckinridge can't carry Indiana and it's better to have Douglas carry the state than Seward. Moreover, Seward had a lot of enemies in his own state of New York, where an anti-Republican fusion ticket got over 46 percent of the vote against Lincoln. And losing New York would by itself be enough to throw the race in the House. In any event, it is not inconceivable that the race will go into the House. )

Looking at the candidates who came in second in each state, these changes would lead to CA, IL, IN, and NJ going for Douglas, OR going for Breckinridge. That would break down to 145 electoral votes for Seward, 75 for Breckinridge, 44 for Douglas, 39 for Bell. Since the House chooses among the top 3, so they'd be deciding between Seward, Douglas, and Breckinridge.

Breckinridge IMO would have a good chance in the House. Remember that the voting is on a one-delegation, one-vote basis--which gave the South disproportionate weight. The breakdown of the delegations was as follows: Fifteen were controlled by Republicans. Thirteen were controlled by Breckinridge Democrats (eleven slave states plus California and Oregon). One state--Illinois--was controlled by Douglas Democrats. Bell supporters controlled one state (Tennessee). Three states (Kentucky, Maryland, and North Carolina) were equally divided between Breckinridge Democrats and Bell supporters. (Bell's supporters used a variety of party names--American, Oppositionists, Constitutional Unionists, etc. A few may even still have called themselves Whigs...) Breckinridge can win if he gets one "American" each in KY, MD and NC and three in TN. I think it quite possible that he can do so. The Americans/Oppositionists were after all Southerners, and if it was clear that Bell could not win, they would likely prefer Breckinridge to a "black Republican." (Henry Winter Davis would be an obvious exception.) True, the Americans/Oppositionists might just keep the House deadlocked by continuing to vote for Bell. But that would be rather pointless, because it would just mean the vice-president chosen by the Senate would become president--and that would certainly be Breckinridge's running mate Lane, the Oregon "doughface."

Looking at the 36th US Congress, Oregon's Representative Lansing Stout had broken ties with the "doughface" Lane and later became a Republican, so I don't see why you classify him as a Breckinridge Democrat. The Illinois delegation had 5 Douglas Democrats and 4 Republicans, so the Republican candidate only needs to pick up Stout and one of the Illinois delegates to win in the House.
 
Looking at the 36th US Congress, Oregon's Representative Lansing Stout had broken ties with the "doughface" Lane and later became a Republican, so I don't see why you classify him as a Breckinridge Democrat. The Illinois delegation had 5 Douglas Democrats and 4 Republicans, so the Republican candidate only needs to pick up Stout and one of the Illinois delegates to win in the House.

Well, the question is exactly when Stout became a Republican. As I wrote above,

"Stout himself eventually became a Republican--could he be persuaded to vote for Lincoln in OTL? The April 1860 Lane-dominated Oregon Democratic convention had refused to consider renominating Stout.
http://books.google.com/books?id=JtxAAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA168 On the one hand, this meant that any Republican threat to unseat him would probably not move his vote, since he was a lame duck anyway. Yet on the other hand, if he had enough resentment toward his old ally Lane for not supporting his renomination, *that* just might lead him to vote for Lincoln. (Yet after his failure to be renominated, Stout attended the Charleston Convention and telegraphed Lane, then in Washington, for instructions. https://books.google.com/books?id=XSWiAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA176 So he still seems to have been a loyal Lane Democrat at this time.)"

One could be a Breckinridge supporter in 1860 and a staunch Unionist who would support the Republicans once the war came. Remember that both Andrew Johnson and Ben Butler supported Breckinridge in 1860...
 
Looking at the candidates who came in second in each state, these changes would lead to CA, IL, IN, and NJ going for Douglas, OR going for Breckinridge. That would break down to 145 electoral votes for Seward, 75 for Breckinridge, 44 for Douglas, 39 for Bell. Since the House chooses among the top 3, so they'd be deciding between Seward, Douglas, and Breckinridge
Take New Jersey out of that, and Douglas now has just 40 ECV's to Bell's 39; I imagine, since Breckinbridge has a sizable lead on both of them, it shouldn't be too hard to arrange for a faithless elector or two to put Bell into third in the actual College, so that he's the only Democrat to make into the House vote. At least, that's what I would do in his shoes in this situation.
 
This is OT,but it just occurred to me that Buchanan would probably have beaten Lincoln if he had run for re-election.

The election would be a re-run of 1856, with Lincoln getting somewhat more support than Fremont. IOTL Lincoln ran about 8% ahead of Fremont in the national popular vote. But even with more of the Midwestern states going for Lincoln than went to Fremont, Buchanan can hold on as long as he holds Pennsylvania. And he has a much better chance of winning Pennsylvania than did either Douglas or Breckinridge. Buck would get all the IOTL Douglas and Breckinridge states (no Democratic split), probably all the Bell states except Kentucky, for 111 EVs. Pennsylvania adds 27 EVs for a total of 138, and add 3 more EVs from New Jersey that went to Lincoln IOTL for 141. Not enough, but since Lincoln is not carry9ing Kentucky, he would fall a EV short and the election goes into the House. Buchanan gets a majority with California, Oregon, and one other state, Indiana being the most likely.

I don't think there has been a discussion here about Buchanan running in 1860 and actually winning, even with the events of his administration being the same.
This assumes that Buchanan could possibly win the Democratic nomination again, which I don't think he possibly could at that point.
 
This assumes that Buchanan could possibly win the Democratic nomination again, which I don't think he possibly could at that point.

Anyway, the assumption that Buchanan could win PA in 1860 is totally unfounded. In OTL, Lincoln got 56.3 percent of the vote there, while a "fusion" Democratic ticket got only 37.5. There is no reason to assume that Buchanan would have done better than the Fusionists did in OTL; on the contrary, the Fusionists got votes from some Douglasites who could never have brought themselves to support any Buchanan electors. Seward would probably do slightly worse than Lincoln but he would be well over 50 percent. (And he wouldn't even need to get close to 50 percent to carry the state anyway, because with Buchanan running, the "straight" Douglas ticket would no doubt do substantially better than in OTL.)

The basic error of thinking that because Buchanan won PA in 1856 he could have done so in 1860 is that it ignores the complete political revolution the state went through in 1858, involving both the split of the Democrats and above all the near-total capture of the 1856 Fillmore vote by the Republicans. (This was partly a matter of the Panic of 1857 reviving the tariff as a major issue.) In the 35th Congress, the PA delegation was 15 D-10 R. In the 36th it would be 20 R, 2 Anti-Lecompton D, and a miserable 3 Buchanan D's!

Incidentally, in the October 1860 PA governor's race, the Democratic candidate, Henry Donnell Foster had the support of Buchanan and Douglas Democrats alike. He lost to the Republican candidate, Andrew Curtin, 53.26-46.74. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pennsylvania_gubernatorial_election,_1860

No, the Democrats are not going to carry PA in 1860 with anyone, let alone Buchanan.
 
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