TL-191: Filling the Gaps
- Thread starter Craigo
- Start date
The Presidential Election of 1933
The Confederate Electorate knew what it was doing when it elected Jake Featherston President of the Confederate States of America, even if those men couldn't possibly have known the half of what they were letting themselves in for.
- They knew that it would not, could never be yet another Whig Year; six years earlier Sam Longstreet would have romped home to victory on the back of Whig successes, as the living image of Old Glories wedded to the earnest spirit of moderate reform animating that rising generation of party members old enough to have fought in the Great War, but too young to have been associated with the Administration that had presided over that Defeat (and the fact that 'Young Pete' Longstreet had been a protege of President Hampton as an officer in the Army of Northern Virginia, as well as one of the younger senators in the Confederate Congress would not have hurt his chances either).
Unfortunately Longstreet's candidacy in the Year '27 had faltered in the face of disquiet amongst older party members, foundered on his perceived lack of experience and ultimately been thwarted when Burton Mitchel put himself forward, offering Certainty in place of a Racing Certainty; that youthful wing of the party often dubbed 'Wilson Whigs' was strong enough both at the Party Conference and across the country to persuade President Mitchel to accept young Mr Longstreet as his running mate (helping balance the ticket with an appeal to the military men that fundamentally-civilian Mitchel could never attract, as well as simultaneously appealing to the more youthful and the most snobbish sections of the electorate to boot).
Yet if 'Sam Steed' had hoped to carry President Mitchel in the direction of progressive reform, as well as into the Grey House for a 'second term' then he resoundingly underestimated the man's essential pig-headedness and very real fear of the consequences following serious change, whether social or political - the relationship between President and Vice President would prove to be a fundamentally fractious one, given that almost the only issue they could consistently agree upon was a mutual detestation of the Freedom Party.
In the wake of the Collapse, Longstreet's time as Vice President under Mitchel ceased to be a purgatory and began to be a Hell; outraged by Mitchel's refusal to countenance 'Radical' methods that might soften the impact and pick up the pieces, Vice President Longstreet came within an ace of adding his voice to the chorus calling for the President's Impeachment - a movement within the Whig Party that opened old wounds and left it bitterly divided in the smoke-filled back rooms of Party Politics.
Quite bluntly by '33 President Mitchel's last term in office was proving itself not merely an interlude of misery now past but an immediately lethal handicap to Longstreet in what was already promising to be something more like a duel to the death than the one-horse race of '27; his task was made no easier by his decision to double down on his commitment to the Wilson Whigs by joining himself to Hugo Black in order to stamp the Whig Ticket with an imprimatur of reform (and counter his own tendency to be seen as the most conservative of progressives).
A senator from Alabama noted for his support for liberal policies and civil liberties, as well as for his tenacity in the investigation of abuses within the System and a youthful brush with the Freedom Party - not quite a member himself, the younger Black had still reached out to the local membership of that party with the idea that their support would be necessary to secure his own election but then repudiated such connections to become one of their most consistent detractors - yet he had also won lasting antipathy amongst the significant proportion of Catholics within the Confederate Electorate for the rhetoric he had directed against the Catholic Church once too often in token of his distaste for that institution.
It was a History that need not have been fatal under other circumstances (in '27 his repudiation of the Freedom Party would have been just another chapter in a cautionary tale, in '33 it would be seen as scuttling from a ship taking on water before it had even begun to sink) and in truth Black brought with him the prospect of a serious approach to the Confederate Coloured community (having become noted for his defence of a Black Man who had been forced into a form of slavery following a period of incarceration), as well as an appeal to the Confederate Intelligentsia and a knowledge of Confederate Law that might have proven priceless to any Administration seeking reform …
. . . But divisions within the Whig Party were now so aggravated that the only way in which the 'Boll Weevils' of the Gallant Old Party could be persuaded to support such a pair of Reformers in their attempt to beat the odds on Election Night would be through the adoption of a soothingly vague statement of policies which notoriously amounted to 'The Problem will Fix itself' and effectively finished off the chances of the Whig Ticket in '33 being taken seriously as anything but a desperate attempt by the Whigs to save face.
- Which still left the Confederacy with the prospect of a race between two unknown quantities, one of them the Radical Liberal party now at long last in a position to outdo the Whigs in a Presidential Election; unfortunately the Rad-Libs were a party caught in the midst of a transitional period following the abrupt departure of Ainsworth Layne - with his removal from the scene Huey Long had made himself the driving Spirit of the Party with a dynamic energy that electrified, but his Strongman tendencies alarmed just about as many as they inspired to fresh enthusiasm.
Faced with opposition from the most moderate members of the Party that would block any attempt to secure himself top billing at the head of the Presidential Ticket, The Kingfish proceeded to make himself the Kingmaker and allowed Cordell Hull, one of the Grandest Old Men of the Radical Liberal Party (indeed one of its Founding Fathers) the chance to become the first Radical Liberal President of the Confederate States on the understanding that come '39 this statesmanlike gesture would not be forgotten.
A veritable institution in the Confederate Congress, Mr Hull had been first a judge and then a long-term Senator from Tennessee who had in fact become widely perceived as a pillar of Confederate Respectability - all without losing sight of the fact that he'd been born in a log cabin or losing interest in the good of the Confederate Everyman; his standing was unimpeachable, his record was solid and in some areas he was more widely trusted than his own Party … which was part of the problem.
With the Whigs out of the picture, the only question remaining was whether it would be the Left or the Right that would gather up the choicest portions of the crumbling centre - and quite frankly The Freedom Party had seized the initiative along with the cudgels that they had reached out for once more with all the enthusiasm of a man taking a dear old friend by the hand. But they had at last met their match in Huey Long, who proceeded to match them step for step in revolutionary electioneering and violence, both in the form of rhetoric and roughneck confrontations.
