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#41
August 30th, 2012, 03:07 AM
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#42
August 30th, 2012, 04:15 AM
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#43
August 30th, 2012, 05:36 PM
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  (Sorry, couldn't resist... ) More seriously, are you saying the paramilitary supporters of the guys that come in second and third will throw great, big, bloody tantrums? That'll be interesting to see...
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#44
August 30th, 2012, 05:47 PM
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#45
August 30th, 2012, 06:31 PM
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#46
October 12th, 2012, 06:40 AM
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Bumping this first to say that the next update is going to get finished (Last section has to be written, needs to be edited) this weekend.
Secondly, out of my 3 and a half people who liked this, anyone good at making maps?
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#48
October 12th, 2012, 05:24 PM
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*stands up and applauds*
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#49
October 12th, 2012, 06:29 PM
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I for one, would love to see a Sam Huston Presidency. Just for the novelty of him having been President of two countries, something unprecedented in history for the US.
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#50
October 13th, 2012, 07:15 PM
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#51
October 13th, 2012, 11:13 PM
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 There is no way with a PoD anywhere in the 1850's that Houston can get elected president, there was no base on Northern Support and there's no way that even a regional candidate with the entire South behind him could win unless he had Northern Support. This needs to stop being brought up.
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#52
October 13th, 2012, 11:21 PM
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#53
October 14th, 2012, 03:42 AM
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That aside, what sources did you use for researching this? I am intrigued.
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#54
October 14th, 2012, 04:10 AM
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#55
October 14th, 2012, 04:22 AM
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I finally took the time to sit down and read this. I don't regret it, this is beautifully written. Good work!
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#56
October 14th, 2012, 06:30 AM
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Makes sense.
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#57
October 14th, 2012, 06:46 AM
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Edit: Does this mean you're confused about using actual sources for research or what?
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Last edited by Japhy; October 14th, 2012 at 08:18 PM..
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#58
October 15th, 2012, 07:47 AM
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So I'm 3 hours and 45 minutes late on my deadline. Grow up will you guys? Jeeze.
As always Thoughts, Comments, and Critiques are welcome as always. Questions too, glorified praise as well. --------------------------------------------- Part Four: The Falling Campaign The news from Baltimore in the last week of July unsurprisingly horrified the nation. And of course both North and South agreed that the city had fallen into anarchy, the disagreement was just as unsurprising, it was the other sides fault. While the argument over if it was a Yankee provocation or Minutemen led disaster, the election continued. But beyond the borders of the states where campaigning did go on other events came to fruition. Back, a few days after the raid on Harpers Ferry in Part One, a new territory had entered the union, or at least attempted to. The issue was that of the conflict in Kansas, where of course Pro- and Anti-Slavery settlers were arriving and killing each other to ensure that the new state would be pro-their-ideology. Besides the murder and massacre in the eastern part of the state another issue was in the far west of the territory, around Denver and Pike’s Peak where Gold had been discovered only a few years ago, and been flooded by Gold-seekers [1]. The problem for Pro-Lecompton Democrats like the Southerners who rallied to Cobb and President Buchanan, that these settlers were generally, Anti-Slavery, or at least too northern to trust. While the Gold Rush ended, the threat was clear, cities like Denver and Nugget could easily turn into hotbeds of Anti-Slavery forces, not only impacting the balloting for Slave Statehood but also perhaps serving to enlarging the conflict in Kansas. Luckily for the President, as violence continued on in Kansas and during the election began to spread, an out had appeared. At the start of the Gold Rush, citizens living in Western Kansas and the surrounding territories had felt isolated, and disconnected from their respective territorial governments, and in the tradition of their Gold-rushing forefathers in California years earlier, decided to simply carve out their own territory, a giant square on the map they called Jefferson. They had their own territorial assembly and their own Governor, a Douglas Democrat named R. W. Steele, and they claimed a territory west of the 102nd Meridian to the 110th Meridian West and from the 37th to 43rd Parallel north [2]. Buchanan, being Buchanan could do nothing to stop the violence in Kansas, and in a way doing such would harm his position, after all it was only the violence that was helping