1860 Presidential Election

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Obviously not Breckenridge, and voting for Bell only sweeps the slavery issue under the rug rather than getting rid of the mess, so Douglas and Lincoln are the only possible options.  We have the advantage of knowing how a Lincoln Presidency would have gone.  We don't know how a Douglas and then a Herschel Johnson presidency would have gone.  I doubt that a Douglas presidency would have caused secession, tho there certainly would have been talk of it.  We likely end up with four years of political deadlock leading up to the election of 1864. So the net result of a Douglas win is probably a Civil War four years later with everyone better prepared for the start of it.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Lincoln is the only option for any decent human being living in 2014.

No one living today could have voted in 1860.  A Douglas presidency would have offered a slim chance that the slavery issue could be resolved without a civil war, and no one in 1860 could have predicted that Lincoln would prove to be as great a president as he proved to be.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

If expansionism was essential for the survival of slavery (as I do concur that it was), then would not the whole Confederate project be doomed from the outset, lacking the access to new territory that came with leaving the Union?

First off, an independent Confederacy would have been free to filibuster in Mexico and Central America for new territory.  The4y might have been able to get Cuba, and northern Mexico was certainly obtainable.

But more importantly, the faster growth of the North compared to the South is what would have doomed slavery had the South remained in the Union.  But an independent Confederacy would have been much more stable with respect to slavery since the sectional pressures wouldn't have applied.  Slavery in an independent South would likely have lasted until at least when Brazil abolished it in 1889 and I could easily see it lasting until at least The Great War, assuming that the USA and CSA ended up fighting each other in it.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Given that the Confederate economy was vastly weaker than that of the United States (as evidenced by the outcome of the Civil War in spite of having better generals), I would think that even expansionism into Mexico and Cuba would be more difficult than that encountered by the IRL United States circa 1898. Unfortunately, slavery would likely have continued for a substantial period of time past 1865, but the fact that the Confederacy would undoubtedly remain an international pariah for doing so even with its most amicable international partners, in addition to the geographic limitations of plantation farming would have doomed the practice in due course.

While plantation farming was the most common use for slave labor in the Americas, it was far from the only use.  Nor was the Southern economy weak, rather it was non-industrial.  So long as there was no blockade (and the idea that Mexico could blockade the Confederacy is very fanciful), the South would have been able to obtain its arms on the world market.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Given that the Confederate economy was vastly weaker than that of the United States (as evidenced by the outcome of the Civil War in spite of having better generals), I would think that even expansionism into Mexico and Cuba would be more difficult than that encountered by the IRL United States circa 1898. Unfortunately, slavery would likely have continued for a substantial period of time past 1865, but the fact that the Confederacy would undoubtedly remain an international pariah for doing so even with its most amicable international partners, in addition to the geographic limitations of plantation farming would have doomed the practice in due course.

While plantation farming was the most common use for slave labor in the Americas, it was far from the only use.  Nor was the Southern economy weak, rather it was non-industrial.  So long as there was no blockade (and the idea that Mexico could blockade the Confederacy is very fanciful), the South would have been able to obtain its arms on the world market.

Is your reasoning that Britain and France would have been less reluctant to supply arms to a nation still practicing slavery if the United States was not at war with it?

Yes.  They certainly had no compunctions about selling stuff to the USA or to Brazil while they were countries slavery was present,  For that matter, they were quite willing to sell to the CSA, but were unwilling to do anything about the blockade between two belligerent powers.