Quite frankly the violent vigour of his methodology had left the public image of the Radical Liberals farther from legitimacy in the eyes of the Confederate Public than it had been in some time and Governor Long's sheer energy had left many with the impression that Cordell Hull would be less a moderating influence than a puppet - it had also left the Radical and Liberal wings of the Rad-Libs working together as part of an increasingly uneasy alliance, which only exacerbated the problems facing the Party as it set itself to win the Grey House.
Some strove for legitimacy, others played the Long game and across the Confederacy Rad-Lib Strategy adopted a somewhat disjointed air rather than the invigorating atmosphere of a smoothly-functioning whole; still, the glittering prospect of proving themselves the Greatest Generation of Radical Liberals by making themselves the men who FINALLY won the Grey House for their Party kept all the Faithful moving forward together at an impressive pace, pulling together more or less in harness as the Great Race of '33 ran on.
Even if the Kingfish would insist on making Louisiana his first priority, always.
- Yet in the end it was the Freedom Party/Redemption League Axis that spurred itself on to Richmond and Victory.
The raw passion and commitment of Jake Featherston, the youthful charisma and stylish presentation of Willie Knight, the application of cutting-edge electioneering and blunt brutality, all played their part in harnessing the grass-roots hunger for a stronger Government and greater Certainty in society into a Popular Movement that could carry a mountain into the Presidential Mansion on its back - yet in the end the Confederate Electorate voted in the Freedom Party after being offered a simple choice:
Jake Featherston or Civil War.
Nobody spoke of it, as if by simple discussion they might cause this evil genie to manifest itself, yet the possibility seemed very real to voters across the Confederacy. Their choice was between the Radical Liberals and the Freedom Party, yet even in the throes of great uncertainty one thing as absolutely certain - that The Freedom Party would NEVER accept a Radical Liberal Government.
Almost twenty unrelenting years of political violence, slander and calumny, of anathemas and complete antipathy had bred a rivalry between the Radical Liberals and the Partizans so intense as to be incendiary. As with President Lincoln, Vice-President Long would almost certainly prove the spark that would ignite old grudges and the litter of past refusals by the one to recognise the legitimacy of the other (and vice versa) into a blaze that might well become the Funeral Pyre of the Confederacy.
Long would seek to suppress the Freedom Party - The Stalwart's would not go quietly - The Confederacy would split in half between those willing to support the Rad-Libs in the name of the Constitution and those seeking to thwart the un-American kind of Revolution thought by some to be impending following a Radical Liberal victory - in the end only the United States was likely to profit, holding the balance over a Confederacy divided against itself.
Therefore a choice between Featherston and Civil War was no choice at all.
As it would turn out, in the long term the Confederacy might have been far wiser to choose a second War Between the States over a Second Great War; if nothing else such a conflict would have left The Snake in no condition to launch Operation Blackbeard for a very long time and the Confederate Coloured population would have been offered a fighting chance.
The Confederate Electorate knew what it was doing when it elected Jake Featherston President of the Confederate States of America, even if those men couldn't possibly have known the half of what they were letting themselves in for.
- They knew that it would not, could never be yet another Whig Year; six years earlier Sam Longstreet would have romped home to victory on the back of Whig successes, as the living image of Old Glories wedded to the earnest spirit of moderate reform animating that rising generation of party members old enough to have fought in the Great War, but too young to have been associated with the Administration that had presided over that Defeat (and the fact that 'Young Pete' Longstreet had been a protege of President Hampton as an officer in the Army of Northern Virginia, as well as one of the younger senators in the Confederate Congress would not have hurt his chances either).
Unfortunately Longstreet's candidacy in the Year '27 had faltered in the face of disquiet amongst older party members, foundered on his perceived lack of experience and ultimately been thwarted when Burton Mitchel put himself forward, offering Certainty in place of a Racing Certainty; that youthful wing of the party often dubbed 'Wilson Whigs' was strong enough both at the Party Conference and across the country to persuade President Mitchel to accept young Mr Longstreet as his running mate (helping balance the ticket with an appeal to the military men that fundamentally-civilian Mitchel could never attract, as well as simultaneously appealing to the more youthful and the most snobbish sections of the electorate to boot).
Yet if 'Sam Steed' had hoped to carry President Mitchel in the direction of progressive reform, as well as into the Grey House for a 'second term' then he resoundingly underestimated the man's essential pig-headedness and very real fear of the consequences following serious change, whether social or political - the relationship between President and Vice President would prove to be a fundamentally fractious one, given that almost the only issue they could consistently agree upon was a mutual detestation of the Freedom Party.
In the wake of the Collapse, Longstreet's time as Vice President under Mitchel ceased to be a purgatory and began to be a Hell; outraged by Mitchel's refusal to countenance 'Radical' methods that might soften the impact and pick up the pieces, Vice President Longstreet came within an ace of adding his voice to the chorus calling for the President's Impeachment - a movement within the Whig Party that opened old wounds and left it bitterly divided in the smoke-filled back rooms of Party Politics.
Quite bluntly by '33 President Mitchel's last term in office was proving itself not merely an interlude of misery now past but an immediately lethal handicap to Longstreet in what was already promising to be something more like a duel to the death than the one-horse race of '27; his task was made no easier by his decision to double down on his commitment to the Wilson Whigs by joining himself to Hugo Black in order to stamp the Whig Ticket with an imprimatur of reform (and counter his own tendency to be seen as the most conservative of progressives).
A senator from Alabama noted for his support for liberal policies and civil liberties, as well as for his tenacity in the investigation of abuses within the System and a youthful brush with the Freedom Party - not quite a member himself, the younger Black had still reached out to the local membership of that party with the idea that their support would be necessary to secure his own election but then repudiated such connections to become one of their most consistent detractors - yet he had also won lasting antipathy amongst the significant proportion of Catholics within the Confederate Electorate for the rhetoric he had directed against the Catholic Church once too often in token of his distaste for that institution.
