Pierce runs in 1860

According to wikipedia...
After losing the Democratic nomination for reelection in 1856, [outgoing President Franklin] Pierce retired and traveled with his wife overseas. He returned to the U.S. in 1859 in time to comment on the growing sectional crisis between the South and the North, often criticizing Northern abolitionists for encouraging ugly feelings between the two sections. In 1860 many Democrats viewed Pierce as a solid compromise choice for the presidential nomination, uniting both Northern and Southern wings of the party, but Pierce declined to run.

So, what if he had run? Could he have united the opposition to Lincoln behind him? How might he have fared in the election? If he had won, he, rather than Grover Cleveland, might be the only President to hold two non-consecutive terms, which would be interesting in and of itself.
 
A one termer who had enraged a majority of the nation and seen as ineffective and useless by virtually everyone?

Why would he be seen as a good candidate?
 
A one termer who had enraged a majority of the nation and seen as ineffective and useless by virtually everyone?

Why would he be seen as a good candidate?

I think you are overstating the case a bit here and allowing modern views of Pierce to cloud your opinion. At the 1856 Democratic Convention, Pierce scored 122 votes against James Buchanan's 135 on the first ballot. Neither Stephen Douglas nor Lewis Cass, the other candidates, ever came close to matching that level of support in any of the succeeding ballots, until in a last ditch effort to stop Buchanan, all of Pierce's delegates switched to Douglas. So Pierce obviously, despite the controversies of his Presidency, still enjoyed a high level of support among Democrats. The people who saw him as "ineffective and useless" and had been "enraged" by him were abolitionists and other similar people who joined the Republican Party in OTL.
 
I think the Southern Democrats where determined not to have a comproise choice, they where looking for a split, and were not ready to win the Presidency, the spilit of the party was the first part of the creation of the Confederacy.
 
robertp6165, being outclassed, however narrowly, by James Buchanan, is generally not considered a good testament to a person's popularity or ability.;)

Not to mention Pierce being somewhat popular within the party elite, or perhaps Buchanan being not so popular either, does not change the fact that he had failed signally to deliver on many/most of his commitments and that the south had only seen matters deteriorate, from their perspective, during his tenure.

Nor was it only abolitionists who were offended by his stance on Kansas, particularly his willingness to have a state constitution and binding set of laws rammed through against the clear will of the majority in Kansas. Lincoln saw that clearly and used it to present Douglas with the choice of losing the Senate election in Illinois or being unacceptable to the southern states in 1860, which suggests that Pierce might have done rather worse than Douglas in the north. Of course, if Pierce reversed himself at the late date of 1860 the south will be (rightly) feeling betrayed...
 

Wolfpaw

Banned
I think the Southern Democrats where determined not to have a comproise choice, they where looking for a split, and were not ready to win the Presidency, the spilit of the party was the first part of the creation of the Confederacy.

This is implying that the majority of Southern Democrats favored secession, which was not the case. The Southern delegation would most likely have settled on a compromise candidate; where it not for his favoring of popular sovereignty with regards to the expansion of slavery, Douglas would very likely have gotten the nod from both factions of the Democratic Party.
 

Japhy

Banned
I would say there are better black horse candidates for the Democratic Party in 1860 if one wants to delay the Civil War. Pierce is somewhere between a failure and a has-been, and his own party ran 4 years previously with a slogan of "Anybody but Pierce".
 
The Civil War will be fought with more modern equipment in 1864, with accompanying increase in loss of life. :(
 
The Civil War will be fought with more modern equipment in 1864, with accompanying increase in loss of life. :(

I agree with the angry face. but who could possibly have held off the ACW at this point? There is no Clay-Calhoun-Webster to orchestrate a compromise. I don't see Breckenridge being the right man for POTUS and I think he is the only acceptable Southern Candidate at the time. Plain and simple there is no one that I can think off who pull out a compromise that could last 4 years let alone 4 months by 1860.
 
maverick, nonsense. Where will the Union also get the larger standing army, stockpiles of arms and ammunition and a much larger fleet from before the ACW begins?
 
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