Question of the Week: Who should the Democratic Party nominate in 1864, if not McClellan?
Hypothetical Thinking Time: George McClellan chokes on a chicken bone in early 1864. Who should the Democratic Party now nominate as their best candidate to defeat Lincoln in the 1864 election?
I can’t get beyond the thought of McClellan choking on a chicken bone, I picture him as more a prime rib gent myself!!
Seriously, I could almost picture a similar election to 1860 with a fractured Democratic Party running a Peace Candidate and a War Party Candidate, but none would have the cache and name recognition of Little Mac.
John McClernand, furious over Grant’s subtle maneuvers to banish him to military oblivion, let’s the word go forth that he’d be willing to run as “the soldiers true friend” against Lincoln. His candidacy is buoyed by the difficulties Grant encounters in the Overland Campaign, as well as his solid Midwestern credentials.
Winfield Scott Hancock. Hancock is both a Democrat (he ultimately would run for president) and a bona fide war hero. The scenario posits that Hancock, still troubled by his Gettysburg wound, is convinced that he now can best serve his country by becoming commander in chief.
Well, this would hardly have been the first time that McClellan choked in a big spot…
Interesting question. Off the top of my head, John Fremont?
Interesting question. Off the top of my head, maybe John Fremont?
Fremont was a Republican; in fact, he was the first ever Republican nominated for President, in 1856. Besides, he’d failed in the war thus far and his reputation was declining.
Fremont did have a dalliance with Democratic Party operatives in 1864, even after accepting the nomination of the Radical Democratic Party in May. I posit in my book, The Pathfinder and the President: John C. Fremont, Abraham Lincoln, and the Battle for Emancipation, that it made no sense, and McClellan’s people pretty much felt that way. But feelers were put out.
I’ll go with the person McClellan defeated for the Democrats nomination, Thomas Seymour, the former governor of New Hampshire.
I do not think there was a better candidate. Fremont would have been an interesting choice because he would have drawn votes from Radical Republicans and Abolitionists but he would not have taken many mainstream votes. McClernand might have been interesting with any victories of his own behind him. However, after Atlanta, no one was beating Lincoln.
Needing the following ingredients of Democratic bone fides and name recognition, I can only think of either Clement Vallandigham or Horatio Seymour.
Valladigham had been made a laughing stock (and the protagonist of a great short story a bit later). I cannot see ANY Democrat other than McClellan…
Dan Sickles; he didn’t need two legs to run
Joel Parker of New Jersey. Fresh face with experience: elected Governor in 1862. Forty-seven years old in 1864. War Democrat who offered “an alternative” to those disenchanted with Lincoln’s conduct of the war.
William Rosecrans
The choice is hugely obvious: John C. Breckinridge. Respected North and South for his political and military acumen and for his unimpeachable integrity, he had been Vice President, had run for President in 1860, and was the only man whom those in the political circles North and South, Republican and Democrat, who could speak to everyone.
How about Ben Butler?