I was recently reading Alexander McClure's http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_McClure *Old Time Notes of Pennsylvania.* He makes an interesting argument that Pennsylvania came very close to guaranteeing a national defeat for Buchanan--and maybe even a national victory for Fremont--in 1856.
The background is as follows: The Republicans, Whigs,and Americans of Pensylvania agreed on a fusion ticket for state officers who were to be elected in October--the so-called "Union Party." This ticket failed to win--but just barely, and (somewhat to my surprise) the Republican on it did almost as well as the Whig and Know Nothing candidates. (This suggests that there were not too many conservative Whigs and Americans who voted for the Whig and American candidates but "cut" the Republican one. Of course some of them may simply have voted Democratic for all three offices or stayed home in protest against the fusion idea.)
According to McClure,
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"The following is the official vote of the State:
Canal Commissioner.
Scott, Democrat 212,886
Cochran, Whig 210,111
Scott's majority 2,775
Auditor General.
Fry, Democrat 212,468
Phelps, Know Nothing 209,261
Fry's majority 3,307
Surveyor General.
Rowe, Democrat 212,623
LaPorte, Republican 208,888
Rowe's majority 3,735"
https://books.google.com/books?id=dqtlavUQNcsC&pg=PA252
***
If fusion was possible--and nearly successful--on the state level in Pennsylvania, could it have succeeded on the presidential level, too? Note that the percentages of the vote of all three fusion candidates in October were almost exactly the same as the combined percentages of Fremont and Fillmore in November: http://psephos.adam-carr.net/countries/u/usa/pres/1856.txt
As a matter of fact, a fusion agreement on the presidential level *had* been worked out for Pennsylvania. There would be a ballot distributed by Fremont supporters with Fremont listed as the first elector, and one distributed by Fillmore supporters, with Fillmore listed as the first elector. In other words, one of Pennsylvania's 27 electoral votes was to be thrown away in order to determine the relative strengths of Fremont and Fillmore in the state. The other 26 candidates for elector would be the same on both ballots. If elected, they were to vote *en bloc* for Fremont (or less likely Fillmore) if this would be sufficient to give Fremont (or, less likely, Fillmore) a majority in the Electoral College; otherwise, they were to split their votes according to the relative popularity of Fremont and Fillmore in the state. McClure writes.
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"The union effected on the State ticket between the several organizations opposed to Democracy was finally, after much negotiation, carried to the arrangement of a Union electoral ticket. There was considerable difficulty with some of the Know Nothing leaders, as they were very much averse to the radical views of the Republicans, but it was finally agreed that there should be but one electoral ticket voted by the three organizations that had united on a Union State ticket. One elector was to be sacrificed by printing two electoral tickets for the Union party, one of which had as its first candidate for elector the name of Millard Fillmore and the other had as the first candidate for elector the name of John C. Fremont.
"General Cameron came to the front as a supporter of Fremont, and was placed on the ticket as an elector-at-large, and the electors were divided between Whigs, Know Nothings and Republicans. The agreement was very explicit, and, to avoid all misunderstanding, it was formulated in writing. The electors were each solemnly pledged to give a solid vote for either Fremont or Fillmore if the electoral vote of the State would elect either to the Presidency. If, however, the entire electoral vote of Pennsylvania would not give success to either of the Union candidates, then the Union electors, if chosen by the people, should divide the vote of the State between Fremont and Fillmore in proportion to the vote received by each. As Fillmore's name headed one ticket and Fremont's name headed the other, it was very easy to determine the relative strength of the two candidates at the polls. There is no doubt that if the Union electoral ticket had been successful in the State [in the October state elections--DT] the agreement would have been carried out with hearty fidelity, but, as the ticket was defeated, all dispute on the subject ended."
https://books.google.com/books?id=dqtlavUQNcsC&pg=PA259
***
Another October election was that for governor of Indiana. Ashbel P. Willard, the Democrat, won with 51.3 percent to 48.7 percent for Oliver Morton of the fusion "People's Party."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Governor_of_Indiana_elections Note that Morton's vote was only slightly less than the combined 49.6 percent for Fremont and Fillmore in Indiana in November--even though Morton had attended the Republican national convention in Pittsburgh and was by now clearly a Republican.
So the idea that fusion on the presidential level was bound to fail because many conservative Whigs and Know Nothings would not vote for a fusion ticket needs some qualification. Evidently plenty of Fillmore voters *did* vote for Republicans running as fusionists in state elections. That Republicans could attract Fillmore votes--even without fusion--for state offices is also shown by William Bissell's victory for governor of Illinois; he won in part because the Americans did much worse in the governor's race than in the presidential race in the state. Compare http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illinois_gubernatorial_election,_1856 with http://psephos.adam-carr.net/countries/u/usa/pres/1856.txt (15.6 percent for Fillmore in Illinois compared to only 8.04 percent for the American Party candidate for governor)
One can imagine the sighs of relief from Buchanan supporters after the October results from Pennsylvania and Indiana came in: the Union was saved-- at least for now!
