A few years ago, I was fascinated by the possibility that a certain Joseph Lane, rather than Abraham Lincoln, might have become President in 1861. I actually accumulated quite a file of research and notes, which I have since lost. I’m not the only one who considered the Joseph Lane scenario – many people during the 1860 election discussed it. Let me introduce Joseph Lane, consider the scenario in which he might have become President, and briefly discuss what might have happened in an alternate dimension which included the Joseph Lane presidency.
Joseph Lane was born in North Carolina and grew up in Kentucky, never losing the political predilections associated with this slave-state upbringing. He moved to Indiana as a youth and entered business and politics. A career as a Democrat in the Indiana legislature was interrupted by a stint as a general in the Mexican War, whence he returned a war hero. While still in military service, he was sent to Oregon as governor of that recently-organized territory, fighting against the Native Americans. He was elected Oregon territorial delegate to Congress – having been denied the 1852 Democratic Presidential nomination as Indiana’s favorite son. When Oregon became a state, Lane was studiously neutral on whether Oregonians should legalize slavery (Oregon voters strongly rejected slavery, while rejecting free blacks too). Lane was elevated from the position of territorial delegate to the role of Senator from Oregon. Lane associated himself with the ultra-proslavery Southern Democrats and their doctrine of allowing slavery in all federal territories. This earned him the Vice-Presidential nomination of the Southern Democrats, making him the running-mate of Presidential candidate John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky.
As the Presidential election of 1860 approached, Abraham Lincoln had enough momentum in the North that many saw him as heading to victory. There was one scenario, however, which made Republicans nervous and gave some measure of hope to Lincoln’s opponents. What if, in the key state of New York, supporters of the three anti-Lincoln candidates united behind a single slate of electors? In our dimension, such a “Fusion” ticket was formed, but Lincoln still carried New York, and the country, in the election (in New York state, Lincoln managed the today-implausible feat of overcoming the Democratic vote in New York City with the Republican vote upstate).[ii]
But it might have been otherwise. The “Fusion” ticket might have beaten Lincoln, denying him a national electoral majority.
Without an electoral majority for any candidate, political prognosticators anticipated, events would set in motion a Rube Goldberg process culminating in Joseph Lane becoming President. How would this have worked?