Who could feasibly become the nation’s first Republican President in 1860 that would have done the worst job of running the Northern war effort during the Civil War?
Are we limited only to the Republican candidates of 1860? Or can we choose outside of said candidates?
Simon Cameron. Fortunately, he had little chance of being nominated, but with a deadlocked convention, you can never be sure (especially given the importance of Pennsylvania)...
Cameron does sound like a bad choice. Do you think the Union would still have won with him?
There is a myth about the civil war. It was "the South could have won if they did X." Nope, the war was pretty much unwinnable for the South without European help. I could have ASB most union railroads west of the appellation mountains, turn 70% of the Northern factories into fields or meadows, remove 70% of their mobile artillery, and give them the worst tactician of the time and the North would still be the favorite to win. might be a 13 year war with that ASB. Even with these crippling disadvantages, the North still would have population, production, and logistics advantage of the South. This is a war Simon Cameron can't lose if he's trying not to lose. We'll look at maybe a 1866 finish.
Lincoln used some ninja-level diplomacy with Britain and France to keep them out of the war and ensure that the CSA would lose. So the worst choice is the person least likely to keep Europe out of the war. If Cameron blows it with Britain and France, that could be disastrous for the Union.
John Bell, considering he later defected to the south and had no intention of using military force to suppress the rebellion. Of course, were he elected, the south may not have seceded to begin with since he was more than willing to incense and kowtow to the slave power
He voted against both the Kansas-Nebraska bill and the Lecompton Constitution. That actually makes him one of the least pro-slavery (in the political sense) southerners in Congress in the 1850's. Even Sam Houston voted for Lecompton. Anyway, the original post specifically asked who the worst Republican president would be, and Bell was not a Republican. (Asking how a non-Republican president would handle secession is meaningless, since only the victory of a "Black Republican" would be enough to get the South to secede.)
According to that poster he was actually considered I don’t know if that was actually the case but I know his party loyalty was somewhat ambiguous considering he previously ran on one of those 1850s third parties.
A By the time he realized that voluntary reconstruction was a pipe dream, the independence of the Lower South might be so established that he could do little about it.