The election of 1860 was one of the most consequential in our history. The issue of slavery had come to a head and the previous two presidents had tried to find compromises and had only succeeded in exacerbating tensions. Both of the two parties had split up into two, irreconcilable factions:
The Democrats had split into Southern, pro slavery Democrats, with John Breckinridge as their candidate, and Northern, moderate, pro appeasement Democrats, with Stephen Douglas. The Whigs had split into anti-slavery Republicans, with Abraham Lincoln, and pro compromise, pro union Constitutional Union, with John Bell.
Lincoln got the most votes and won the election, with more votes and electors than any two of the other candidates, but his policies were viewed as too extreme by all the southern states, and they seceded long before Lincoln took office. But New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania had different ballots, that included a Fusion party. The two compromisers plus the Fusion got more votes than Lincoln, and together, Lincoln and the Fusions got 6 times as many votes as Breckenridge.
What would have happened had the two appeasement parties been able to get together and put forth a single "Fusion"candidate? Politics is often more about individual candidates than policy so it's hard to really know, but here are the numbers for Lincoln, Breckinridge and an imaginary Fusion candidate who I'll call Douglas Bell:
Lincoln Breckinridge Douglas+Bell
AL: 0 48669 41453 No Change 9 D Electors
AR: 0 28732 25420 No Change 4 D Electors
CA: 38733 33969 24542 No Change 4 R Electors
CT: 43488 14372 16959 No Change 6 R Electors
DE: 3822 7339 4954 No Change 3 D Electors
FL: 0 8277 5024 No Change 3 D Electors
GA: 0 52176 54541 D+B wins 10 F Electors
IL: 172171 2331 165129 No Change 11 R Electors
IN: 139033 12295 120815 No Change 13 R Electors
IA: 70302 1035 57402 No Change 4 R Electors
KY: 1364 53143 91709 D+B Wins 12 F Electors
LA: 0 22681 27829 D+B Wins 6 F Electors
ME: 62811 6386 31739 No Change 8 R Electors
MD: 2294 42482 47726 D+B Wins, 8 F Electors
MA: 106684 6163 56701 No Change 13 R Electors
MI: 88481 805 65472 No Change 6 R Electors
MN: 22069 748 11970 No Change 4 R Electors
MS: 0 40768 28407 No Change 7 D Electors
MO: 17028 31362 117173 D+B Wins 9 F Electors
NH: 37519 2125 26299 No Change 5 R Electors
NJ: 58346 0 62869 D+B Wins 7 F Electors
NY: 362646 0 312510 No Change 35 R Electors
NC: 0 48846 47866 No Change 10 D Electors
OH: 231709 11406 199615 No Change 23 R Electors
OR: 5329 5075 4354 No Change 3 R Electors
PA: 268030 0 195636 No Change 27 R Electors
RI: 12244 0 7707 No Change 4 R Electors
SC: No popular vote No Change 8 D Electors
TN: 0 65097 81009 D+B Wins 12 F Electors
TX: 0 74454 15401 No Change 4 D Electors
VT: 33808 1866 8866 No Change 5 R Electors
VA: 1887 74325 90679 D+B Wins 15 F Electors
WI: 86110 887 65182 No Change 5 R Electors
Final Tally:
Lincoln 176 Electors
Douglas+Bell 79 Electors
Breckinridge: 48 Electors
Reality:
Lincoln: 180 Electors
Douglas: 12 Electors
Breckinridge 72 Electors
Bell: 39 Electors
The bottom line is that had the two compromise candidates been on the same ticket, there would have been no difference in the outcome, but there would have been one more election where the popular vote didn't match the electoral college outcome. Where there was a big change is that in the border states: Missouri, Virginia, Maryland, Kentucky, Tennessee, even Georgia, the compromisers were much more popular than the pro-slavery faction.
Is General Kelly right that a compromise could have avoided the Civil War? No. There is no such thing as half a slave (at least if he is to remain alive), so there is no compromise possible. The compromises that had been made were what lead to the tensions. There were more people that hoped for the impossible compromise than either of the more extreme factions, but that simply wasn't going to happen.
One of the interesting things I learned from doing this exercise is how many states had 0 votes for the opposing candidate. I doubt that these states actually had zero voters for those positions, but that voter manipulation or intimidation kept such voters away from the polls or their ballots from being counted.