keep the chances of Slave Kansas alive in 1860. But this could help. The Territorial legislature of Jefferson had continued to send requests to Washington DC to be made official. And over the course of updates 2 and 3, and now 4 that is what the President sought to achieve. To Douglas Democrats, it would be a win, as the Government in the territory had been founded by their members, and they hoped to have Steele stay on as Governor, for the Cobb-Buchanan Democrats it was a win as it removed Northerners from Kansas, and like all territories, could eventually be redrawn to be more suitable to their needs. For Republicans the sell was harder, but it was argued by some that a Jefferson Territory could be advantageous, in centralizing a rather divided part of the Territorial West, and allowing for a territorial majority to be Anti-Slavery, which would be useful after Kansas was finally settled. There were debates in Congress of course, but it wasn’t as dramatic as Kansas’ bloody birthing towards Statehood, and in comparison to that a fight for a Territory was like playing with the bumpers on. And so it was that James Buchanan, was able on the 10th of August of 1860 to add at least one more puny achievement onto his pathetic list of Presidential Achievements, a mighty square appeared near the center of the American map, and a letter was dispatched to Denver City, informing the self-declared territorial government to now be the government-declared territorial government, and that R. W. Steele could keep his job for now as its chief executive [3]. -------------------- The creation of Jefferson had become a minor issue for the debate in August of 1860, but the major issues were more important. Lynchings continued in the South, Stephen A. Douglas continued his campaign, crossing the Great Lakes States and the Northeast in the first modern campaign, Winfield Scott moved the headquarters of the United States Army down to Washington D.C. and the war department building there (This was previously mentioned, I know). Minutemen and Douglas Invincibles brawled on the streets of New York, and Boston, though nowhere near on the level of what had happened in Maryland. The campaign had turned into something wrong, it was a constant low level conflict, every day there were beatings and shootings, lynchings and riots. July had been Baltimore, grand acts of violence would return in August a few days after the granting of Territorial Status to Jefferson. On August 21st in Kentucky, Senator John J. Crittenden, the old partner and political heir of Henry Clay had been on the stump across Kentucky speaking out for the man who had defeated him for the Constitutional Union nomination, Sam Houston. It had been tough going, while Kentucky’s old plantations were clearly southern, the States economy was tied to the Ohio River and those Northern States beyond it. As such, it was one of the few Southern states where Douglas’ campaign was viable, as well as there being a decent if small Republican presence in the state. And of course there was the Cobb camp and the Minutemen. Lynchings, murders, beatings were becoming more and more common, but Crittenden, a true Constitutional Unionist, determined to help his party of compromise take the state and the election to force an end to the growing American madness, kept on. He was an old man, born in the last century and this commitment to the campaign in his ill health was truly admirable, but not to all. At a rally in Columbus [4], a group of Minutemen had started brawling with the Young Hickories whom were providing security for the speech. and the aging Senator had barely been rushed off stage before the Cobb partisans had broken past the guards and descended on the crowd with their clubs. The Senator made it back to his hotel and with the meeting disrupted, the Minutemen dissipated, back into the community, unnoticed and unprosecuted. At least one man had been killed and several were severely injured by the attack, and a few hours later, with a hour before sunset, the old Senator reappeared, and began to speak this time in front of City hall, with Young Hickories surrounding him, denouncing the attack earlier in the days, and the actions that the Democratic party was condoning across the South to suppress the Constitutional Union movement. The Senator’s anger rose as he continued and the crowd’s rose with it. The speech, being quickly noted by at least a few journalists, was an indignant, passionate cry against the threats of the Union that seemed to circle this election. At the edges of the crowd begain angry shouts, as Cobb-supporters hackled and Minutemen cursed. And then came a loud crack, one Minuteman had stayed quiet as he crossed the town square and moved as close as he dared, and then when he was confident enough, pulled out his pistol from under his jacket, took aim, fired and fled down an alley, he was never caught, never identified, but his action would change the course of the election. Senator Crittenden had been ramming forward his point and suddenly shook in silence, his hand moved to his chest, and came up covered in blood, wordlessly he collapsed, as the crowd fell into further panic. By the time a Doctor in the crowd made his way forward it was clear it was already too late, the aged Senator, the leader of Whiggish moderation in the United States since the death of Clay, was now himself dead. As the news spread, the impact was demoralizing on the old Whigs of the south. The act of intimidation for many worked, if a Senator could be killed outright, what would keep them from getting lynched like the others? In many areas support for the Houston campaign plummeted. In a few, the Young Hickories went on the revenge path, attacking Cobb rallies just as they had been. A joint attack on a Democratic public meeting in Wilmington, North Carolina along with