Much of this info comes from the part of President Mahan's article on Henry Cabot Lodge that deals with the year 1896, as well as Perhapsburg's article on William Jennings Bryan, although again, allot of it I reworded and got rid of some other parts that weren't 100% relevant to the election itself, though some few parts I left mostly the same. Theres a lot of new parts I myself wrote as well. Anyways, enjoy!
United States presidential election, 1896
As the year 1896 came the American public's attention was once again turned towards the upcoming Presidential election. During his second term, President Reed had proved himself and more to the American people. Militarization and military reform under Chief of Staff Upton continued in full swing, and the USA had her first moment of glory since before the War of Secession. This moment of glory was none other than the Haitian Crisis of 1895, when US military and naval might, military and naval might that couldn't have been possible without Reed and his policies, prevented a Confederate annexation of Haiti. President Reed and the rest of the Remembrance Democrats were riding high on the victory, with the public aware that Remembrance Democrats Senator Henry Cabot Lodge and Secretary of the Navy Alfred Thayer Mann had a hand in the aforementioned victory. The nation's economy was also showing improvement, with more factories hiring once again.
With the Democratic National Convention coming up in July, the Bourbon Democrats believed that it was finally their chance to elect one of their candidates to the Presidency and they turned to their perennial champion, Grover Cleveland. Now a private citizen, he had been criss-crossing the country lecturing on the economic mismanagement of the Reed administration. The Remembrance faction on the other hand had no clear candidate. There were whispers that George Armstrong Custer, now serving on the General Staff, wanted the nomination, as did Speaker of the House William McKinley, former Governor of Maine Joshua Chamberlain and Senator Elihu Root. There were even rumors that Reed wanted to run again. However, the Democratic Party bosses chafed after eight years of one man's rule and as a result desired a new candidate. Also, the precedent George Washington set of a President seeking only two terms of office, though not official, held strong, and most agreed that Reed would follow this tradition. In the months leading up to the convention many were drifting to the popular Pennsylvania Governor Robert E. Pattison. Though primarily a reform candidate, his time as Secretary of the Interior from 1889-1893 had made him popular with Remembrance Democrats.
President Reed was not clear on whom he supported, though Reed was generally amenable to the reform-minded Robert E. Pattison. Others however, including Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, strongly believed that Secretary of the Navy Alfred Thayer Mahan was a the best viable alternative if the convention became deadlocked. President Reed however was growing concerned over both Mahan and Lodge's bellicosity and imperialist dreams. In the end, Reed refused to give his consent to any candidate, possibly hoping the convention would throw it to him instead. Senator Lodge then conspired with Theodore Roosevelt, now a State Senator of New York, to have Mahan nominated. The two spent the spring and summer garnering support for a Mahan presidency. While the first modern Olympics were being celebrated in Athens, Greece, the Democrats were holding their national convention in Boston [1] from June 7th-June 11th, 1896. When Cleveland and Pattison deadlocked at the convention Lodge's legwork paid off. The Party bosses were controlling this convention and wanted a candidate that would not meddle in domestic affairs. Fortunately for Mahan both Cleveland and Pattison campaigned on civil service reform. Lodge convinced the party bosses that Mahan had no domestic agenda and would leave domestic politics to Congress. After 20 ballots without selecting a candidate, the more and more delegates began to slip to Mahan. When Lodge convinced Pennsylvania party boss Matthew Quay that Mahan would accept Pattison as his Vice President and running-mate the state party bosses switched en mass to Alfred Thayer Mahan. With that, Alfred Thayer Mann and Robert E. Pattison were nominated to the Democratic ticket, as Presidential and Vice-Presidential candidates respectively. In the months leading up to the election, Mahan ran on a platform of continuing President Reed’s policies of militarization and armed forces reform and beginning a new program of large-scale naval reform.
