So, assume that Abraham Lincoln does not get elected in 1860, and Stephen Douglas becomes president instead. He throws some bones to WASP conservatives, maybe even negotiates a provision that would allow for gradual abolishment of slavery in the southern states with compensation for the planters. South Carolina's secession doesn't happen, Fort Sumter doesn't happen, millions of lives are not lost, infrastructure is not destroyed, etc. Overall, the US, while perhaps less racially or socially equal than IOTL, maintains its strength for the remainder of the second half of the 19th century.
What would be the effects on the world of an USA that is not distracted with a large scale civil war and is, thus, more able to enforce the Monroe Doctrine and its other foreign policies?
One pivotal region, IMO, would be Mexico. The McLane-Ocampo Treaty would have infused Benito Juarez' rebel liberal government and army with much needed cash for fighting in the Reform War, but it wasn't ratified IOTL because of the outbreak of the ACW. Here, it is -- and the French intervention in Mexico might even be avoided, leaving the republic in a much better financial position. What happens next for Juarez and Mexico?
Without a "Mexican Ulcer", how is Napoleon III's French Empire affected? Would he choose to intervene in the Second Schleswig War, if it still happens, to protect Denmark's interests?
What about Alaska? Could it be sold earlier than IOTL?
Any other thoughts? How does this affect the ongoing colonization of Africa?
 
President Douglas would be destined to die three months into his term, so the president for most of the term would be Herschel Johnson. I think there would be internal pressures and the US would not go full tilt into international matters.
 
Interesting. I believe that during this period, the United States, while economically significant, was still mainly isolationist. The military was fairly obsolete and had organisational issues and no real logistics for power projection, and (I could be wrong) the navy was not all that substantial. So we might see continuation of those trends. I'm not sure that the US would have any issues with Spain.
 
well if we avert the civil war, slavery is either abolished at the founding of the country or not abolished(the south would refuse anything that abolished slavery).

If it was smuggled in the crib, then the big issue would be how it handles Texas and the Mexican-American War. As a driving force was for the south to gain more slave states to keep balance in congress.

If slavery is never abolished you could see slavery + the economic conditions leading to the foundation of the United Socialistic States of America, the first communist country.
 
Congress had been suffering some gridlock for decades, the Slavocracy South fighting every move that would weaken them. For instance, they couldn't agree on where a first transcontinental RR would be built. Lincoln not getting elected puts that off for at least four years.

I suspect no Civil War weakens the US for as long as it's held off.
 
Note, too, that the longer a war is held off, the stronger the North is in relation to the South. A later war is likely to be a quicker one - which might mean no Emancipation Proclamation.
 
If slavery is never abolished you could see slavery + the economic conditions leading to the foundation of the United Socialistic States of America, the first communist country.
I think that’s going a little far, but we must remember the timing of public perception of the words socialism and communism. Circa 1900, socialism referred to labor unions and communism meant some of the communal societies in the Midwest that were very faith based. Marx published his Manifesto in 1848, alongside the works of other Utopian dreamers. Experience proved that communal arrangements were effective only as short term arrangements to build communities out of nothing but raw resources and the labor of those willing to build. So, if the concept of socialist communities comes in the nineteenth century, before the Russian revolution and the oppression of religion, the emotional hatred of communism expressed by so many Americans would not develop as it did.
 
Under the conditions set in the premise then I would have to say that while the civil war is avoided war nevertheless happens. New slave states were not going to come into existence within the 1860 borders of the USA even with the 'Dred Scott' ruling. Expansion into the Caribbean or the Yucatan was the only way to bring such states into the Union. Assuming that a united Democratic Party convention nominates Herschel Johnson or a southern like him wars of conquest were all but fated.
 
President Douglas would be destined to die three months into his term, so the president for most of the term would be Herschel Johnson. I think there would be internal pressures and the US would not go full tilt into international matters.


It is widely believed that part of the reason Douglas died was stress related. If he is actually elected (This is different than the vast majority of cases when people are elected POUS) the stress level would actually go down. An ATL in which he has a decent shot of getting elected POUS is one in which there is considerably less chance of Southern states causing problems before the election lowering his stress level, after the election he wouldn't have to worry about secession at all considering the POD nor does he have to go "all out" to back the war since there would be none. I think he woud live longer than three months, perhaps a lot longer.
 
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