It was a History that need not have been fatal under other circumstances (in '27 his repudiation of the Freedom Party would have been just another chapter in a cautionary tale, in '33 it would be seen as scuttling from a ship taking on water before it had even begun to sink) and in truth Black brought with him the prospect of a serious approach to the Confederate Coloured community (having become noted for his defence of a Black Man who had been forced into a form of slavery following a period of incarceration), as well as an appeal to the Confederate Intelligentsia and a knowledge of Confederate Law that might have proven priceless to any Administration seeking reform …
. . . But divisions within the Whig Party were now so aggravated that the only way in which the 'Boll Weevils' of the Gallant Old Party could be persuaded to support such a pair of Reformers in their attempt to beat the odds on Election Night would be through the adoption of a soothingly vague statement of policies which notoriously amounted to 'The Problem will Fix itself' and effectively finished off the chances of the Whig Ticket in '33 being taken seriously as anything but a desperate attempt by the Whigs to save face.
- Which still left the Confederacy with the prospect of a race between two unknown quantities, one of them the Radical Liberal party now at long last in a position to outdo the Whigs in a Presidential Election; unfortunately the Rad-Libs were a party caught in the midst of a transitional period following the abrupt departure of Ainsworth Layne - with his removal from the scene Huey Long had made himself the driving Spirit of the Party with a dynamic energy that electrified, but his Strongman tendencies alarmed just about as many as they inspired to fresh enthusiasm.
Faced with opposition from the most moderate members of the Party that would block any attempt to secure himself top billing at the head of the Presidential Ticket, The Kingfish proceeded to make himself the Kingmaker and allowed Cordell Hull, one of the Grandest Old Men of the Radical Liberal Party (indeed one of its Founding Fathers) the chance to become the first Radical Liberal President of the Confederate States on the understanding that come '39 this statesmanlike gesture would not be forgotten.
A veritable institution in the Confederate Congress, Mr Hull had been first a judge and then a long-term Senator from Tennessee who had in fact become widely perceived as a pillar of Confederate Respectability - all without losing sight of the fact that he'd been born in a log cabin or losing interest in the good of the Confederate Everyman; his standing was unimpeachable, his record was solid and in some areas he was more widely trusted than his own Party … which was part of the problem.
With the Whigs out of the picture, the only question remaining was whether it would be the Left or the Right that would gather up the choicest portions of the crumbling centre - and quite frankly The Freedom Party had seized the initiative along with the cudgels that they had reached out for once more with all the enthusiasm of a man taking a dear old friend by the hand. But they had at last met their match in Huey Long, who proceeded to match them step for step in revolutionary electioneering and violence, both in the form of rhetoric and roughneck confrontations.
Quite frankly the violent vigour of his methodology had left the public image of the Radical Liberals farther from legitimacy in the eyes of the Confederate Public than it had been in some time and Governor Long's sheer energy had left many with the impression that Cordell Hull would be less a moderating influence than a puppet - it had also left the Radical and Liberal wings of the Rad-Libs working together as part of an increasingly uneasy alliance, which only exacerbated the problems facing the Party as it set itself to win the Grey House.
Some strove for legitimacy, others played the Long game and across the Confederacy Rad-Lib Strategy adopted a somewhat disjointed air rather than the invigorating atmosphere of a smoothly-functioning whole; still, the glittering prospect of proving themselves the Greatest Generation of Radical Liberals by making themselves the men who FINALLY won the Grey House for their Party kept all the Faithful moving forward together at an impressive pace, pulling together more or less in harness as the Great Race of '33 ran on.
Even if the Kingfish would insist on making Louisiana his first priority, always.
- Yet in the end it was the Freedom Party/Redemption League Axis that spurred itself on to Richmond and Victory.
The raw passion and commitment of Jake Featherston, the youthful charisma and stylish presentation of Willie Knight, the application of cutting-edge electioneering and blunt brutality, all played their part in harnessing the grass-roots hunger for a stronger Government and greater Certainty in society into a Popular Movement that could carry a mountain into the Presidential Mansion on its back - yet in the end the Confederate Electorate voted in the Freedom Party after being offered a simple choice:
Jake Featherston or Civil War.
Nobody spoke of it, as if by simple discussion they might cause this evil genie to manifest itself, yet the possibility seemed very real to voters across the Confederacy. Their choice was between the Radical Liberals and the Freedom Party, yet even in the throes of great uncertainty one thing as absolutely certain - that The Freedom Party would NEVER accept a Radical Liberal Government.
Almost twenty unrelenting years of political violence, slander and calumny, of anathemas and complete antipathy had bred a rivalry between the Radical Liberals and the Partizans so intense as to be incendiary. As with President Lincoln, Vice-President Long would almost certainly prove the spark that would ignite old grudges and the litter of past refusals by the one to recognise the legitimacy of the other (and vice versa) into a blaze that might well become the Funeral Pyre of the Confederacy.
Long would seek to suppress the Freedom Party - The Stalwart's would not go quietly - The Confederacy would split in half between those willing to support the Rad-Libs in the name of the Constitution and those seeking to thwart the un-American kind of Revolution thought by some to be impending following a Radical Liberal victory - in the end only the United States was likely to profit, holding the balance over a Confederacy divided against itself.
Therefore a choice between Featherston and Civil War was no choice at all.
As it would turn out, in the long term the Confederacy might have been far wiser to choose a second War Between the States over a Second Great War; if nothing else such a conflict would have left The Snake in no condition to launch Operation Blackbeard for a very long time and the Confederate Coloured population would have been offered a fighting chance.
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Blue Moon
Banned
No problem and fyi you can edit the title. when you click on edit there is a GO ADVANCED option to click on and that lets you edit the titleDash it all, I keep getting that one wrong and there's no way to alter the TITLE of an article; I'll have to delete it and re-post it under a more accurate title.