Anyway, back to Pennsylvania: McClure argues that had fusion succeeded in Pennsylvania in October it would also have done so in November. This would at least be enough to throw the race into the House, but McClure argues that it could even have led to a national Fremont victory! His argument is that the effect of the Democrats losing Buchanan's own state in October would be so dramatic that it would lead to Fremont carrying Illinois, even without a fusion agreement in that state. Thus, the Pennsylvania electors would be bound to vote as a bloc for Fremont to elect him. (114 electoral votes for Fremont in OTL plus 26 from Pennsylvania plus 11 from Illinois would be 151-- two more than the 149 needed for a majority.) This seems dubious to me, given that Fremont lost Illinois by almost four points.
According to Tyler Anbinder in *Nativism and Slavery* it was John P. Sanderson, the American state chairman, who scuttled the agreement for fusion presidential electors in Pennsylvania. But after the Union Party loss in October probably nothing could have saved the agreement but personal intervention in its favor by Fillmore himself. This he refused to do, believing (mistakenly) that he already had enough southern support to send the election into the House, so why risk it by cooperating with the Republicans in Pennsylvania? (Then, too, Fillmore feared that fusion could lead to an actual Fremont victory which would endanger the Union. And he no doubt remembered that Republicans like Seward and Weed, back in their days as Whigs, had blocked him from getting the Whig presidential nomination in 1852. Finally, there was still the forlorn hope by some Fillmore supporters that a poor showing by Fremont could leave the Americans as the only major opposition party to the Democrats.)
Anyway, my own view is that even if the Union Party had won the state elections in Pennsylvania in October and even if the fusion agreement for electors had not been repudiated, Buchanan would still probably have narrowly carried the state. It was one thing for a Fillmore supporter to back a Republican for Surveyor General of Pennsylvania or even Governor of Indiana. (Or for that matter Governor of Illinois.) One could do that without any risk to the Union. But at least a few of the Fillmore supporters who voted for Republicans for such state offices might have balked at a vote that potentially might help Fremont to win the presidency. (In part of course this was due to fear for the Union, but also in part to the mistaken but widespread rumors that Fremont was a Catholic; see my post at https://groups.google.com/d/msg/soc.history.what-if/uPBeyf8ypOo/AbhEy6-T7s0J for the importance of the "Catholic issue" in 1856.)
Of course one may ask: if Buchanan came so close to losing his own state in OTL, what if the Democrats had nominated a non-Pennsylvanian--and the Republicans had nominated Justice McLean? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_McLean (McLean could appeal to Old Line Whigs, and as a prominent Methodist could not be accused of Catholicism as Fremont was.) In that case, fusion would have been easier to accomplish and more likely to win the state if accomplished. No wonder that even as radical a Pennsylvania Republican as Thaddeus Stevens favored McLean at the Philadelphia convention.
Besides Pennsylvania, there were moves for fusion in New Jersey and indiana. But New Jersey had only seven electoral votes, and so (unlike Pennsylvania) could not have blocked Buchanan from getting a majority in the Electoral College. In any event, in 1856, according to William Gienapp *The Origins of the Republican Party, 1852-1856* p. 406, "Nativist leaders in New Jersey capitulated to intense outside pressure and rejected an agreement negotiated by the executive committee of the Fremont and Fillmore organizations." Greatly complicating things was the course of Robert F. Stockton http://www.cambriapress.com/cambriapress.cfm?template=4&bid=327 who first endorsed Fillmore only on condition that no union with Republicans be made, then conducted negotiations with the Fremont leaders to arrange a single slate of electors, and then in the final days of the campaign came out for Buchanan. In Indiana, any chance for fusion was lost when Morton was defeated in the state election; embittered Republicans accused the Know Nothings of having deserted Morton: "The Republican cry now was that the day for fusion had passed,--the pandering to the Fillmore element was over. There must be np more affiliation with Fillmoreism. It had retarded--not helped--the growth of Republicanism in the southern half of the State. The 'treacherous' Know Nothings were supposed to be determined to defeat Fremont if they had to elect Buchanan to do so..." https://books.google.com/books?id=dG03AQAAMAAJ&pg=RA2-PA106 In any event, even if Buchanan had lost Indiana's 13 electoral votes *and* New Jersey's seven, he would still have on in the Electoral College. Only in Pennsylvanai did fusion have the potential of blocking him there.