The Republican National Convention was held in Chicago a month after the Democratic National Convention, form July 6th-July 9th, 1896. By this point, the Republican Party's power was firmly in the Midwestern part of the country and was mostly concerned with issues pertaining to the nation's farmers, as well as, for the most part, populism, civil service reform and bimetallism. Most of the Republican nominees at the 1896 convention supported the nation's farmers and their concerns, even the few remaining Eastern Republicans, wanting to get in the good graces of the now more powerful Midwestern party bosses. Unbeknownst to all, the Republican National Convention would soon be the scene of one of the most memorable moments in American political history. William Jennings Bryan, the Michigan Representative who became famous for storming out of the Democratic National Convention with twenty other western senators, leaving the Democratic Party and joining the Republican Party, appeared on the first day of the Republican National Convention. On that same day, Bryan, having been given a key speaking spot on that first day of the convention, gave his famous "Crucifixion speech. [2]"
“Some of you may be wondering why I have left the Democratic Convention and come here. I come to speak to you in defense of a cause as holy as the cause of liberty—the cause of humanity. It is for the common people that we speak. We do not come as aggressors. Our war is not a war of conquest; we are fighting in the defense of our homes, our families, and posterity. We have petitioned, and our petitions have been scorned; we have entreated, and our entreaties have been disregarded; we have begged, and they have mocked when our calamity came. We beg no longer; we entreat no more; we petition no more. We defy them! [3] I am not speaking of the war we have fought against our brethren in the Confederacy. Because there is no such war! This battle is not fought on the lines of Pennsylvanians versus Virginians, but both of those against the businessmen, the generals, and the merchants of death who want such a war. We will answer the demands of these plutocrats by saying to them ‘You shall not make us live in fear of the guns of the south, you shall not crucify us on Remembrance Day! [4]’”
After his speech was finished, Bryan stepped down from the podium to thunderous applause from the audience. Though Bryan was still regarded as a dark horse, the front-runner for the Republican nomination, former Secretary of War Benjamin Harrison of Indiana, inspired little enthusiasm from the Republican delegates. In addition, Harrison's legacy as Secretary of War during the Blaine Administration and Second Mexican War still haunted his Presidential prospects, even fifteen years after the fact. The Republican's second most-major candidate and Bryan's only real opponent Senator John Sherman was slipping into senility and therefore not a viable candidate. As a result, the Republican delegates decided to take a gamble on the unknown and extraordinarily young, Bryan being only 36 years-old, factor of William Jennings Bryan. As a result, Bryan was nominated to be the declining Republican Party's candidate for the Presidency. New York politician, newspaper editor and former ambassador the France Whitelaw Reid was chosen as Bryan's running-mate to balance the ticket between a young newcomer and an older, more seasoned politician (Reid was almost 59 years old) and to give the ticket appeal to the, albeit decreasing, Eastern Republican voters. Bryan ran on a populist platform of farm subsidies, bimetallism and low tariffs, a platform that played well primarily with the American farmers, but with barely anyone else. Nevertheless, Bryan personally campaigned across the country, campaigning more than any other candidate since Stephen Douglas.
Meanwhile, the Socialist National Convention was held in St. Louis, Missouri from July 7th-July 10th, 1896. Once again, the party delegates set out to look for the perfect candidate. On the first day of the convention, Edward Bellamy, the last election's Socialist candidate, dropped out of the ballot due to his increasing disinterest in running for the Presidency. This left the following candidates; Representative and 1888 Socialist presidential candidate James B. Weaver of Iowa, leader of the Knights of Labor Terrence V. Powederly of Pennsylvania, politician Charles H. Matchett of New York and politician James H. Kyle of Dakota. Over the years, James B. Weaver had gradually fallen out of favor with most of the rest of the Socialist party due to his populist leanings. As a result, Weaver was quickly voted off the ballot. Matchett and Kyle lacked enough of the influence and support from the rest of the party to become Presidential candidates, and were soon voted off the ballot. As a result, the Socialist delegates elected Terrance V. Powderly to be the party's candidate for the Presidency. Powderly, despite his Catholicism, which alienated a number of other party members, and weakness as leader of the Knights of Labor, had well-valued personal experiences in dealing with labor disputes, and politically was a moderate, and as a result was seen as a fair compromise between the intellectual and more radical members of the Socialist Party. James H. Kyle of Dakota was chosen to be Powderly's running-mate to balance the ticket between an experienced labor leader and an experienced politician, as well as between an easterner and a Midwesterner. Powderly ran on the usual Socialist platform supporting a general redistribution of wealth, producerism, public ownership of railroads, telegraph and telephone systems, a graduated income tax and business regulation. Once again, little to no mention was made of the military, militarization or military reform.
