alternatehistory.com

Hey folks, today was the 150th anniversary of the First Battle of Antietam so I thought I might put this thread up. In 1860, Stephen Douglas won the election by 50.4% of the popular vote, with running mate Breckinridge. But, as we all know, the Civil War broke out anyway in November 1861 after the bombing of Fort Sumter. Douglas was at first reluctant to escalate the war, which hampered the U.S. Army significantly, and the war only became a full blown conflict after the resignation of VP Breckinridge in April 1862. Douglas then finally began to fully use his abilities as commander-in-chief, but by June, his health had begun to fail him, and sadly, finally died in April 1864 just as the Union began to truly win the war. Vice President Daniel Dickinson, who had been appointed to replace Breckinridge, became President; though an honest and likable leader, was unable to handle the war, and in July 1867, the Treaty of Louisville ended the conflict. Dickinson himself passed away in October of that year, and was replaced by his Vice President, Horatio Seymour.
Seymour won the 1868 election by a slight, but the Democrats took decades to recover, starting with the election of James Blaine in 1872.
The C.S.A., meanwhile with Virginia(except for West Virginia, of course!) though sans Kentucky and northern Arkansas, struggled on for the next 40 years, supported only by a Conservative government in London(Canada rejected Commonwealth membership in 1867 and became a full republic, mainly thanks to Britain's support of the Confederacy.) and the French Empire(until 1877, that is. Napoleon III was overthrown in July), and still facing an angry U.S.A. Their only conquest,really, was in Mexico, when their Civil War occurred in 1878 and wracked the country for 3 whole years, during which the C.S. snapped up Sonora, Baja California, Chihuahua, and most of Coahuila in late 1879, all of which were soon flooded with white settlers.
It wasn't until 1904 that the C.S.A. finally began to implode, after a number of deadly slave uprisings, and not until April 1907 that the Confederacy officially ceased to exist.

What I'd like to ask is, could Lincoln's election have possibly shortened the Civil War, and maybe even stopped the C.S.A. from rising up?
And, for that matter, would there still have been two Great Wars(Germany won the first and was crushed in the Second)? Or the terror bombings in the 1960s or the militia attacks in the late '80s thru early 2000s? Or even the fear of atomic war between the U.S. and Marxist Russia?

Harry Turtledove may have covered this back in the '80s but I want to hear your own unique perspectives.
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