The background is as follows: The Republicans, Whigs,and Americans of Pensylvania agreed on a fusion ticket for state officers who were to be elected in October--the so-called "Union Party." This ticket failed to win--but just barely, and (somewhat to my surprise) the Republican on it did almost as well as the Whig and Know Nothing candidates. (This suggests that there were not too many conservative Whigs and Americans who voted for the Whig and American candidates but "cut" the Republican one. Of course some of them may simply have voted Democratic for all three offices or stayed home in protest against the fusion idea.)
According to McClure,
***
"The following is the official vote of the State:
Canal Commissioner.
Scott, Democrat 212,886
Cochran, Whig 210,111
Scott's majority 2,775
Auditor General.
Fry, Democrat 212,468
Phelps, Know Nothing 209,261
Fry's majority 3,307
Surveyor General.
Rowe, Democrat 212,623
LaPorte, Republican 208,888
Rowe's majority 3,735"
https://books.google.com/books?id=dqtlavUQNcsC&pg=PA252
***
If fusion was possible--and nearly successful--on the state level in Pennsylvania, could it have succeeded on the presidential level, too? Note that the percentages of the vote of all three fusion candidates in October were almost exactly the same as the combined percentages of Fremont and Fillmore in November: http://psephos.adam-carr.net/countries/u/usa/pres/1856.txt
As a matter of fact, a fusion agreement on the presidential level *had* been worked out for Pennsylvania. There would be a ballot distributed by Fremont supporters with Fremont listed as the first elector, and one distributed by Fillmore supporters, with Fillmore listed as the first elector. In other words, one of Pennsylvania's 27 electoral votes was to be thrown away in order to determine the relative strengths of Fremont and Fillmore in the state. The other 26 candidates for elector would be the same on both ballots. If elected, they were to vote *en bloc* for Fremont (or less likely Fillmore) if this would be sufficient to give Fremont (or, less likely, Fillmore) a majority in the Electoral College; otherwise, they were to split their votes according to the relative popularity of Fremont and Fillmore in the state. McClure writes.
***
"The union effected on the State ticket between the several organizations opposed to Democracy was finally, after much negotiation, carried to the arrangement of a Union electoral ticket. There was considerable difficulty with some of the Know Nothing leaders, as they were very much averse to the radical views of the Republicans, but it was finally agreed that there should be but one electoral ticket voted by the three organizations that had united on a Union State ticket. One elector was to be sacrificed by printing two electoral tickets for the Union party, one of which had as its first candidate for elector the name of Millard Fillmore and the other had as the first candidate for elector the name of John C. Fremont.
"General Cameron came to the front as a supporter of Fremont, and was placed on the ticket as an elector-at-large, and the electors were divided between Whigs, Know Nothings and Republicans. The agreement was very explicit, and, to avoid all misunderstanding, it was formulated in writing. The electors were each solemnly pledged to give a solid vote for either Fremont or Fillmore if the electoral vote of the State would elect either to the Presidency. If, however, the entire electoral vote of Pennsylvania would not give success to either of the Union candidates, then the Union electors, if chosen by the people, should divide the vote of the State between Fremont and Fillmore in proportion to the vote received by each. As Fillmore's name headed one ticket and Fremont's name headed the other, it was very easy to determine the relative strength of the two candidates at the polls. There is no doubt that if the Union electoral ticket had been successful in the State [in the October state elections--DT] the agreement would have been carried out with hearty fidelity, but, as the ticket was defeated, all dispute on the subject ended."
https://books.google.com/books?id=dqtlavUQNcsC&pg=PA259
***
Another October election was that for governor of Indiana. Ashbel P. Willard, the Democrat, won with 51.3 percent to 48.7 percent for Oliver Morton of the fusion "People's Party."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Governor_of_Indiana_elections Note that Morton's vote was only slightly less than the combined 49.6 percent for Fremont and Fillmore in Indiana in November--even though Morton had attended the Republican national convention in Pittsburgh and was by now clearly a Republican.
So the idea that fusion on the presidential level was bound to fail because many conservative Whigs and Know Nothings would not vote for a fusion ticket needs some qualification. Evidently plenty of Fillmore voters *did* vote for Republicans running as fusionists in state elections. That Republicans could attract Fillmore votes--even without fusion--for state offices is also shown by William Bissell's victory for governor of Illinois; he won in part because the Americans did much worse in the governor's race than in the presidential race in the state. Compare http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illinois_gubernatorial_election,_1856 with http://psephos.adam-carr.net/countries/u/usa/pres/1856.txt (15.6 percent for Fillmore in Illinois compared to only 8.04 percent for the American Party candidate for governor)
One can imagine the sighs of relief from Buchanan supporters after the October results from Pennsylvania and Indiana came in: the Union was saved-- at least for now!
