Fremont wins in 1856

[jokerman]

First, in order to make a reasonable counterfactual, tell us how Fremont won.  Just saying "what if he won" doesn't cut it.

Perhaps Fillmore dropping out and endorsing him could have done it? (and was there a realistic possibility that Fillmore would have actually done so?  Perhaps someone will set me straight on this.  I know many Know-Nothings eventually came over to the Republicans, but then again Fillmore was very moderate on slavery, signing the Compromise of 1850.  He obviously didn't believe in the "key" ideal of the Republican Party, banishing all slavery from the territories.)

[jokerman]

First, in order to make a reasonable counterfactual, tell us how Fremont won.  Just saying "what if he won" doesn't cut it.

Oh come on, you make it sound like there's a universal law in this forum where we absolutely have to point out how someone would win an election in such a scenario. I mean, what about Tweed's "What if Communist William Foster had won the Presidency in 1932?"-thread? Or the countless other threads which are vague about their electoral outcomes and just say "What if..."? Do they have to give detailed explanations as well?

Well I generally ignore most of those....

One can't just make a timeline and say "right here, history completely changed in the blink of a second," which is the effect of stating a major change in an election without providing the context in which that happened.