men from the Douglas Invincibles in the area injured at least a dozen and killed one. From Texas, Sam Houston could only watch as his new party slowly moved towards collapse in large swaths of the south. -------------------- There was going to be one more exciting election section but alas, I realized it wasn’t useful to the plot and was frankly a slight bit more ridiculous than riots and assassinations, being in addition to those, well yes we’re moving on [5]. In September the Minutemen of Dixie continued their march, attacks on Douglas Democrats and the Constitutional Union ad hoc organizations that didn’t buckle under immediate pressure. They existed, in Missouri, Virginia, Tennessee, the odd Southern state of Louisiana and of course they fought on in Texas where the Cult of Houston was an immoveable object in the face of the Cobb Democratic-Southern Nationalist unstoppable force. In New York, Pennsylvania, Connecticut and New Jersey many in the three non-Republican parties once more were calling for unified slates under a fusion banner; anything to stop the continued march of the Republicans in critical swing states [6]. The failure of such though, did increase Douglas’ chances with the immigrants, German, and Irish. It also meant that the ‘respectable’ non-Machine elements of the party remained out of his reach backing Cobb or Houston. In Missouri, California and Oregon there was an utter free for all with all four tickets competing against each other. In the former the Republicans were nothing more than a minor force in the St. Louis factories but things were different in the further west. And in all three heads were bashed bars were smashed and the occasional marching corp raised hell. Douglas continued his train-bound speeches across the North while the machines that joined him fought to secure voters, living, dead and fictional. Lincoln sat in Springfield while David Davis, his campaign manager kept making deals and Carl Schultz, John Fremont and William Seward used their networks and themselves to provide the necessary stump speeches. Cobb in Georgia and Washington DC leaned on President Buchanan and the remains of the official establishment to do his work, while some members of his campaign may or may not have coordinated some Minutemen acts. Sam Houston stayed in Texas, watched his supporters face violence and ostracization and took the second most personally active campaign of the election, writing letters across the North and South, to any newspaper that would publish them. The thing was, the elections were not like they are today. This year for example everyone will go to the voting booth on November 6th and vote for President, Governor, Congressmen and Senators and State Legislatures. Not so in 1860. Elections for all of these posts were spread out over months, the Presidential vote need only be done in time for the Electoral College to meet. Elections thus started in October, the last of them (A few Congressional races) would not wrap up until the end of May [7]. And for Stephen A. Douglas the results from Ohio and Pennsylvania were bad, the consolation prize was they were even worse for Cobb and Houston. Lincoln, the Republican candidates for Governor, Congress, the Senate, the state legislatures all won by massive numbers. Both had seemed to be states where Douglas could have won previously, they were states that were Northern, industrial and with large immigrant populations, they were states that if he was going to win by November, that he needed to have won. The results thus meant one thing. Stephen A. Douglas was going to lose. And with that he turned to one of his secretaries and declared “Mister Lincoln is our next President. We must try to save the Union. I shall go south.” [8] And South he did, to Kentucky, Virginia, Tennessee, and North Carolina. He went to Missouri too but to say he went South there is a bit of a geographic (if not political) lie. It would have been tasteless to attack him, so Minutemen in the cities he went too merely intimidated. The crowds that came to see the senator were small and very working class. Democrats in office wouldn’t be seen with him, those out of office, even running as anti-Cobb candidates thought it best to not be seen with him. There were catcalls and boos just as much as there was cheering and applause [9]. But it was a good fight. In the last week though, before that Tuesday in November when most of the country did infact vote (Lincoln won some New England results in the meantime as had been expected) Douglas returned to Illinois. On the trains he had spent most of the campaign on he burst across his home state, from Cairo to Chicago and most places in between. It was for a tired man at least partially rejuvenating. David Davis’ paid hecklers were far less worrisome than armed crowds in Kentucky, and the Wide Awakes were civil enough not to try and march right through his rallies. And the crowds were happier than the others, he was after all their Senator, their man. And then came the results. Tickered in across the country by Telegraph, a first in US history. By the Popular vote Lincoln had come in first, though under 50%, He had been followed by Douglas, the only candidate to receive large numbers of votes both North and South, then Cobb, then Houston. The electoral college did not though, reflect this. Lincoln and Cobb had dominated, north and South it was as if there had been two different elections going on and each man had won their region with a few outliers. For Lincoln this came with the embarrassment of having lost his own state to Douglas. Though of course it was Douglas’ state too [10a]. Out on the Pacific coast there were 7 Electoral votes up for Grabs and the two Northerners overcame their Southern competition to split them, California’s to Douglas providing him his second state and Lincoln getting