WI: Joseph Lane became president 1860.

Scenario: Lincoln loses California, Illinois, Indiana and the rest of New Jersey's electoral votes to Douglas, as well as Oregon to Breckinridge. No one now gets an electoral-vote majority, so the election is thrown to Congress. Not only that, but Douglas has now overtaken Bell to reach third place in the electoral count, meaning that he is now eligible to be elected by the House but Bell is not.

The result? Joseph Lane is easily elected Vice-President by the Democratic-controlled Senate. Meanwhile, in the House, the non-Republican ex-Whig delegations (Bell's support base) force a deadlock: naturally they won't vote for Lincoln, but being closely associated with the Unionist Party they see that they will control the balance of power in the House in the ensuing term and they'd rather do it with as weak and illegitimate-seeming a Democratic president as possible -- thus they refuse to vote for Breckinridge either, to prevent the House from electing anyone. Eventually the clock runs out and, on March 4th 1861, Vice-President-elect Joseph Lane is sworn in as the 16th President of the United States.

What happens?
 
Well for sure, it seems like Oregon would probably end up a slave state. That might even be the POD, there was a court case brought by a slave against his owner in 1852. That case was decided in favor of the slave who won the custody of his children from his owner it played a big role in convincing oregon to be an assured pro-abolition state. Since Joseph Lane was governor of Oregon perhaps, his successes would start with turning Oregon into a slave state.

So if the Democrats win the white house, you might have more attacks like John Brown all around the US. You might postpone the civil war, or it could turn into a low intensity simmering conflict between abolitionists and slavers.
 

katchen

Banned
If Oregon went slave, California might legalize slavery too. California had a legal policy before 1865 (or maybe just before 1861) of enforcing prohibitions on buying and selling slaves but still treating slaves who came to California with their masters as their master's chattel property.
One thing Californians definitely did not want was African-Americans (or Asian Americans) making gold claims. Those were most definitely for whites only and nonwhites who attempted to make claims had their claims jumped with impunity.
So yes, under a Lane Administration, we definitely might have seen California switch and legalize slavery if Oregon did. Which would put the pressure on Lane and on Congress for some sort of expedition to take Slaveholding Cuba and Puerto Rico away from Spain--probably by an early day Bay of Pigs Invasion---filibustriers covertly equipped by the US Government but this time strong enough to get the job done. We would see slave state Senators bring that body's business to a halt, probably by filibuser debate until enough slave states were admitted to the Union for an even number of slave and free states to exist. :(
 
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