President Harry Byrd? What If John F. Kennedy Had Lost the 1960 Presidential Election?

In our era of political crisis, historical analogies continue to be instructive, especially in the realm of counterfactual history.

In an article published in The Washington Post a few days ago, Ronald Shafer explored the possibility that a revolt among GOP conservatives in 1960 sparked an effort to use the Electoral College (all together now: booooo!!!) to thwart the will of the people, who collectively had just voted in favor of John F. Kennedy.

What, you say?  A precedent for Donald Trump's ham-fisted attempt to thwart the will of the people today? 

Shafer explains:

"It was a bitter, close election, and there were furious allegations of fraud."

"After Democrat John F. Kennedy barely beat Republican Richard M. Nixon in the 1960 election, a coalition of opponents plotted to deny him the presidency in the electoral college. Most were White, conservative electors from the south who opposed the young Massachusetts senator’s liberal policies, especially his support for civil rights for Black Americans."

"If these electors had succeeded, segregationist Democratic Sen. Harry Byrd of Virginia would have been elected president. His vice president would have been Republican Sen. Barry Goldwater of Arizona."

Shafer goes on to note that

"Immediately after the 1960 election, electors from Alabama and Mississippi agreed not to cast their votes for Kennedy, who had won both states. All of Mississippi’s eight electors and six of Alabama’s 11 electors were unpledged. The electors lobbied their counterparts in the electoral college to follow their lead."

"Organizers of the movement came up with a three-point “Plan To Give the South a Partial Vote in the Affairs of the Nation....[And one of the plans was for] Republican electors from all 50 states [to] be invited to meet in Chicago to pick a president from a list of “outstanding southern men.” Among the choices were Byrd, segregationist governors Orval Faubus of Arkansas and Ross Barnett of Mississippi, and Georgia Sen. Richard Russell."

"The goal was to have electors elect the president within the electoral college, said Lea Harris, a Democratic lawyer in Alabama. If that failed, as “a last resort” the electors would seek to switch enough votes to keep Kennedy from getting the 269 electoral votes needed for election and throw the race into the House of Representatives. 

"This had happened twice before in U.S. history. In 1800, the House picked Thomas Jefferson as president over Aaron Burr when the electoral college vote ended in a tie. In 1825, the House chose John Quincy Adams over Andrew Jackson, who had won the popular vote."

Shafer continues, noting that

"efforts to release electors to vote for whomever they wished sprung up in Texas, Louisiana, Georgia, Virginia and South Carolina. 'This had been a real threat,' JFK biographer Theodore Sorensen wrote later."

And yet, "the rebel yells of revolt ended in a whimper.... No part of the southern “plan” was ever carried out. Most electors felt morally obligated to cast their votes based on their state’s election results."

This did not keep Southerners from feeling that they missed an opportunity, however, for "after the overwhelming defeat, the Alabama electors complained that Southerners could have controlled the election, but “their sycophantic political leaders failed them miserably.” 

In other words: counterfactuals all around!  A "missed opportunity" for Southern segregationists and a "close call" for American Democracy.

The more things change....