Mr. Beat: What if Lincoln lost the 1860 election?

 

[VIDEO] Mr. Beat goes into the alternate history game. Let's say Abraham Lincoln loses to fellow Illinois resident Stephen A Douglas in the 1860 election. That staves off the Civil War for four years, its going to happen! The sectional issues between north and south were too great and no one even prior to 1860 was able to adequately navigate those issues. Although presidents such as Franklin Pierce or James Buchanan it could be argued made the sectional issues worse.

A few interesting tidbits. Before becoming President Lincoln in 1864, he was Sen. Lincoln. Remember in 1858 Lincoln debated Douglas pursuing a US Senate seat - and remember back at that point US Senators were appointed by state legislatures. Before becoming President in this alternate timeline Douglas was a US Senator from Illinois. And of course in our history Douglas was a US Senator until he died in 1861. Even in this alternate timeline that doesn't change as President he dies in office.

Regardless it happens a bit later, but the Civil War still happens. Lincoln still becomes President although if it was meant to be that he would be assassinated after the conclusion of the Civil War it'll happen later. Of course that's not noted but we know what happens in our history. Perhaps it doesn't happen and Lincoln serves a second full term as opposed to his death early in his second term in our history in 1865.

I guess to fully explore the after effects of this alternate timeline - and owing to my own interest in science fiction and alternate universes and timelines - would be very interesting to speculate. Perhaps our own line of Presidents since the 1860s in an alternate timeline would look very different. Who knows.

I hope you found this interesting.