Oregon’s 3 [10b]. For those of you keeping track, Lincoln has 168 Electoral Votes and just got elected President. Douglas has come in Electoral last with 15. And that settles that. Sam Houston did not win. Except of course one needs to talk about how Sam Houston did do. And the answer to that is poorly. Like Lincoln, he lost his home state of Texas to Cobb, while the Democrats dominated the South, the Constitutional Union party winning Missouri, Tennessee and Louisiana, everything else, from Maryland and Delaware south, going to Cobb [10c]. It was all over at that. On December 20th, 1860 South Carolina seceded from the Union, and Major Robert Anderson, United States Army withdrew his forces in Charleston to a small outpost in the harbor. -------------------- [1] At their height in early 1859 its estimated that in the Western Kansas and Nebraska Territories, as well as parts of the Washington, Utah and New Mexican territories there were 100,000 of them. By the time the census came a year later that had plummeted, but in westernmost Kansas there were between 25,000 and 30,000, with the entire region of the Gold Rush having less than 40,000 inhabitants. [2] That is, Modern Colorado, but bigger, lobbing off parts of Utah before its panhandle, and reaching north to the northern border of Nebraska. You can look it up on Wikipedia and stuff. [3] This had happened some years before, when California defined its own borders. Of course the way California had gotten away with making itself was because it threatened to take everything west of the Continental Divide out of the Union unless it got what it wanted. With Jefferson making itself, this is now a precedent though. [4] Colombus, on the Mississippi was the westernmost city in the state, and also the most rabidly Southern, in 1861 the violation of Kentucky Neutrality first occurred when its citizens invited General Leonidas Polk to take the city, in 1860 no this was foreshadowed as it was perhaps the most Pro-Breckinridge portion of the state. [5] I am a cruel God and you shall be denied the awesomeness of a renegade Army officer attempting to mount what is basicly a prominent-city wide coup. Such is my whim. [6] Which of course in reality were the plan on the ground in the three non-New England states. IOTL at this point there were calls to break up the fusion, because its unworkable, here the cry is for unification because everyone can see that splitting Tammany in two is not going to work in a state that Fremont was able to win last tim. [7] That was the reason why Lincoln in 1861 did not bring Congress back to approve his actions until July 4th, because not all the representatives had been chosen in April when he started operating without Congressional Approval. For those who would accuse Abe of being a Tyrant, the first thing Congress did was approve all of his actions taken during those months. [8] OTL quote. To this day we don’t really know what Douglas’ view on Slavery was, the man was in his career one who always compromised on the issue, which being a Democrat with Presidential aspirations in the 1850’s dictated. If it weren’t for his loyalty and patriotism it would be easy to damn him like one can Buchanan or Pierce. [9] Which is of course, very different from IOTL when he went south, where Douglas was a viable and at least respected candidate in most of the South. [10] Illinois was a matter of under 15,000 votes, which is yes actually quite alot. But Douglas’ efforts to reach out, his hard stance against the Southern takeover of the Democrats, and the Banks problem for Lincoln all contributed. California was a matter of swinging less than 100 votes. Oregon was a bit more than that, but while California was very regionally cosmopolitan, Oregon had many more Southerners settled in it. Thus while Douglas can gain from OTL Bell and Breckinridge results in California, there’s a bigger gap for him to jump and stronger candidacies for Houston and Cobb. Kentucky’s Constitutional Unionism having been crushed, Virginia’s was only the result of split voting, while increasing radicalism in the Democrats will make many of the more ‘moderate’ Creoles of Louisiana to turn elsewhere. IOTL Texas went 3:1 for Breckenridge, Houston can close the gap but not pull off a shift of 25 +1 points, not now. -------------------- Authors Note: I’m going to say this now, Lincoln was in 1860 nothing more than a free soil unionist, and 5 years later embraced the truth that slaves needed to be freed and that Black men had the right to be citizens in this country. If he can make that change, I reserve the right to make any man follow a similar path to redemption. That also means I have the right to make people worse then IOTL, too, just before people start complaining me damning some "Noble Southern Sons" or whatever.
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#59
October 15th, 2012, 07:50 AM
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2 Part 2 Four
Or, here's the map of the election: 168 Electoral Votes Abraham Lincoln/Nathaniel P. Banks (Republican) 93 Electoral Votes T. Howell Cobb/Jesse D. Bright (Southern Democratic) 27 Electoral Votes Samuel Houston/Henry J. Gardner (Constitutional Union) 15 Electoral Votes Stephen A Douglas/Sanford E. Church (Northern Democratic)
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Last edited by Japhy; October 15th, 2012 at 07:31 PM..
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#60
October 15th, 2012, 08:45 AM
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A larger confederacy that includes Delaware and Maryland.
Delaware is certainly the most interesting considering its stance iotl.
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"Even the smallest decision can change the course of the future and enforce radical change"
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