Anyway, back to Pennsylvania: McClure argues that had fusion succeeded in Pennsylvania in October it would also have done so in November. This would at least be enough to throw the race into the House, but McClure argues that it could even have led to a national Fremont victory! His argument is that the effect of the Democrats losing Buchanan's own state in October would be so dramatic that it would lead to Fremont carrying Illinois, even without a fusion agreement in that state. Thus, the Pennsylvania electors would be bound to vote as a bloc for Fremont to elect him. (114 electoral votes for Fremont in OTL plus 26 from Pennsylvania plus 11 from Illinois would be 151-- two more than the 149 needed for a majority.) This seems dubious to me, given that Fremont lost Illinois by almost four points.
According to Tyler Anbinder in *Nativism and Slavery* it was John P. Sanderson, the American state chairman, who scuttled the agreement for fusion presidential electors in Pennsylvania. But after the Union Party loss in October probably nothing could have saved the agreement but personal intervention in its favor by Fillmore himself. This he refused to do, believing (mistakenly) that he already had enough southern support to send the election into the House, so why risk it by cooperating with the Republicans in Pennsylvania? (Then, too, Fillmore feared that fusion could lead to an actual Fremont victory which would endanger the Union. And he no doubt remembered that Republicans like Seward and Weed, back in their days as Whigs, had blocked him from getting the Whig presidential nomination in 1852. Finally, there was still the forlorn hope by some Fillmore supporters that a poor showing by Fremont could leave the Americans as the only major opposition party to the Democrats.)
Anyway, my own view is that even if the Union Party had won the state elections in Pennsylvania in October and even if the fusion agreement for electors had not been repudiated, Buchanan would still probably have narrowly carried the state. It was one thing for a Fillmore supporter to back a Republican for Surveyor General of Pennsylvania or even Governor of Indiana. (Or for that matter Governor of Illinois.) One could do that without any risk to the Union. But at least a few of the Fillmore supporters who voted for Republicans for such state offices might have balked at a vote that potentially might help Fremont to win the presidency. (In part of course this was due to fear for the Union, but also in part to the mistaken but widespread rumors that Fremont was a Catholic; see my post at https://groups.google.com/d/msg/soc.history.what-if/uPBeyf8ypOo/AbhEy6-T7s0J for the importance of the "Catholic issue" in 1856.)
Of course one may ask: if Buchanan came so close to losing his own state in OTL, what if the Democrats had nominated a non-Pennsylvanian--and the Republicans had nominated Justice McLean? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_McLean (McLean could appeal to Old Line Whigs, and as a prominent Methodist could not be accused of Catholicism as Fremont was.) In that case, fusion would have been easier to accomplish and more likely to win the state if accomplished. No wonder that even as radical a Pennsylvania Republican as Thaddeus Stevens favored McLean at the Philadelphia convention.
Besides Pennsylvania, there were moves for fusion in New Jersey and indiana. But New Jersey had only seven electoral votes, and so (unlike Pennsylvania) could not have blocked Buchanan from getting a majority in the Electoral College. In any event, in 1856, according to William Gienapp *The Origins of the Republican Party, 1852-1856* p. 406, "Nativist leaders in New Jersey capitulated to intense outside pressure and rejected an agreement negotiated by the executive committee of the Fremont and Fillmore organizations." Greatly complicating things was the course of Robert F. Stockton http://www.cambriapress.com/cambriapress.cfm?template=4&bid=327 who first endorsed Fillmore only on condition that no union with Republicans be made, then conducted negotiations with the Fremont leaders to arrange a single slate of electors, and then in the final days of the campaign came out for Buchanan. In Indiana, any chance for fusion was lost when Morton was defeated in the state election; embittered Republicans accused the Know Nothings of having deserted Morton: "The Republican cry now was that the day for fusion had passed,--the pandering to the Fillmore element was over. There must be np more affiliation with Fillmoreism. It had retarded--not helped--the growth of Republicanism in the southern half of the State. The 'treacherous' Know Nothings were supposed to be determined to defeat Fremont if they had to elect Buchanan to do so..." https://books.google.com/books?id=dG03AQAAMAAJ&pg=RA2-PA106 In any event, even if Buchanan had lost Indiana's 13 electoral votes *and* New Jersey's seven, he would still have on in the Electoral College. Only in Pennsylvanai did fusion have the potential of blocking him there.
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