McClellan wins in 1864
- Thread starter Cosmos
- Start date
Max Sinister
Banned
I know he was more for reconciliation, but even if he wins, the war is almost over. The CSA has no chance even for a draw in late 1864.
Anaxagoras
Banned
Max Sinister said:
But he could only have won had the POD involved a serious Union military reverse. Maybe Grant is decisively beaten at the North Anna River, or Sherman is decisively beaten at Cassville. We can only assume that, if McClellen wins the election, the Confederacy still been in a reasonably strong position militarily.
Exactly what happens depends on the exact POD that causes McClellen to win. Some have suggested that, if the Union had made no military progress during 1864, it would have been very difficult for McClellen to resist pressure from Peace Democrats to instititute a cease-fire (with the idea of negotiating the South back into the Union- an idea doomed to failure), and that had there been a cease-fire it would have been nearly impossible to restart hostilities.
It has also been pointed out that had the Democrats put forward a policy that did not make the emancipation of the slaves a war goal, the Republicans would have, in effect, stopped fighting the war because they would no longer have considered it worth winning.
MrP
Banned
What If? America has a scenario on McClellan's election in '64. I've a feeling the original What If? may do, too. But my copy seems to be in hiding. 
Wendell said:
Oh, they probably won't do well for some time afterwards, but they certainly will not die as a party. That was one thing (not the only one!) that bothered me about Turtledove's Great War series...the Republicans lost two wars, but with relatively small casualties, I don't think they would shrivel up and die...and especially get their spots taken by Socialists of all parties! Its not like they lost WW1 or WW2...
fenkmaster said:
Actually, what bothers me about Lincoln giving life to the "Socialists" (in Turtledove's ATL) is that Republicans were capitalist-oriented right from the beginning. As Howard Zinn points out in his Peaple's History of the US, the Republican pro-war, pro-union policy was largely market-driven - the industrialized north wanted both easy access to cheap, southern raw materials, as well as new places to sell the processed products. Of course, they welcomed the support of the abolitionist wing, and Lincoln indeed may have become sincerely devoted to the abolutionist cause by the time of the EP. But the foundation of the party was capitalism. Perhaps some of the abolitionist wing may not have been capitalist at all and would have been drawn to a the Socialists in the 1880s once slavery was no longer an issue. But Lincoln himself and the core of the Republicans? I don't buy it.
Xen
Banned
Ive read alot of accounts about Lincoln's distrust of big business. That aside, taken with earning the nations scorn over losing a war, his travels to Europe, and around America, not to mention thinking of his own legacy, its not hard to see Lincoln going Socialist.
I can even see some Republicans joining him in the wake of the war's loss, but I sort of doubt it would be as many as Turtledove suggested, and the Socialists would likely be a noisy, and important third Party. It is even probable that after the Democrats dominate politics for so long we see a coalition, it could become a permanent alliance, maybe the Social Republican Party.
I can even see some Republicans joining him in the wake of the war's loss, but I sort of doubt it would be as many as Turtledove suggested, and the Socialists would likely be a noisy, and important third Party. It is even probable that after the Democrats dominate politics for so long we see a coalition, it could become a permanent alliance, maybe the Social Republican Party.
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