Please forgive me my minor error!
I think the opposite, as you mention cuban did helped into confederated secession and was southern wet dream, i think Cuba was Henry Walker Wet dream too, a pretty sucessful filibuster who works as the dixies bullied even a less significant power(some people argue spain should not even be calleda power) and someone in spain say: "yeah deal with the rebels yourself if are so good" i can imagine that, specially as glorious revolution is raging on. Dixie payed some 'compesation'(money, cotton and tobbaco species too) for the pretty agricultural paradise would be cuba(maybe all tobbaco monopoly, increase sugar cane and increased dixie rice production) and that explain something, why cuba clinged till the end rather abadon ship like texians.
That explain some cuba tibidis in universe, like higher black people count, a little better right(second class citizen, rather the third class one in the mainland) more defiance to featherson yet still being part of the confederation.
Etto, that give my eternal question...wthat is up with puerto rico, still part of spain because nobody gives a damn?
Probably, since they were described as being responsible for negotiating the POW exchanges of the Great War - why'd they be chosen if they had no presence on the Western hemisphere?
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If I might be permitted a guess as to how the Confederates were able to secure Cuba but not Puerto Rico, I would say that it is down to the Confederate Navy just not being up to the job of pushing out an invasion fleet that far with any certainty of protecting it (it seems likely to me that the CSN would be neglected in favour of the army) - probably coupled with the United States waking up and realising that if they let the Confederates or the British secure Puerto Rico then Haiti would be almost impossible to maintain as a thumb poked into the Anglo-Confederate Lake.
I'm not sure that the British would be very keen on having a Confederate (or United States!) outpost parked right in the middle of their West Indies holdings - yet the United States might well be willing to use a British descent on Puerto Rico as a pretext for War (and the Confederacy might not be willing to see the Empire snaffle off an entry on their 'To Do' List either), so it isn't entirely impossible that Puerto Rico remained Spanish mostly because the British, the Confederates and the United States simply couldn't agree amongst themselves just which of them would have the honour of relieving the Spanish of this portion of it's former glories.
Thank you very kindly for this latest compliment - I'm always glad to see my work praised, being only Human and full of fears that it might be inadequate (hopefully groundless fears!).
Concerning Mr Black I basically applied my rule of thumb that a Southern Politicians attitude to the KKK in our Timeline was a fair indication of how they would deal with the Freedom Party in the course of Timeline-191; Mr Black briefly joined the Klan, but seems to have regarded it as a regrettable necessity and thoroughly rejected the organisation in later years.
Thank you for alerting me to this constitutional reality; I fear my expertise in American Politics is non-existent and my general knowledge of that subject is broad but somewhat shallow.
https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showpost.php?p=10140510&postcount=1132
^In my innocence, I was going by this list of POTCS and their VPs from earlier in the thread, basing my mental image of 'Young Pete' on the inspiration I received while considering it.^
Could Mr Longstreet be re-interpreted as having been a member of the Mitchel Cabinet who resigned in disgust over the Man's pig-headedness then ran for a Virginian seat in the Confederate Senate?
I'd like to keep him (and the 'Wilson Whigs' as a whole) sufficiently connected to the Administration for it to fatally handicap their chances of winning the Election in '33 (young men whose hair turned white overnight as they dealt with their party's failure in the collapse and were therefore lampooned as just another set of greybeards in consequence).
I'm not sure that the British would be very keen on having a Confederate (or United States!) outpost parked right in the middle of their West Indies holdings - yet the United States might well be willing to use a British descent on Puerto Rico as a pretext for War (and the Confederacy might not be willing to see the Empire snaffle off an entry on their 'To Do' List either), so it isn't entirely impossible that Puerto Rico remained Spanish mostly because the British, the Confederates and the United States simply couldn't agree amongst themselves just which of them would have the honour of relieving the Spanish of this portion of it's former glories.
Thank you very kindly for this latest compliment - I'm always glad to see my work praised, being only Human and full of fears that it might be inadequate (hopefully groundless fears!).
Concerning Mr Black I basically applied my rule of thumb that a Southern Politicians attitude to the KKK in our Timeline was a fair indication of how they would deal with the Freedom Party in the course of Timeline-191; Mr Black briefly joined the Klan, but seems to have regarded it as a regrettable necessity and thoroughly rejected the organisation in later years.
Thank you for alerting me to this constitutional reality; I fear my expertise in American Politics is non-existent and my general knowledge of that subject is broad but somewhat shallow.
https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showpost.php?p=10140510&postcount=1132
^In my innocence, I was going by this list of POTCS and their VPs from earlier in the thread, basing my mental image of 'Young Pete' on the inspiration I received while considering it.^
Could Mr Longstreet be re-interpreted as having been a member of the Mitchel Cabinet who resigned in disgust over the Man's pig-headedness then ran for a Virginian seat in the Confederate Senate?
I'd like to keep him (and the 'Wilson Whigs' as a whole) sufficiently connected to the Administration for it to fatally handicap their chances of winning the Election in '33 (young men whose hair turned white overnight as they dealt with their party's failure in the collapse and were therefore lampooned as just another set of greybeards in consequence).
bguy
Donor
It's possible I suppose though any kind of public break with Mitchel might make Longstreet too toxic to the conservative wing of the Whig Party for him to have any real hope of winning the Whig Party nomination. (Political parties tend to value loyalty above competence, and resigning from Mitchel's Cabinet would be seen by the conservative Whigs as a very disloyal action on Longstreet's part.)
