Board Thread:New on Alternative History/@comment-72.185.4.15-20130303025444/@comment-32656-20130310090824

"Crazy as a box of rattlesnakes" would be an understatement.

Breckenridge supporters were not devoted to that concept. Breckenridge himself hated it.

Fireeaters were a small minority. Heck, Breckinridge's supporters were in the minority - just half the states he won otl had people voting for some combination of the other three outnumber his own supporters. And only a small number of his voters gave the "fireeaters" any thought.

Popular Sovereignty was something that they had shown they could live with. Didn't like it, but it was livable compared to the Republican platform - i.e. that slavery be barred outright from the new territories. For that matter, Bell pushed the same policies that Douglas did, and did well in most of the south. In fact, Breckenridge only won two states, overall, by any real margin - Texas and Florida. The rest he won, largely, via vote-splitting.

Definitely the wrong tree.