WI: Fremont ran in 1864?

What if John C. Fremont had decided not to abandon his Radical Republican campaign in September 1864? How would this of effected the election with a viable anti-Lincoln Republican running?
 
What if John C. Fremont had decided not to abandon his Radical Republican campaign in September 1864? How would this of effected the election with a viable anti-Lincoln Republican running?

It may very well backfire and bring about a McClellan victory; which is why he abandoned the race in OTL - His distaste for Lincoln's prosecution of the war and his stance on post-war reconstruction issues paled in comparison to his disgust with the '64 Democratic platform and his fears of what might come to pass if that platform were implemented during a McClellan administration. By remaining in the race, Fremont divides both the Republican and War Democrat vote, sapping the coalition's energy and enthusiasm during the fall campaign. What happens on November 8, might be similar to what happened in 1992 or 1996 - w/Fremont = Perot.
 

Anaxagoras

Banned
It certainly would have lost Lincoln New York and probably Pennsylvania and Connecticut as well. Other possible shifts would be New Hampshire and Indiana. If we assume those five states go from Lincoln's column to McClellan's, we end up with 129 electoral votes for Lincoln to 104 electoral votes for McClellan. In other words, the election is much closer but Lincoln will still win.

If you combine Fremont remaining in the race with some other event (such as the Confederates continuing to hold Atlanta), then there is the probability that McClellan will win the election, with enormous consequences for American history.
 
It certainly would have lost Lincoln New York and probably Pennsylvania and Connecticut as well. Other possible shifts would be New Hampshire and Indiana. If we assume those five states go from Lincoln's column to McClellan's, we end up with 129 electoral votes for Lincoln to 104 electoral votes for McClellan. In other words, the election is much closer but Lincoln will still win.

If you combine Fremont remaining in the race with some other event (such as the Confederates continuing to hold Atlanta), then there is the probability that McClellan will win the election, with enormous consequences for American history.

Why do people think McClellan winning would have such "enormous consequences for American history"? (Besides the obvious butterfly effects). McClellan was a War Democrat, he would've been sworn in less than a month before the fall of Richmond, and obviously OTL Lincoln was shot and replaced by Andrew Johnson just over a month after his second inauguration.
 

Anaxagoras

Banned
Why do people think McClellan winning would have such "enormous consequences for American history"? (Besides the obvious butterfly effects). McClellan was a War Democrat, he would've been sworn in less than a month before the fall of Richmond, and obviously OTL Lincoln was shot and replaced by Andrew Johnson just over a month after his second inauguration.

McClellan's credentials are a War Democrat are somewhat shaky in 1864. He refused the disown the "peace plank" of the Democratic National Platform until after Atlanta had fallen, for one thing. He endorsed a Copperhead candidate for the governorship of Pennsylvania. And Manton Marble, the editor of the New York World, said that McClellan told him he would go along with the demands of the Peace Democrats for a cease-fire if elected.

Also, why do you think that military events would have transpired in the same way in a TL in which McClellan wins the election as they did IOTL?
 

Anaxagoras

Banned
McClellan probably would not have been very concerned with the rights of former slaves, for one thing.

Which is another reason things would get tricky. The Peace Democrats basically had the idea that they would implement a cease-fire, sit down with the Confederates, ask them very nicely to come back into the Union, and promise to throw out the Emancipation Proclamation and have everything back the way it had been in the good old days. Moreover, they believed that the Southerners would happily accept such an offer.

Just one problem: the South wouldn't have accepted it. By 1864, Jefferson Davis and the other leaders of the South would have sooner choked to death in a puddle of their own blood and excrement than to rejoin the Union, slavery or no slavery. Even the Southerners who had been moderate Unionists in 1861 were, by-and-large, devout Confederates by 1864; just take a look at Jubal Early, for example.

But if the United States government had implemented a cease-fire, held a "conference of the states", and had its terms rejected by the Confederates, what then? Would there have been any political will in the Union to resume hostilities after they had been halted, perhaps for many months? Would the abolitionists and Republicans have continued to support the war if the emancipation of slavery were no longer a war aim?
 
I'm still not seeing how McClellan would've been any different from the IRL Andrew Johnson administration. If anything, being a northern Democrat instead of a southern one, he would've been more hostile to the ex-Confederates.
 
Which is another reason things would get tricky. The Peace Democrats basically had the idea that they would implement a cease-fire, sit down with the Confederates, ask them very nicely to come back into the Union, and promise to throw out the Emancipation Proclamation and have everything back the way it had been in the good old days. Moreover, they believed that the Southerners would happily accept such an offer.

Just one problem: the South wouldn't have accepted it. By 1864, Jefferson Davis and the other leaders of the South would have sooner choked to death in a puddle of their own blood and excrement than to rejoin the Union, slavery or no slavery. Even the Southerners who had been moderate Unionists in 1861 were, by-and-large, devout Confederates by 1864; just take a look at Jubal Early, for example.

But if the United States government had implemented a cease-fire, held a "conference of the states", and had its terms rejected by the Confederates, what then? Would there have been any political will in the Union to resume hostilities after they had been halted, perhaps for many months? Would the abolitionists and Republicans have continued to support the war if the emancipation of slavery were no longer a war aim?

Actually, most likely yes. As Prime Minister Palmerston once said (not his exact quote) if there is no political settlement it would be like two boxers resting between rounds re-gathering their strength for the next round. Wars have been restarted all through history. There is no real reason to suspect that the ACW was any different.
 
It certainly would have lost Lincoln New York and probably Pennsylvania and Connecticut as well. Other possible shifts would be New Hampshire and Indiana. If we assume those five states go from Lincoln's column to McClellan's, we end up with 129 electoral votes for Lincoln to 104 electoral votes for McClellan. In other words, the election is much closer but Lincoln will still win.


And the Republicans have a further 17 votes in reserve, 10 from Tennessee and 7 from Louisiana.

OTL those votes were not counted, but if they would change the outcome of the election, no doubt the Republican Congress would have had a sudden rethink.
 
And the Republicans have a further 17 votes in reserve, 10 from Tennessee and 7 from Louisiana.

OTL those votes were not counted, but if they would change the outcome of the election, no doubt the Republican Congress would have had a sudden rethink.

Yes, that's the other thing, not only would they have accepted the dubious votes from Tennessee and Louisiana (and Missouri for that matter, unless you really think Lincoln got 70% there) they probably would've just invented electoral votes from every Southern state if necessary. Of course that might provoke unrest, but it makes McClellan winning an almost-insurmountable goal.
 

Anaxagoras

Banned
And the Republicans have a further 17 votes in reserve, 10 from Tennessee and 7 from Louisiana.

OTL those votes were not counted, but if they would change the outcome of the election, no doubt the Republican Congress would have had a sudden rethink.

There's some thought that one of the reasons the Union forces invaded northern Florida in early 1864 (they were defeated at the Battle of Olustee) was to set up a Unionist government so that it could participate in the upcoming election.
 
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