So I am writing the next installment of the Henry Cabot Lodge Bio and I am getting to the peace treaties. It seems like Breakthroughs ends in 1917, with the The American Empire:Blood and Iron starting up in 1918. using that, the Confederate armies were disbanding and surrendering there weapons by the end of Breakthroughs. This leads me to believe the Treaty of Arlington, officially ending the war between the USA and CSA was signed in 1917. I then imagine the Treaty in Philadelphia was signed late 1917 early in 1918. With the Treaty of Potsdam occurring in early 1918. Treaty of Potsdam being the agreement that wraps up all the nations at war because they are allies. US-France, CS-Germany, Japan- Ottoman Empire, Australia-Austria, etc... Thoughts.
Also Tiro I throroughly enjoyed your 1933 CS election article. I reread the end of the center cannot hold and you definitely caught the desperation of the times. I especially enjoyed your take on Huey Long, I've always found the Kingfish particularly interesting.
FYI in reading the Center Cannot Hold during the 1932 election they say Indiana went Democrat in '32 and '08. Canon.
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It says he's ahead. Nothing else. It still could have gone Socialist. But yah, I think it went blue in 32.
Thank you for alerting me to this constitutional reality; I fear my expertise in American Politics is non-existent and my general knowledge of that subject is broad but somewhat shallow.
https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showpost.php?p=10140510&postcount=1132
^In my innocence, I was going by this list of POTCS and their VPs from earlier in the thread, basing my mental image of 'Young Pete' on the inspiration I received while considering it.^
Could Mr Longstreet be re-interpreted as having been a member of the Mitchel Cabinet who resigned in disgust over the Man's pig-headedness then ran for a Virginian seat in the Confederate Senate?
I'd like to keep him (and the 'Wilson Whigs' as a whole) sufficiently connected to the Administration for it to fatally handicap their chances of winning the Election in '33 (young men whose hair turned white overnight as they dealt with their party's failure in the collapse and were therefore lampooned as just another set of greybeards in consequence).
Harry Turtledove explicitly says Samuel Longstreet, grandson to James, was a Whig senator from the Commonwealth of Virginia, and nothing more. If there were any dirt on Senator Longstreet, we would've been informed by either our Whig Party insider Clarence Potter, or Jake Featherston himself.
Any dirt above and beyond being a Whig in the very worst year for the GOP of the Confederacy, at least!
In all honesty I am happy to honour Canon, but more than willing to pad it out where descriptions are so threadbare as they are in relation to the disparate Candidates on the losing end of Timeline-191 Elections (in all honesty I would be very grateful if someone were to offer an alternative to my own characterisation of Mr Sam Longstreet if it is generally held to be inadequate).
Given that Mr Long was a particularly interesting fellow in his own right, I'm not sure how much credit I can claim for enlivening my article with his antics but I am still very glad that you enjoyed my take on '33 despite my usual fumbles when it comes to the niceties of American Political Life.
I am particularly glad to have captured the atmosphere of a Nation desperate for Strong Medicine to cure the sickness at its heart, but prone to prefer the familiarity of sawbones surgery to the prospect of having to actually make a permanent, gentle change to their lifestyle on the orders of some hot-shot young Doc with fanciful notions.
Not least because old Sawbones isn't the sort to gracefully take 'No' for an answer.
In fact I was actually inspired by the article in question and the debut of another thread on this part of the forum to speculate on what might have followed had The Snake failed to win election in '33 following some overenthusiastic Stalwart nudging the Party Image from 'Strongman' to 'Savage' in the course of that Assault Squad raid on Mr Hugo Black.
https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=362464
^You may find it here and if any of you fellows have any thoughts on the topic then I would be very glad to hear them.^
In all honesty I am happy to honour Canon, but more than willing to pad it out where descriptions are so threadbare as they are in relation to the disparate Candidates on the losing end of Timeline-191 Elections (in all honesty I would be very grateful if someone were to offer an alternative to my own characterisation of Mr Sam Longstreet if it is generally held to be inadequate).
Given that Mr Long was a particularly interesting fellow in his own right, I'm not sure how much credit I can claim for enlivening my article with his antics but I am still very glad that you enjoyed my take on '33 despite my usual fumbles when it comes to the niceties of American Political Life.
I am particularly glad to have captured the atmosphere of a Nation desperate for Strong Medicine to cure the sickness at its heart, but prone to prefer the familiarity of sawbones surgery to the prospect of having to actually make a permanent, gentle change to their lifestyle on the orders of some hot-shot young Doc with fanciful notions.
Not least because old Sawbones isn't the sort to gracefully take 'No' for an answer.
In fact I was actually inspired by the article in question and the debut of another thread on this part of the forum to speculate on what might have followed had The Snake failed to win election in '33 following some overenthusiastic Stalwart nudging the Party Image from 'Strongman' to 'Savage' in the course of that Assault Squad raid on Mr Hugo Black.
https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=362464
^You may find it here and if any of you fellows have any thoughts on the topic then I would be very glad to hear them.
^I've been looking at maps of the United States for some time now trying to put certain details of the Great Reunification War/Second Great War as described on the Turtledove Wiki in perspective (amongst other reasons) and the more I plot things out, the more convinced I am that while Macarthur bungled things fearfully in Virginia he can hardly be held to have wasted his time no matter how many of his men he threw away.
Had the Army of the Ohio been able to link up with the Army of Northern Virginia (perhaps even around Pittsburg) I imagine that no matter how the Western United States fared Pennsylvania and possibly even New York would be in for a World of Hurt - especially if Macarthur and not Morrell is calling the shots.
I've also been considering possible alternatives to Operation Coal-scuttle (or 'side-shows' that might have made things more difficult for the United States) and I keep coming back to the idea that the Confederates might have done better to secure their grip on the Great Lakes by going after Chicago having secured Cleveland; if nothing else this would have taken out a major communications hub and broadened the Confederate salient to the point where they might have been able to deploy some Defence in Depth.
At least in the sense of being able to trade space for time in the face of United States aggression in East or West.
