What if Stephen Douglas became POTUS in 1861?

What would the political ramifications be? Are the Southern secessions averted entirely or merely delayed? Is there an American Civil War at all? I'm actually really curious about what people think about this.

Incidentally, one thing I do know: if Douglas did become President it's likely his early death would be butterflied away. He died of typhoid fever, which is contracted from eating contaminated food and takes effect within a matter of weeks, meaning his illness was post-POD. So if elected he'd probably serve out his full term.

A note on the POD: Douglas doesn't need to win an electoral vote majority in the 1860 election in order to becomes President. All that needs to happen are two things:
1. No one wins the necessary 152-vote electoral majority, throwing the election to Congress
2. Douglas gets enough electoral votes to be counted in the top three, so his name is on the House ballot for President.
So Lincoln needs to win at least 29 fewer electoral votes than OTL, which can be done if he loses his five closest states: California and Oregon (very easy), Illinois and Indiana (less easy but doable), and Ohio (hard, but possible). If all of these go to the second-place winner then Douglas wins all of them but Oregon, which goes to Breckinridge -- Douglas therefore gets 41 extra electoral votes for a total of 63, meaning he comes in third place and is on the House ballot.
On the House ballot itself, nobody has a majority of state delegations supporting them in the first round of voting (Lincoln has the most with 16; Breckinridge has 12 including Oregon; Douglas has only three; the remaining three states consist of one which would support Bell if he was on the ballot, and two which are divided evenly between supporters of Breckinridge and Bell.) But I really do think that on subsequent rounds of voting, Douglas would be the compromise candidate to unite the Breckinridge and Bell supporters against Lincoln -- thus Douglas would ultimately win with 18 states voting for him to Lincoln's 16. In the case of the Southern Democrats, it also helps that their vice-presidential candidate Joseph Lane would easily be confirmed as Vice-President by the Senate as only the top two electoral vote winners are considered on that ballot rather than the top three like in the House. So the final result would be Stephen Douglas (Northern Democratic) as President and Joseph Lane (Southern Democratic) as Vice-President.


So, that's the POD dealt with. Now, what does everyone think about President Douglas?
 
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President Douglas will still see secession and still carry out a Civil War to suppress the Rebellion. He may even like Lincoln come to see that the best, sole way to undermine the South and establish a bi-partisan coalition of Northerners is to ensure that the US Army's arrival means the end of slavery wherever it shows up. In Douglas's case the CSA would have a more personal and visceral loathing than it did for Lincoln.....
 
Southerners hated Douglas more than Lincoln. Up until "Bleeding Kansas" he was strongly pro-Southern but he was unwilling to allow the fraudulent government elected by "border ruffians" write the state constitution that would admit Kansas as a slave state. After that the South considered him a "traitor" even though he was from Illinois. I guess "loyalty to your state and region" only counted only if you're a Southerner. :rolleyes:
 

Japhy

Banned
So you don't agree that Douglas could be a compromise candidate, then?

No, if he could be a compromise, you wouldn't have seen the Southern walk out of the 1860 Democratic Convention, if Douglas was able to win without Southern Support the impact to Southern Politics would be similar to their reaction to Lincoln winning without Southern votes.

The viability of Douglas in the war though, depends on if he can surround himself with the right people, if he will have the will to keep going at all cost and if he will be able to make the war undoubtedly about Slavery. If he fails at one of those he can survive/win the war, if he fails at two he will either be a one term president who has to hand off the Victory to a Republican, or there will be a political settlement.
 

Wolfpaw

Banned
Given Douglas' firm belief in popular sovereignty, it's unlikely that he will threaten slavery in the states where it already exists. Republicans are going to be all over this in '64, and I could easily see Seward winning the White House on a "Union and Liberty" platform.
 
Douglas' VP is a Georgian. So if the whole "Civil war is possible" in douglas' term carries out, you could see a divided Government, between VP and the POTUS
 
How would the government be divided by the VP disagreeing with the POTUS? The VP shuts up or he resigns and joins the secessionists.


In any event there is zero chance of Douglas as a compromise candidate as the secessionist hatred for him is what triggered the deliberate split of the Democratic Party in 1860 and handed Lincoln the victory...
 
How would the government be divided by the VP disagreeing with the POTUS? The VP shuts up or he resigns and joins the secessionists.


In any event there is zero chance of Douglas as a compromise candidate as the secessionist hatred for him is what triggered the deliberate split of the Democratic Party in 1860 and handed Lincoln the victory...

Exactly, as I said he was more hated by Southerners than Lincoln before the election.
 
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