| June 3 |  |
Editor says, what if the sudden death of President Stephen Douglas had turned the tide of the Civil War? Please note that the opinions expressed in this post do not necessarily reflect the views of the author(s).
| Share this Article on: |  Facebook |  Twitter |
In 1861, Stephen A. Douglas (pictured), 16th president of the United States, died.
The Death of President Douglas by Eric LippsIn the divisive four-way 1860 election, in which h his opponents were the Republican Abraham Lincoln, Southern Democrat John C. Breckinridge and John Bell of the Constitutional Union Party, Douglas had been seen as a unifying figure who could head off the threat of Southern secession. And indeed it seemed as though he might succeed.
When South Carolina demanded that the U.S. government turn over its outpost fort Sumter to the state, Douglas managed to pacify Charleston by assuring the state legislature that the Sumter garrison would not be used against its people. "The United States are united because they stand together of their own free will," he declared in his inaugural address on March 4, 1861. "The moment the government of this Union must use force to hold the country together, the bonds which hold the states together shall have dissolved. Such differences as we have must be resolved by peaceful means".
Douglas's words angered many in the North, as did his announced refusal to send reinforcements to Fort Sumter when its commander requested them in early April.
"The United States are united because they stand together of their own free will. The moment the government of this Union must use force to hold the country together, the bonds which hold the states together shall have dissolved. Such differences as we have must be resolved by peaceful means" ~ President DouglasDouglas's death brought Vice-President Herschel V. Johnson to the White House. A native Georgian, he was if anything more sympathetic to the South than his predecessor had been. He became an outspoken opponent of abolitionist "radicalism," declaring that the states must decide the issue of slavery individually. "I am confident," he declared in a speech at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, on July 4, 1863, "that good faith and good judgement shall prevail in this vexing matter if allowed to do so under law and the Constitution".
President Johnson's pro-Southernism would lead to an unsuccessful attempt at his impeachment in early 1864, spearheaded by former Attorney General Edwin M. Stanton, who after Johnson's acquittal in the Senate would declare his own candidacy for the presidency. Capitalizing on Northern resentment of Johnson's "softness" toward the south, Stanton would defeat the Georgian that November.
Stanton's election would burst the dam which had been holding back secession, and in March of 1864, just after his inauguration, the War of the States would begin. By the time it ended, five bloody years later, it would have taken over 700,000 lives.
Entry posted by
Eric Lipps
© Eric Lipps,2007-.Story Tags
Permalinks: Post, Day. Browse Thread: Politicians Source: Wikipedia Labels: Stephen Douglas, 1861, Presidency, Presidential Election, Civil War.
~ Spooky...
~ This would have been interesting. I think that in the absence of the John Brown raid on Harpers Ferry, the situation might have been contained for a while, but the South knew that further Western settlements were not going to be slave states, and that sooner or later they'd be outnumbered enough in the Senate to make anti-slavery amendments possible.
~ I agree with Eric, plus there's also the threat that the North will become more & more frustrated, which may further radicalise, not only the abolitionists, but likewise the state governments in the North.
~ Which might well contribute to the election of a fire-breather like Stanton. In our history, Stanton, as Secretary of War, favored much harsher postwar measures against the South than did Lincoln.
~ The election of Stephan Douglas would put off the Civil War but I doubt it would change history that much, unless things could be put off until Economics and advancing Technowlogy made Slave Labor obsolete the pressures in this country would ultimately tear it apart. Northerners were getting sich and tired of their State's Rights being trampled by Soutnern control Federal Governmetn just as they were outraged at the sight of Quadroons and Octoroons being sold in the slave markets by their slave owner fathers. If war had come Douglas was on record as being pro-union and undoubtedly would have committed troops to action. It is also possible he might have brought Lincoln into his cabinate in some capacity.
~ Presume Douglas wins which is the basis of this ATL. This means he carries the Midwest and MidAtlantic states. This means the Republicans are reduced to their New England and New England settled [Oregon, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, western New York] roots. This further means that Dixie accepts Free Soil in the West [Free Soil mattered FAR more to the voters we are switching than abolition which was a quite minority opinion]. This in turn means that even if SC secedes she does not carry the other Gulf States with her. So this becomes a re-run of Jackson's crisis and ends about the same way. So the 1864 crisis is far fetched and the speech at Gettysburg is simply absurd. Absent the war of OTL Gettysburg is an obscure college town.
~ Were the southern states willing to accept states and territories deciding on slavery for themselves I seriously thing things would have gotten to the point of Civil War.
© Today in Alternate History, 2013-. All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
