What if Lincoln had LOST the 1860 election?

[unionblue]

I have seen a lot of speculation concerning the idea if the South had won the Civil War, but what do you think would have happened if Lincoln had lost the 1860 election? Let's say Douglas won. What do you think he would have done differently than Lincoln? How would history have been changed? Would the South have left the Union? What would be the reaction of Douglas? The nation?

Unionblue

(Message edited by Unionblue on October 19, 2002)

[civilwartalk]

Good question Unionblue,

I don't know as much about Douglas as I'd like, and I'd like to know the answer to this question as well!

[unionblue]

Mike, I have got some ideas on this line, but not many. This is truly looking "through a glass darkly" to me.

I feel that Douglas would have insisted on preserving the Union, but I wonder if he would have staved off the war a bit with the idea of the new states deciding if they were to be slave or free? Would the South and the North continued to pour in 'border ruffins' and 'aid societys' to inflate their claims on each new state? Would Douglas had been forced to call on the Army to keep the peace? Would the South have left the Union anyway?

What a tangled web we weave, when at first history we begin to unweave?

Unionblue

The election of Douglas, would have probably only slowed, the start of the war. Tempers, on both sides, had reached their boiling points, and were ready to explode. Douglas, had supported the Kansas- Nebraska act, and would probably have tried to keep the union together, with it. All of the land, from the Louisiana purchase, was working its way into becoming states, each state would have become a Bloody Kansas, even with sending, in the army, to keep the peace, there would have been, to much territory, for them to police properly. Just as the Texas rangers, in the ole west were great at their jobs, they were unable to be everywhere, at the same time. All of the fighting among the pro and con slavery people, in each potential state, would more than likely have caused the explosion, into the civil war. To avoid this, Douglas would have to seek, to amend the Kansas-Neb. act, to go back to something similar to the old Missouri compromise. Chances of this working would be slim, most people had come, to the point, to where it was going, to be only one way. Slave, or free.

Gunsmoke

[jeffdavislegion]

Douglas was a strong proponent of Popular Sovereignty, which left the decision of slavery to the states themselves. This doctrine was a major component of both the 1850 Compromise and the Kansas-Nebraska Act, and was reiterated in the debate in Freeport, IL, in August, 1858 (the Freeport Doctrine.)

Given that the major underlying factor in the ACW was the preservation/abolition of slavery, and given that Douglas' argument was the right of the states to chose, here's my guess at the results for the next 10-20 years after 1860.

There would be skirmishes and localized fighting in some border states, e.g. Kansas and Missouri. One side or the other would eventually win the state through violence or vote - mini civil wars, if you will. Not a pretty picture, but certainly possible.

Since the slavery issue was being decided in various microcosms, the southern states would have no need to secede from the Union, therefore Douglas would not have to address the issue.

Eventually, however, some president would have to address the slavery issue. It could not - without the severest stretch of the imagination - exist today. So, what happens between 1860 and 2003? I envision three possibilities: 1) a civil war happens at a later date, 2) the development of technology renders slavery economically infeasible, 3) or the people finally realize it is unjust and abolish it without a shot being fired.

Although alternative #3 is possible, since Great Britain abolished slavery without a civil war, I suspect that the most likely is alternative #1.

[unionblue]

Daniel, your right, but what about the pressure put upon Douglas to put a plank in the 1860 Democratic platform to approve a federal law that the federal government had to protect slave owners and their "property" when they traveled through ALL the States and Territories? This would have been the greatest expansion of federal powers until FDR and his New Deal programs of the 1930's.

I wonder if we would have just seen a reversal of States seceeding the Union, every Free State above the Ohio leaving the Union because of unwarrented federal intrusion and unwanted "big government"?

As for your idea of technology rendering slavery economically infeasible, who would run the new technology? Who would cart the goods to market? Who would service the machines? Why not slaves, since they are already there? Wouldn't it be cheaper to put slaves on the combines, reapers, etc.? And would not the tradition of having slaves working those mind-numbing techno-jobs have been long-established? Tradition is the hardest to uproot and change and I wonder if having an advanced, faster way to harvest cotton would have changed the work in the fields from 100 slaves picking by hand to 3 or 4 slaves running the new machines.

I think if Douglas could have gotten elected in 1860 WITHOUT the inclusion of that federal law, popular sovereignty might have become the law of the land and Lincoln would have been the loyal opposition for four years, but slavery would not have went away.

Unionblue

[jeffdavislegion]

Neil,

It's all supposition, so I don't necessarily disagree with any of your points. Speculation is difficult to document. However, I'm not sure about your position on technology. Technology, by its very nature, reduces the need for manual labor. It's easy to suppose that there wouldn't be enough manual labor "jobs" to support the slave trade any longer. Although one could also suppose that expanding into the yet-unsettled west would provide additional "jobs."

There is a widely-held opinion that slavery did not exist in the north because it simply wasn't productive there due to mechanization. It wasn't just the abolitionists that killed slavery in the north.

[unionblue]

Daniel,

I am inclined to agree with you about technology reducing the need for manual labor and the widely held opinion that the North had no needs of slaves due to said technology being available there.

I just wonder what would happen to all those slaves in the South if there was suddenly no labor for them?

Unionblue

[tamaroa]

What about John Bell, the moderate who ran on a Constitutional Union Ticket? Douglas was a Democrat, northern yes but still a Democrat. Republicans were the party of Free soil, Free Labor and Free Men as Eric Foner said in a text I used in college before the flood. Therefore they were already committed to pretty much freeing the slaves.

Bell, John, 1797–1869, served in the U.S. House of Representatives (1827–41), was speaker in 1834, As U.S. Senator (1847–59), he was the leader of a conservative Southern faction that while supporting slavery believed the Union came first. He admitted that Congress could prohibit slavery in the territories, supported the Compromise of 1850, objected to the Kansas-Nebraska Bill, and opposed the admission of Kansas under the Lecompton Constitution. In 1860, Bell won the electoral votes of Tennessee, Kentucky, and Virginia. The lower South seceded with Lincoln's election. Largely because of Bell, Tennessee stayed in the Union til the last second before the firing on Fort Sumter. I think Bell was probably a moderate enough to really try and work things out. I can't say the same about Douglas.

Bill

[5fish]

I saw this thread lost among the other threads and pulled it out for a look.

Lincoln walk over everyone in the election if you go by the Electoral College but only received 39% of the vote.

I look at the results and Lincoln wasn't even challenge in any of the major states he won. A note he wasn't even on the ballot in nine southern states and he won only two counties in the south.

The contestants Lincoln would have lost too in 1860:

Douglas was just another Buchanan he would have allow the union to dissolve for his whole political career he appeased the slave barons at the prise of more Northern anger.

Breckridge was late to support secession but as president he might have been able to hold the union together because the south would feel they had an allied in the White House.

Bell was this odd third party candidate that took a few states even VA. His election to the White House might have appeased the south and delay the south's desire to seceded.