One useful secondary operation which occurs to me as quite obvious (to the point where it would surprise me had the CS Army not at least contemplated it) would be an assault on Detroit - taking the Motor City allows you to not only seize a considerable portion of the US Industrial complex, tighten Johnny's grip on the Great Lakes East-to-West traffic and form a connection to Occupied Canada that might have turned into a Live Wire (at the least one might have done some recruiting in the Niagara Peninsula amongst disgruntled Tories - possibly even set up a catchment area for a Canadian Guard Formation).
Does this seem at all practicable?
Another thought that has occurred to me is that a Confederate Corps operating out of Sonora (possibly in collusion with Mexican Imperial Forces) might have driven North and made an attempt to seize Phoenix & Tuscon, possibly allowing them to persuade the US Army to divert precious divisions away from Utah (not to mention set up a Panic in California).
This is probably over-ambitious, but at the very least it seems to me that Jake the Snake made something of the same mistake his old Superiors did by exercising a monomaniac focus in the East without giving consideration to how he might wreck equivalent havoc on the Enemy in the West (which I'm fairly confident cost him Texas in the end), at least in terms of Morale and Troop Concentration.
For one thing I'm fairly sure he made efforts to send Sequoyah up in flames, but did he ever get boots on the ground there to establish a buffer for Texas?
Had the Army of the Ohio been able to link up with the Army of Northern Virginia (perhaps even around Pittsburg) I imagine that no matter how the Western United States fared Pennsylvania and possibly even New York would be in for a World of Hurt - especially if Macarthur and not Morrell is calling the shots.
I've also been considering possible alternatives to Operation Coal-scuttle (or 'side-shows' that might have made things more difficult for the United States) and I keep coming back to the idea that the Confederates might have done better to secure their grip on the Great Lakes by going after Chicago having secured Cleveland; if nothing else this would have taken out a major communications hub and broadened the Confederate salient to the point where they might have been able to deploy some Defence in Depth.
At least in the sense of being able to trade space for time in the face of United States aggression in East or West.
One useful secondary operation which occurs to me as quite obvious (to the point where it would surprise me had the CS Army not at least contemplated it) would be an assault on Detroit - taking the Motor City allows you to not only seize a considerable portion of the US Industrial complex, tighten Johnny's grip on the Great Lakes East-to-West traffic and form a connection to Occupied Canada that might have turned into a Live Wire (at the least one might have done some recruiting in the Niagara Peninsula amongst disgruntled Tories - possibly even set up a catchment area for a Canadian Guard Formation).
Does this seem at all practicable?
Another thought that has occurred to me is that a Confederate Corps operating out of Sonora (possibly in collusion with Mexican Imperial Forces) might have driven North and made an attempt to seize Phoenix & Tuscon, possibly allowing them to persuade the US Army to divert precious divisions away from Utah (not to mention set up a Panic in California).
This is probably over-ambitious, but at the very least it seems to me that Jake the Snake made something of the same mistake his old Superiors did by exercising a monomaniac focus in the East without giving consideration to how he might wreck equivalent havoc on the Enemy in the West (which I'm fairly confident cost him Texas in the end), at least in terms of Morale and Troop Concentration.
For one thing I'm fairly sure he made efforts to send Sequoyah up in flames, but did he ever get boots on the ground there to establish a buffer for Texas?
You might want to look again at the army names. The Confedracy named their armies after States not rivers. The U.S. named their armies after rivers until the Great War, than started calling them by numbers. The Confederate army that went in to Ohio at the beginning was the Army of Kentucky.
Samuel Longstreet
b. April 27th 1892 GA.
d. ?? ????
- Grandson of the most widely respected Confederate Presidents (and some argue that James Longsteeet was THE greatest ever President of the Confederate States, given his pivotal role in the Second Mexican War and the Manumission Proclamation), it can safely be said that young Sam Longstreet was born with greatness already mapped out in his stars or at any rate with a better-than-average chance of achieving the highest positions of trust within the Confederacy.
It was a destiny he would prove eager to embrace and which seems to have increasingly been denied to him by a world where the Office that had once seemed his birthright became an increasingly distant prospect and a source of danger to him.
- A Georgian by birth, Longstreet became an adopted son of Virginia when he decided to embrace the family dream of producing another President and began to attend the Virginia Military institute, graduating with a respectable academic record and a reputation for solving problems even more quickly than he could spot them.
Recruited along with a number of other promising young officers to the staff of Wade Hampton V, Longstreet served with the Army of Northern Virginia during the opening days of the Big Wheel through Maryland and swiftly won notice for his successes as a Staff Officer (not least for his negotiation of the tangled thicket of occasionally-prickly personalities which constitute any Officer Corps in the Field).
Reassigned to the General Staff (some say as General Hampton's eyes and ears on that august body), Lieutenant Longstreet continued to do yeoman service to the best of his abilities until offered a promotion intended to confine him to obscurity for his bad habit of speaking Truth to Power (especially when it concerned the increasingly-untenable strategic situation of the Confederacy), along with his continued personal loyalty to Wade Hampton V.
- Recruited into one of the new Black Regiments, the equally newly-minted Captain Longstreet set himself to make the best of things and if nothing else acquired an unusual insight into the Confederate Coloured situation; no Radical, Longstreet was still more than canny enough to appreciate that the best way to rob the next Red Revolution of its manpower would be to offer the Coloured Population more opportunities to advance themselves to the mutual benefit of the Confederate States and themselves, rather than at the expense of the Confederacy.
It was an opinion which he would share only with caution, but far from unique even amongst the Whig Party (which had, after all, come to pride itself on being the Party of Manumission), albeit rather unpopular amidst a significant portion of the Confederate Population.
