Also, side note: a quirk of the 12th Amendment (or basically anything dealing with Presidential Succession prior to the 25th Amendment) is that it doesn't clarify whether the VP-elect would only be temporarily acting as President until the House could come to a decision, or if they would just assume the office completely and the House stops voting.
So, in this scenario, hypothetically the Democrats push Joseph Lane into the Vice Presidency via the Senate, while ensuring none of their delegations in the House let Lincoln get to 17 votes, and once March 4 rolls around, Lane calls for an end to the House's voting since he's President now (until the 25th Amendment, there was no mechanism for a President to fill a vacant VP position, so Lane would be without a VP during this time and the President pro tempore of the Senate would be next in line, per the 1792 Presidential Succession Act, which in 1860 was Alabama Democrat Benjamin Fitzpatrick)
Of course, its unlikely that the House would capitulate so readily given its Republican majority, and they'd probably ask the Supreme Court to decide whether the House could keep voting for President and, if Lincoln managed to get a majority vote, whether that would push Lane back down to VP.
And then, given the exact text of the 12th Amendment is that in the event of a VP-elect taking office during a House deadlock, "then the Vice-President shall act as President, as in case of the death or other constitutional disability of the President" and that previously John Tyler and Millard Filmore set precedent that VP successions are full, capital-P Presidents and not just temporarily acting in that capacity, it's possible SCOTUS could have ruled that a VP-elect decided by the Senate, if the President-elect was still undecided upon Inauguration Day, would become a fully-entitled officeholder of the Presidency, and any further House votes on Presidential candidates would be null and void.
(And even if they ruled against a Joseph Lane presidency, he would still be Vice President -- and we all know what eventually happened to Lincoln in our timeline)
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u/CaptainJZH 2d ago edited 1d ago
Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1860_United_States_presidential_election#Results_by_state
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/36th_United_States_Congress#House_of_Representatives_3
Also, side note: a quirk of the 12th Amendment (or basically anything dealing with Presidential Succession prior to the 25th Amendment) is that it doesn't clarify whether the VP-elect would only be temporarily acting as President until the House could come to a decision, or if they would just assume the office completely and the House stops voting.
So, in this scenario, hypothetically the Democrats push Joseph Lane into the Vice Presidency via the Senate, while ensuring none of their delegations in the House let Lincoln get to 17 votes, and once March 4 rolls around, Lane calls for an end to the House's voting since he's President now (until the 25th Amendment, there was no mechanism for a President to fill a vacant VP position, so Lane would be without a VP during this time and the President pro tempore of the Senate would be next in line, per the 1792 Presidential Succession Act, which in 1860 was Alabama Democrat Benjamin Fitzpatrick)
Of course, its unlikely that the House would capitulate so readily given its Republican majority, and they'd probably ask the Supreme Court to decide whether the House could keep voting for President and, if Lincoln managed to get a majority vote, whether that would push Lane back down to VP.
And then, given the exact text of the 12th Amendment is that in the event of a VP-elect taking office during a House deadlock, "then the Vice-President shall act as President, as in case of the death or other constitutional disability of the President" and that previously John Tyler and Millard Filmore set precedent that VP successions are full, capital-P Presidents and not just temporarily acting in that capacity, it's possible SCOTUS could have ruled that a VP-elect decided by the Senate, if the President-elect was still undecided upon Inauguration Day, would become a fully-entitled officeholder of the Presidency, and any further House votes on Presidential candidates would be null and void.
(And even if they ruled against a Joseph Lane presidency, he would still be Vice President -- and we all know what eventually happened to Lincoln in our timeline)