WI: Negotiated End to the Civil War

This is something my history teacher suggested to me in High School: If the Union won the First Battle of Bull Run, the South would've decided that they couldn't win the war and negotiates an end to the war with the Union. Another POD is that the South still wins the First Battle of Bull Run, but the battle isn't as bloody as in OTL. As such, the Union is more willing to negotiate with the South. My question is, how likely is either timeline? Will Lincoln be able to win reelection in 1864? What happens to slavery?
 

Skallagrim

Banned
Lincoln was, in OTL, quite willing to talk about addressing concerns the South had. He bent over backward, in fact, to such an extent that some of his allies considered him weak at the time. The thing is: he was only willing to talk to them in the context of the federal government talking to those representing state governments. Any negotiation would have to be based on the premise that secession was legally void and never really happened (in a legal sense). Anyone who maintained that he had exited the Union would not be negotiated with. The CSA held the exact opposite position: they'd only be willing to agree to terms under which to return to the Union, which presupposed a recognition of them having left it.

To this we may add that as the CSA coalesced, the Southern idea of re-entering the Union on... new terms... faded out rather quickly. They came to believe that independence was inherently better, and that returning to the union was automatically a bad thing.

The only point where the crisis can reasonably be resolved through negotiation is before hostilities break out.

I have written on this at some length repeatedly:

Once they're seceded, it becomes almost impossible to negotiate a deal. Two different compromises were suggested as the crisis escalated: the Crittenden Compromise and the Corwin Amendment. Both were rejected by at least one side. The general tendency was the same: to ensure and guarantee slavery as an institution for all time.

The key difference between the Crittenden Compromise and the Corwin Amendment was that the Crittenden Compromise would have extended the Missouri Compromise Line to the Pacific, making everything south of there slave soil (which ran counter to the Republican platform), whereas the Corwin Amendment aimed to protect slavery in states where it already existed, and guaranteed that Congress would not interfere with slavery without Southern consent. (The idea was also that this Amendment would be an eternal guarantee, meaning it could never be altered thereafter in any way, including via another amendment!) Essentially, the Crittenden Compromise was unacceptable to Lincoln, and the Corwin Amendment was unacceptable to the Southern fire-eaters.

I can imagine that if the Crittenden Compromise had been accepted in the North, the seceded states would have returned into the Union. It literally gave them everything they wanted and then some. The "problem" was that this compromise was utterly unacceptable to the North.

Observe that most in the North would be willing to support the Corwin Amendment (guaranteeing slavery forever in those states where it already existed), and the South rejected that. The Corwin Amendment had already passed Congress before Lincoln came into office and was awaiting ratification by the states. It literally passed Congress after several states had already seceded (and thus didn't even vote in favour)! Lincoln himself, as well as several others leading Northerners, expressed the view that if the South were to embrace the Corwin Amendment, they would support it (albeit with clenched teeth) to avoid war and restore the old Union in one single step.

If the South could be convinced to support the Corwin Amendment, that would be the end of the secession right there. The North would go for that without much hesitation, albeit with clenched teeth, and war would be averted. And slavery would be enshrined in an eternal Constitutional clause, impossible to be removed by any future Amendment (the whole idea would be to render any Amendment of that gist unconstitutional a priori.)

Another solution would be a compromise between the Crittenden proposal and the Corwin proposal. Such a compromise being reached is highly unlikely, but should it be done, it might just be able to get the reluctant support of both sides, being "good enough" to prefer over the outbreak of war.

Lincoln was also open to the possibility of a new Constitutional Convention to make further amendments to the Constitution. If either side had suffered a "loss of nerve" at this crucial stage, I think war could have been avoided still. A possible compromise would be for the South to forego demands that California become open to slavery (as under Crittenden) and to accept that only the Southern half of New Mexico Territory (corresponding to "Confederate Arizona") would become slave soil, along with Indian Territory. This would allow for limited future expansion of slavery, and a guarantee of its continued existence. If the Southern slavers had been sane, they would have accepted this at once. Personally, I think they would have rejected it. Because they were not being rational about the issue at all. But there is a chance they would have gone for the deal, and then... well. Lincoln's proposed new convention would certainly have been interesting, because his own aim in return for making slavery guaranteed was very obviously to make secession explicitly impossible. (And if an earlier deal had been reached, I think the South would not object to banning secession.
 
To this we may add that as the CSA coalesced, the Southern idea of re-entering the Union on... new terms... faded out rather quickly.
However, ISTM that the victory at First Manassas truly confirmed that coalescence. It appeared to validate all the gasconading of the Fire-Eaters, and provided a big (IMO critical) psychological impetus.

If the battle had instead been a decisive Union victory... A lot of voices would be heard saying the entire proposition was reckless folly. I'll agree that Lincoln would under no circumstances negotiate the de jure "return to the Union" of any state. But he could be flexible, as when he offered to trade "a fort for a atate". He would not insist on explicit formal admissions that secession was invalid.

Suppose Tennessee, for instance, passed a resolution declaring that secession was rescinded, recalled Tennessee troops in CSA service to be disbanded, and sent Representatives and Senators to Washington (including Andrew Johnson). Would Lincoln object to their being seated? The Tennesseeans also ask Lincoln to appoint US marshals and postmasters for Tennessee, providing him with a list of preferred nominees, i.e. ex-Whigs and Unionists. Would Lincoln reject this tacit acceptance of Federal authority and his election?

There could be other conditions, agreed to in private discussions: amnesty for all those involved, for instance - or nearly all. IOW, negotiations, but nothing official.
 

Derek Pullem

Kicked
Donor
The problem with a decisive victory is that it gives the hard-liners on both sides no incentive to accept a compromise from the loser.
 
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