It's not very likely the 1860 election would *go* into the House--at least not with Lincoln as the Republican candidate--but it seems widely assumed that if it did, he couldn't win there. After all, the Republicans were two delegations short of a majority. But here is how the gossiping friend of Alexander Stephens, J. Henley Smith, thought that Lincoln could indeed could win in the House:
"Congressman Isaac N. Morris, a Douglas Democrat from Illinois, had avowed that he would vote for none but Douglas. Smith believed that Morris would eventually cast his lot with the Republicans. Also Congressman Lansing Stout of Oregon occupied a precarious seat, which was being contested by the Republicans. Inasmuch as they had organized the House, if it became necessary they would press the contest against Stout, unseat him, and win the Oregon vote and the election." Ollinger Crenshaw, *The Slave States in the Presidential Election of 1860* (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1945), pp. 68-69.
(Stout had defeated David Logan--the candidate of the Republicans and informally supported by the Douglas Democrats--by only sixteen votes out of more than eleven thousand cast in 1859!
http://books.google.com/books?id=n8aMn4CxknsC&pg=PA281 Logan--who considered himself a Whig long after the party dwindled into national insignificance--had until recently been a strong critic of "Black Republicans." But once the divisions in the Democratic camp gave him a > chance to win, he readily accepted the Republican nomination.)
Unseating Stout would, however, outrage many non-Republicans (Douglas, Bell, and Breckinridge supporters) who in OTL supported Lincoln and the war effort after Fort Sumter. They felt that the South had the duty to accept the election of Lincoln because he had won fair and square. If instead he wins with such dubious methods, he has not only practically the entire South against him but a huge number of Northerners as well. Moreover, Oregon alone will not elect Lincoln. It only gets him up to sixteen delegations, still one short of a majority. The Republicans also need to get at least one Douglas Democrat from Illinois--whether Morris or someone else--to vote for Lincoln, and unseating Stout would if anything make this less likely. (It's not enough for Morris to adhere to his vow to vote for nobody but Douglas. If Morris merely abstains, the delegation is tied, so Lincoln still does not win its vote.) Anyway, I am not even sure the Republicans, who only barely controlled the House, had the votes to unseat Stout.
Stout himself eventually became a Republican--could he be persuaded to vote for Lincoln in OTL? The April 1860 Lane-dominated Oregon Democratic convention had refused to consider renominating Stout.
http://books.google.com/books?id=JtxAAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA168 On the one hand, this meant that any Republican threat to unseat him would probably not move his vote, since he was a lame duck anyway. Yet on the other hand, if he had enough resentment toward his old ally Lane for not supporting his renomination, *that* just might lead him to vote for Lincoln. (Yet after his failure to be renominated, Stout attended the Charleston Convention and telegraphed Lane, then in Washington, for instructions.
https://books.google.com/books?id=XSWiAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA176 So he still seems to have been a loyal Lane Democrat at this time.)
"Congressman Isaac N. Morris, a Douglas Democrat from Illinois, had avowed that he would vote for none but Douglas. Smith believed that Morris would eventually cast his lot with the Republicans. Also Congressman Lansing Stout of Oregon occupied a precarious seat, which was being contested by the Republicans. Inasmuch as they had organized the House, if it became necessary they would press the contest against Stout, unseat him, and win the Oregon vote and the election." Ollinger Crenshaw, *The Slave States in the Presidential Election of 1860* (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1945), pp. 68-69.
(Stout had defeated David Logan--the candidate of the Republicans and informally supported by the Douglas Democrats--by only sixteen votes out of more than eleven thousand cast in 1859!
http://books.google.com/books?id=n8aMn4CxknsC&pg=PA281 Logan--who considered himself a Whig long after the party dwindled into national insignificance--had until recently been a strong critic of "Black Republicans." But once the divisions in the Democratic camp gave him a > chance to win, he readily accepted the Republican nomination.)
Unseating Stout would, however, outrage many non-Republicans (Douglas, Bell, and Breckinridge supporters) who in OTL supported Lincoln and the war effort after Fort Sumter. They felt that the South had the duty to accept the election of Lincoln because he had won fair and square. If instead he wins with such dubious methods, he has not only practically the entire South against him but a huge number of Northerners as well. Moreover, Oregon alone will not elect Lincoln. It only gets him up to sixteen delegations, still one short of a majority. The Republicans also need to get at least one Douglas Democrat from Illinois--whether Morris or someone else--to vote for Lincoln, and unseating Stout would if anything make this less likely. (It's not enough for Morris to adhere to his vow to vote for nobody but Douglas. If Morris merely abstains, the delegation is tied, so Lincoln still does not win its vote.) Anyway, I am not even sure the Republicans, who only barely controlled the House, had the votes to unseat Stout.
Stout himself eventually became a Republican--could he be persuaded to vote for Lincoln in OTL? The April 1860 Lane-dominated Oregon Democratic convention had refused to consider renominating Stout.
http://books.google.com/books?id=JtxAAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA168 On the one hand, this meant that any Republican threat to unseat him would probably not move his vote, since he was a lame duck anyway. Yet on the other hand, if he had enough resentment toward his old ally Lane for not supporting his renomination, *that* just might lead him to vote for Lincoln. (Yet after his failure to be renominated, Stout attended the Charleston Convention and telegraphed Lane, then in Washington, for instructions.
https://books.google.com/books?id=XSWiAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA176 So he still seems to have been a loyal Lane Democrat at this time.)