[quote]magick wrote: if McClellan won in Nov., would the necessary Democrat votes have come? Or, to be more precise, would the Republicans have had enough spirit and will to do the work to push the amendment through?
The point I wanted to make is that a Democrat victory in the 1864 election would have profoundly changed the mood in government.
This is similar to what “may” (as Nickviar rightly points out- what ifs? are fun but ultimately pointless exercises; but they’re fun and I’ll continue doing them) have happened if Truman lost the 1948 election. The Republicans became significantly more anti-communist (and supported McCarthy so strongly largely because the White House was in Democrat hands) because of the defeat. If Dewey won the office, we don’t know what would have happened in the 50s.
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It’s a great “what if,” and I enjoy these too. My opinion is yes, the outcome would likely have been the same, assuming all other factors remain equal, i.e., outcomes of congressional elections, and I say that in this case only because the 13th amendment had powerful congressional backers absent any influence from the Oval Office, but I could be wrong, it’s an interesting question nonetheless.