- Having played his part in the unofficial Whig militias needed to suppress the nascent coup against the Semmes administration, more eager than ever to help rebuild the Confederacy, The Whig Party and that smooth path which he had once seen stretching out before him to the Grey House Samuel Longstreet was happy to be recruited by Wade Hampton V as one of the small inner circle of proteges through whom he intended to leave a lasting impact on the Whig Party; Longstreet would campaign with tireless energy and enthusiasm on Hampton's behalf to their mutual benefit (some predicted that while too young to be elected VP in '21, 'Young Pete' Longstreet would be the man to watch in '28 and a racing certainty for the '33 Ticket).
On President Hampton's Election Night it could hardly be denied that - against long odds - the Whig Party was actually going somewhere besides the Ash Heap of History, with 'Sam Steed' very near the forefront smoothly cantering on towards his own date with destiny; on the day of President Hampton's assassination things would take a more dramatic course.
- Already prone to dislike Featherston for his slander of the Confederate Officer Corps, Coloured Soldiers and the Whig Elite Samuel Longstreet began to hate The Freedom Party on principle, rather than as an extension of a man who he personally detested - in this respect at least, he and President Mitchel were in full agreement. Having said that the two of them were prone to civilised disagreements even as Mitchel did his best to mentor young Longstreet, in the hopes of cultivating a more sound agreeable working relationship with a man who in many ways represented the future of his Party.
It was, unfortunately, a working relationship that would begin to founder in '27; it was possible though painful to accept that the Party preferred a known success to a still-unknown quantity, but Longstreet found it far harder to tolerate Mitchel's failurel to offer the position of VP in his Administration. Considered by some a test of Longstreet's Loyalty to the Whig Party (as opposed to his own ambitions for the same), it was a gesture that did a great deal to add personal animosity to the Philosophical disagreements between the Laissez-Faire Whigs (sometimes known as 'Old Burt's Boys') and the more interventionist 'Wilson' Whigs.
If this was in fact a calculated test, rather than a straightforward tactical error from 'Simple Mitch' then it was a test Longstreet passed when he quietly talked down a motion to impeach President Mitchel in the wake of The Crash and all that had followed (despite his own inclination to add his voice to the Chorus and a history of outspoken concern with President Mitchel's policies); it was a Statesmanlike gesture intended to soothe the divisions within the Whig Party and (it was hoped) make re-election in '33 at least a possibility, all the better to ensure that a renewed Whig Party would be able to fix its mistakes and keep the Freedom Party out.
It was not a wasted gesture, but it would prove a triumph of Hope over Expectation.
- Recruiting Hugo Black as his Vice Presidential candidate for the '33 ticket, Sam Longstreet would inspire some of the Old Whig fighting spirit in his Party, but was compelled to water down his election manifesto in order to forestal a panic amongst the Old Guard in the Party the after recruiting such a known liberal for his VP; coupled with Whig failures past and some nicely-calculated appeals to the Electorate by the Freedom Party, this would render 'The Second President Longstreet' no more than a might-have-been.
It was the end of an era in Confederate Politics and the beginning of the end for the Confederacy.
Despite acts of political violence extending to a direct assault on Hugo Black himself* and the ignominy of becoming the very first Whig Presidential candidate to acknowledge defeat, Longstreet remained undaunted and proclaimed his willingness to "… Run against that Snake Featherstone in 1939, 1945 or 1975 if I have to in order to save decent Confederates from being numbered with the supporters of the Freedom Party."
Despite considerable danger to himself, his family and his supporters Samuel Longstreet put himself forward for nomination at the thinly-attended Party Conference in the year of the last Presidential Election, as promised; legends that he actually approached the Radical Liberal Party with the idea of running a Joint Ticket in defiance of Freedom Party dominance linger to this day, but all that History records is that the Confederacy once more voted in Jake Featherston for the duration of his mortal lifetime.
It was lifetime that had not much farther to go, but which had already lasted too long in many eyes.
(*Black escaped with his life, although not very much of his dignity; certain historians have speculated that had he been severely injured or killed by the rampaging Stalwarts then the Confederate Electorate might have been convinced that the Freedom Party was comprised of savages, not strongmen which might have robbed Featherston of critical support in '33 as the death of Hampton had in '22).
- With a long history of opposition and outspoken defiance ahead of him, Sam Longstreet was arrested and swiftly consigned to Camp Dependable as a Political Prisoner after the Freedom Party assumed absolute power in the Confederacy following the assassination of Huey Long; he was one of those removed from the Camp when it was repurposed as a Hell for Negroes only, but it is not yet known if he survived to be released from the Party Penal system following the last conflict between the USA and the now defunct Confederate States.
b. April 27th 1892 GA.
d. ?? ????
- Grandson of the most widely respected Confederate Presidents (and some argue that James Longsteeet was THE greatest ever President of the Confederate States, given his pivotal role in the Second Mexican War and the Manumission Proclamation), it can safely be said that young Sam Longstreet was born with greatness already mapped out in his stars or at any rate with a better-than-average chance of achieving the highest positions of trust within the Confederacy.
It was a destiny he would prove eager to embrace and which seems to have increasingly been denied to him by a world where the Office that had once seemed his birthright became an increasingly distant prospect and a source of danger to him.
- A Georgian by birth, Longstreet became an adopted son of Virginia when he decided to embrace the family dream of producing another President and began to attend the Virginia Military institute, graduating with a respectable academic record and a reputation for solving problems even more quickly than he could spot them.
Recruited along with a number of other promising young officers to the staff of Wade Hampton V, Longstreet served with the Army of Northern Virginia during the opening days of the Big Wheel through Maryland and swiftly won notice for his successes as a Staff Officer (not least for his negotiation of the tangled thicket of occasionally-prickly personalities which constitute any Officer Corps in the Field).
Reassigned to the General Staff (some say as General Hampton's eyes and ears on that august body), Lieutenant Longstreet continued to do yeoman service to the best of his abilities until offered a promotion intended to confine him to obscurity for his bad habit of speaking Truth to Power (especially when it concerned the increasingly-untenable strategic situation of the Confederacy), along with his continued personal loyalty to Wade Hampton V.
