2nd Best candidate in the 1860 Election

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

Taking no position on slavery is fine

The word you're looking for is "impossible." By 1860, taking no further action with regard to slavery meant accepting Scott v. Sanford as settled law and allowing slavery to expand westward unmolested. Bell was a moderate on secession, not on slavery: it's not incidental that he joined the Confederacy almost immediately after Fort Sumter fell.

While Douglas fully earned his place in Hell with his actions in the 1850s, the Freeport Doctrine at least permitted the de facto (if not de jure) exclusion of slavery from the North and West—even considering Douglas' death in 1861, he's clearly the better option compared to the two Confederate slaveholders.

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

Taking no position on slavery is fine

The word you're looking for is "impossible." By 1860, taking no further action with regard to slavery meant accepting Scott v. Sanford as settled law and allowing slavery to expand westward unmolested. Bell was a moderate on secession, not on slavery: it's not incidental that he joined the Confederacy almost immediately after Fort Sumter fell.

While Douglas fully earned his place in Hell with his actions in the 1850s, the Freeport Doctrine at least permitted the de facto (if not de jure) exclusion of slavery from the North and West—even considering Douglas' death in 1861, he's clearly the better option compared to the two Confederate slaveholders.

Truman, the Constitutional Unionists took no position on slavery, and wanted to keep the Union together


Also one thing that always interested me is how did Breckinridge change from a moderate to a Fire Eater, by the end of the 1860 campaign

No. The Constitutional Union party campaigned on maintaining "the Constitution as it is and the Union as it is" —i.e. with slavery. That's not "taking no position." They may have been less bellicose than Breckinridge, but no Southerner who voted for the Constitutional Union slate doubted John Bell would veto the Wilmot Proviso or a bill to overturn Dred Scott if one should arrive on his desk.

The 1860 election was not fought over the future of slavery itself, but over the future of slavery in the territories. No candidate for president could avoid taking a position on this issue: you were either for allowing slavery to spread to new states in the West, or you were not. Promising to take no new action on slavery and maintain the status quo is in effect to adopt the former position, because the Kansas-Nebraska Act and the Supreme Court's ruling in Scott v. Sanford meant there was no such thing as a free state anymore. Inaction meant tacitly supporting the Westward expansion of slavery, a reality everyone was well aware of—hence why Bell was so popular in the South but received hardly any votes north of the Mason-Dixon line.

Put it another way: imagine an alien warship landed in Times Square and commenced the conquest of the United States a few weeks before the Iowa Caucus. With their superior technology, they soon gain the upper hand. Some of the candidates say we should fight the aliens; others say we should accept them as liberators. If one of the candidates announced he will take no position, but instead campaign only for national unity, what side is he tacitly supporting?

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

Douglas, who, while being absolutely vile himself, was better than Bell by a little and better than Breckinridge by a lot. I do think people are voting Bell based on a misconstruction of his policies and the time's situation, to be honest.

Basically.