What if the anti-slavery abolitionists had stayed home in 1860?

[bluestateguy]

Abraham Lincoln was not an abolitionist, at least not until the Civil War made freeing the slaves a good political and military strategy. Not until 1865 did he even support limited suffrage for black men--and even then only for men who had fought for the Union or owned property. As a candidate, he called for slavery's restriction, not it's abolition. Abolitionists did not care for him, yet they realized that the stakes were too high in that election for them to whine and stay home, allowing either Stephan Douglas or John Breckinrigde to win, which would have preserved slavery for generations to come. They voted for Lincoln, and thank goodness for that. So for those of you who might be contemplating staying home or voting for some single digit crank candidate because John Kerry or John Edwards is not ideologically pure enough for you, realize that Abraham Lincoln would not have been elected had abolitionists thought that way in 1860.

[Yupster]

1. I guess Stephen Douglas would have been elected president

Would that have been such a disaster? He seemed like a pretty reasonable candidate to me.

[JVS]

2. Unless there were huge numbers of Abolitionists, it wouldn't have mattered

Abraham Lincoln Hannibal Hamlin Republican 1,865,908 39.82%
John Breckenridge Joseph Lane S. Democrat 848,019 18.10%
John Bell Edward Everett Const. Union 590,901 12.62%
Stephen Douglas Herschel Johnson Democrat 1,380,202 29.46%

The Democrats had split themselves quite nicely. I can't get the by state results beyond the pictures which show solid Republican showings up North. But since voting was more regionally oriented at the time, one could safely say that the Republicans had this one in the bag.

See for yourself at http://uselectionatlas.org/USPRESIDENT/
Can't link it better because of frames.

And the liberation has less to do with Lincoln's election than with the extremely belligerent reaction of the South to his election and their subsequent defeat. Maybe a better question would be: What if the South hadn't gotten war fever and engaged in a foolish rebellion?

[WitchWay]

3. You're joking, right?

Kerry is a lot more like Zachary Taylor, if anybody.

[HFishbine]

4. About your assumptions

You have something other than speculation about who voted for whom, right?