- Recruited into one of the new Black Regiments, the equally newly-minted Captain Longstreet set himself to make the best of things and if nothing else acquired an unusual insight into the Confederate Coloured situation; no Radical, Longstreet was still more than canny enough to appreciate that the best way to rob the next Red Revolution of its manpower would be to offer the Coloured Population more opportunities to advance themselves to the mutual benefit of the Confederate States and themselves, rather than at the expense of the Confederacy.
It was an opinion which he would share only with caution, but far from unique even amongst the Whig Party (which had, after all, come to pride itself on being the Party of Manumission), albeit rather unpopular amidst a significant portion of the Confederate Population.
- Having played his part in the unofficial Whig militias needed to suppress the nascent coup against the Semmes administration, more eager than ever to help rebuild the Confederacy, The Whig Party and that smooth path which he had once seen stretching out before him to the Grey House Samuel Longstreet was happy to be recruited by Wade Hampton V as one of the small inner circle of proteges through whom he intended to leave a lasting impact on the Whig Party; Longstreet would campaign with tireless energy and enthusiasm on Hampton's behalf to their mutual benefit (some predicted that while too young to be elected VP in '21, 'Young Pete' Longstreet would be the man to watch in '28 and a racing certainty for the '33 Ticket).
On President Hampton's Election Night it could hardly be denied that - against long odds - the Whig Party was actually going somewhere besides the Ash Heap of History, with 'Sam Steed' very near the forefront smoothly cantering on towards his own date with destiny; on the day of President Hampton's assassination things would take a more dramatic course.
- Already prone to dislike Featherston for his slander of the Confederate Officer Corps, Coloured Soldiers and the Whig Elite Samuel Longstreet began to hate The Freedom Party on principle, rather than as an extension of a man who he personally detested - in this respect at least, he and President Mitchel were in full agreement. Having said that the two of them were prone to civilised disagreements even as Mitchel did his best to mentor young Longstreet, in the hopes of cultivating a more sound agreeable working relationship with a man who in many ways represented the future of his Party.
It was, unfortunately, a working relationship that would begin to founder in '27; it was possible though painful to accept that the Party preferred a known success to a still-unknown quantity, but Longstreet found it far harder to tolerate Mitchel's failurel to offer the position of VP in his Administration. Considered by some a test of Longstreet's Loyalty to the Whig Party (as opposed to his own ambitions for the same), it was a gesture that did a great deal to add personal animosity to the Philosophical disagreements between the Laissez-Faire Whigs (sometimes known as 'Old Burt's Boys') and the more interventionist 'Wilson' Whigs.
If this was in fact a calculated test, rather than a straightforward tactical error from 'Simple Mitch' then it was a test Longstreet passed when he quietly talked down a motion to impeach President Mitchel in the wake of The Crash and all that had followed (despite his own inclination to add his voice to the Chorus and a history of outspoken concern with President Mitchel's policies); it was a Statesmanlike gesture intended to soothe the divisions within the Whig Party and (it was hoped) make re-election in '33 at least a possibility, all the better to ensure that a renewed Whig Party would be able to fix its mistakes and keep the Freedom Party out.
It was not a wasted gesture, but it would prove a triumph of Hope over Expectation.
- Recruiting Hugo Black as his Vice Presidential candidate for the '33 ticket, Sam Longstreet would inspire some of the Old Whig fighting spirit in his Party, but was compelled to water down his election manifesto in order to forestal a panic amongst the Old Guard in the Party the after recruiting such a known liberal for his VP; coupled with Whig failures past and some nicely-calculated appeals to the Electorate by the Freedom Party, this would render 'The Second President Longstreet' no more than a might-have-been.
It was the end of an era in Confederate Politics and the beginning of the end for the Confederacy.
Despite acts of political violence extending to a direct assault on Hugo Black himself* and the ignominy of becoming the very first Whig Presidential candidate to acknowledge defeat, Longstreet remained undaunted and proclaimed his willingness to "… Run against that Snake Featherstone in 1939, 1945 or 1975 if I have to in order to save decent Confederates from being numbered with the supporters of the Freedom Party."
Despite considerable danger to himself, his family and his supporters Samuel Longstreet put himself forward for nomination at the thinly-attended Party Conference in the year of the last Presidential Election, as promised; legends that he actually approached the Radical Liberal Party with the idea of running a Joint Ticket in defiance of Freedom Party dominance linger to this day, but all that History records is that the Confederacy once more voted in Jake Featherston for the duration of his mortal lifetime.
It was lifetime that had not much farther to go, but which had already lasted too long in many eyes.
(*Black escaped with his life, although not very much of his dignity; certain historians have speculated that had he been severely injured or killed by the rampaging Stalwarts then the Confederate Electorate might have been convinced that the Freedom Party was comprised of savages, not strongmen which might have robbed Featherston of critical support in '33 as the death of Hampton had in '22).
- With a long history of opposition and outspoken defiance ahead of him, Sam Longstreet was arrested and swiftly consigned to Camp Dependable as a Political Prisoner after the Freedom Party assumed absolute power in the Confederacy following the assassination of Huey Long; he was one of those removed from the Camp when it was repurposed as a Hell for Negroes only, but it is not yet known if he survived to be released from the Party Penal system following the last conflict between the USA and the now defunct Confederate States.
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There wouldn't have been a presidential election in 1995. If you want a year ending with 5, how about 1975?
Thank you very kindly Ms. Turquoise; I admit that I plucked '1995' out of the aether as a purely random number intended to show how impassioned and flustered Mr Longstreet was at this point in time (to the point where he himself was plucking random numbers out of the air).
However in token of my gratitude for taking the time, please observe that I have inserted '75 in place of '95, so thank you very much once again.
However in token of my gratitude for taking the time, please observe that I have inserted '75 in place of '95, so thank you very much once again.