During the many months of campaigning, from June to November, a number of memorable episodes occurred during the campaigns of some of the parties. In regards to the Republican Party, Bryan had begun an effort to remake the party in his own image, talking more about his desires for agrarianism and pacifism than the actual Republican platform. As a result, while he increasingly solidified the Republican base in the Midwestern farm states, Republican fortunes in New England finally sunk so low that they became a permanent third party in that region. In addition, Bryan launched a feud with Socialist candidate Terrence V. Powderly that would set back leftism in the USA for two decades. Bryan attacked Powderly as a Catholic who would enslave the United States to Rome, while Powderly shot back that Bryan was as theocratic as the Mormons. The divide also undercut both of them on economic issues; Bryan retained the farmers, while Powderly had the workers, and neither was able to bridge the gap. Matters weren't helped by the fact that Bryan felt a need to distance himself from the Socialists and as a result called their economic proposals as bad as the Democratic rationing. Ultimately, Bryan managed to erode the edge of legitimacy that the Republicans had had over the Socialists. Meanwhile, Democratic candidate Alfred Thayer Mahan ran a front-porch campaign from the
de jure US capital of Washington D.C., a move which more than suited the indifferent campaigner personally.
Alfred Thayer Mahan and his running-mate Robert E. Pattison of the Democratic Party would go on to win the election, much to no-ones surprise, capturing more than a majority of the popular vote despite a front-porch campaign. Mahan would owe everything to the younger generation of speakers that crisscrossed the country on his behalf. This included not just Roosevelt and Lodge, but also Midwestern Remembrance Democrats like Albert J. Beveridge and Speaker of the House William McKinley. Thanks to renewed imperial projects in the Caribbean by the CSA and Great Britain the nation saw the need for a President strong on national defense. Many Americans considered the Morgan-Pauncefote Treaty signed between the two powers as tantamount to a plan to divide Latin America between them. As a result, Alfred Thayer Mann comfortably won the 1896 presidential election. As for the Socialist Party under Powderly and Kyle, they came in second place in terms of electoral votes for the most time in American history. This election was also the first time that the Socialists overtook the Republicans in both the number of electoral and popular votes. The Socialists won Colorado, Nevada and Dakota, just as they had in 1892, but also won for the first time the states of Idaho, Kansas and even the Republican stronghold of Minnesota. As for the Republican Party under Bryan and Ried, the presidential election of 1896 proved to be a catastrophe. The Republicans performed the worst that they had in their entire history, taking only two states, Wisconsin and Indiana, and the least number of electoral and popular votes, being overtaken by the Socialists as a result. The election of 1892, when the Republicans under John Sherman took a good number of western states, would be the last major electoral victory for the Republican Party for almost a century to come. While many hoped Bryan could bounce off the Republican's unexpected success in 1892, leading to a resurgence of the party, it was simply not to be. As a result of Bryan's attempt to reinvent the party, he cost his ticket a good number of votes and further destroyed the party's credibility through his feud with Terrence V. Powderly. Thus, the Republican Party continued its decline.
Alfred Thayer Mahan (D-NY)/Robert E. Pattison (D-PA): 267 EV
Terence V. Powderly (S-PA)/James H. Kyle (S-DA): 34 EV
William Jennings Bryan (R-MI)/Whitelaw Reid (R-NY): 27 EV
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
[1] President Mahan has the Democratic National Convention in Indianapolis while Perhapsburg has it in Boston. I myself choose Boston as most of the Remembrance Democrats came from the eastern states as opposed to the midwestern states.
[2] Timeline-191's analog to Bryan's OTL "Cross of Gold speech".
[3] Everything up to here is mostly from the OTL Cross of Gold speech.
[4] All of this speech, besides the parts from the OTL speech, were written by Perhapsburg, so credit goes to him for the speech. I decided to include in this article as it is relevant to and a well-known part of the 1896 election IITL.
[5] Map base courtesy of Turquoise Blue.
