Board Thread:New on Alternative History/@comment-72.185.4.15-20130303025444/@comment-32656-20130309075823

Yes, that is a position that he favored - and one that a majority of Southerners could actually tolerate. Not the one they wanted, but one that was tolerable. In fact, that's the position that the Constitutional Union Party advocated, and they did very well in large areas of the south, almost winning several more than the three states they won otl.

You've got the wrong convention there - it was actually the original one in Charleston that they did that at. And it was only 50 that did it, and they set up shop across the street. This left the convention without a real quorum to vote on a nominee, and the remainder of the delegates voted to reconvene a month later.

The problem with the Baltimore convention was a simple procedural problem. You're right about the number that walked out - 110, most of them from the south, but not all of the southern delegations - but not why.

Indeed, most of the southern delegates hadn't been expected to show up in Baltimore a month later, but they did regardless. The majority of them were admitted, no problems. A few states had, however, chosen new delegates in the meanwhile, and these new ones showed up - the problem is, the old ones did too. Some of the old were readmitted instead of the new ones, but with a couple states, the new ones were - hence the walkout. And since the walkouts included the convention chairman, the earlier requirement for there to be 2/3rds of seated delegates present for a quorum was declared null and void. Douglas then became the nominee. And, for the record, he won this by enough of a margin that had the Southerners still been in attendance, he'd have won the nomination with the 2/3rds majority and 2/3rds majority quorum that had been the original requirement. He got that many votes in Baltimore - 40 or so more than in Charleston.

It's not a question of them not accepting him - rather, a single procedural matter.

Breckenridge was nominated at another "Democratic" convention in Baltimore, five days after Douglas' nomination. Not in Richmond.

Yancy, were he alive today, would be one of those men on street corners wearing tin hats. He advocated his positions for, at minimum, most of two decades prior to 1860, and was probably the first to demand secession occur, in the same time frame. If you look at the things he said, you'd note that he said many things that were directly contradictory. The man changed his opinions on most things by the hour.

He generally, however, advocated that Northerners vote for Breckenridge. That he did so shows just how "off" the guy was - no concept of reality. And, the man had wanted secession for many years. Of course he's going to advocate that position i.e. anyone but Lincoln. He did hope to split votes enough to throw the election to Congress, however - the "fireeaters" thought themselves likely to come out on top in that event. Doubt that, however.

The "fireeaters" were a small minority until after the election of Lincoln, and even then, they were a minority in most places.

Simply put, there is absolutely no way that a Douglas election would have set off secession. You cannot even make an argument for it.