The Story of a Party 2.0

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I'm ashamed that I haven't read this splendid TL until now! Magnificent work, consider me sub'd!

Thanks. I'm quite fond of your blog as well, though I haven't looked at it in ages.

Also - you never did explain the Colorado territory. How did it come to be?

I explained it several times in comments. But just for the records, I'm going to post a book-excerpt detailing it as soon as I finish it.
 
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Thanks. I'm quite fond of your blog as well, though I haven't looked at it in ages.

I explained it several times in comments. But just for the records, I'm going to post a book-excerpt detailing it as soon as I finish it.

I'm glad you like my blog as well - please visit again and tell me if you enjoy yourself.

I apologize if I missed it - I found it upon looking again, and I look forward to hearing a more in depth story of Colorado!

On another note, do you do your own maps?
 
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From "The Birth of States" by Millard Donelson
Fremont Press, Albany, New York, 1939

"The state of Colorado is the first and, to date, only [1] state to have seceded from an existing state, in this case California, without that state having seceded first. The state of California, formed as part of the "Great Compromise" of 1850, was made a single state largely in order to placate the northerners who feared the extension of slavery to the part of the territory south of the Missouri Compromise line [2]; this fear was largely ungrounded, as the land there was completely unsuitable to plantation agriculture. The state remained divided in all but name; as such, the proposals to split the state were numerous throughout the 1850s.

In 1854, the State Assembly of California passed a bill to divide the state in three. The first state created would be an extended Colorado including Monterrey, Merced and Mariposa Counties and everything south of them. The second would be Shasta, consisting of the far north; this area, while quite populous at the time thanks to the Gold Rush of '49, was depopulated, and today has barely 300,000 inhabitants, and the third was the rump California in the middle. This bill failed to gain traction in the Senate, and was consequently abandoned; however, separatism remains in the far north of the state [3].

220px-Andres_Pico_c1850.jpg

Andrés Pico, State Assemblyman from Los Angeles County.

It was five years later, however, that the movement gained traction. Andrés Pico, a rancher in the San Fernando Valley who had fought for the Mexicans against the US, was elected to the State Assembly in 1851, and campaigned for the division bill of 1854; although that bill failed, he continued to campaign for Coloradan separation. In 1859, he wrote a bill to split off the parts of the state south of the 6th Standard Parallel [4] as the Colorado Territory, since the area was not technically populous enough to be a state at the time [5]. This gained traction, and on April 18, Governor Stanford [6] signed the bill, it having passed both houses of the legislature. However, state secessions needed the support of Congress even before the Fifteenth Amendment [7], and thanks to the secession crisis, the bill proposed to Congress was ignored until September of the year after, when it was brought forth by Senator David C. Broderick [8]. It passed the House two weeks after, and the Senate by mid-October. Fremont signed it into law, formally creating the Territory of Colorado with Los Angeles as its capital, and Stephen C. Foster, long-time mayor of Los Angeles, was appointed as the first governor."

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[1] This is not to say that there won't be more before TTL's present day.
[2] ITTL, what with the state splitting so quickly, this view becomes common among historians, and indeed, it predominates both academic and popular history by the present day (ITTL, 'California' = the Central Valley and the Bay Area, and Colorado is seen as culturally separate, so it does make sense).
[3] The bill is OTL, and so is the rest of the paragraph; IOTL, the separatists advocate creating a new State of Jefferson along with south-western Oregon.
[4] The Sixth Standard Parallel, used as the surveying baseline in California, is defined by Mount Diablo, and runs about 13.8 miles south of the 36th parallel north.
[5] The area had something like 30,000 people in it in 1860, and nearly half of them were in Los Angeles County, and something like a third in San Diego.
[6] IOTL, Leland Stanford lost the gubernatorial election of 1859 to John B. Weller, a Lecompton Democrat. ITTL, with the Republicans doing better generally in the state, Stanford wins the election.
[7] The Fifteenth Amendment, also known as the 'Perfect Union' amendment, made it significantly harder for states to secede. For more information, see Chapter XII.
[8] This is the first divergence (apart from Stanford being governor two years earlier); IOTL, the bill was never even discussed in Congress due to the secession crisis being later. As for Broderick, IOTL he got killed in a duel with David Terry, the former state chief justice, in 1859; ITTL, it's Terry who's killed, further damaging the Lecompton Democrat cause in California.
 
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Seems like the sides are set for TTL's WW1, when it happens.

Wonder what side Britain will be on?

Can't wait for the colonial area.

This seems like it will be as long as Decades of Darkness.

Waiting for the next update.
 
I'll get to it in a bit.

Yes.

Very nice explanation! I do wonder if this split will effect the growth of Los Angeles, since much of the water the city uses OTL comes from North California. It will be fun to watch no doubt!

You're very good with the maps! Do you take requests haha ;)
 
Seems like the sides are set for TTL's WW1, when it happens.

I'm not going to say any more than that there's a reason they call it the First European War.

Wonder what side Britain will be on?

I'm not saying that right now. Only that they'll back the wrong horse, and Britain won't be a very nice place by the time the TL ends (just like in DoD, in other words).

Can't wait for the colonial area.

I don't think I'm going to be able to cover it in that much detail, actually — but then, I've seen all of two people doing that (wolf_brother and Jonathan Edelstein, to be more precise).

This seems like it will be as long as Decades of Darkness.

Well, it will cover the entire history of the Republican Party. Whether or not that goes into the present day I won't reveal, but the TL will end when the last Republican president leaves the White House.

Very nice explanation! I do wonder if this split will effect the growth of Los Angeles, since much of the water the city uses OTL comes from North California. It will be fun to watch no doubt!

Well, ITTL the cultural and economic centre of the region will be San Pedro, which will include much of Wilmington and Long Beach. This is due to the fact that the southern transcontinental railway ends there, which gives the city a huge boost, and later on it'll be used as Colorado's primary oil port. Los Angeles, meanwhile, will be much smaller than IOTL, and very much a satellite city to San Pedro, but will be the political centre of the Basin, hosting the state capitol as well as remaining the county seat of Los Angeles County.

You're very good with the maps! Do you take requests haha ;)

Well, I'm currently working on one, which will probably take a while, but when that's done, sure.
 
Well, ITTL the cultural and economic centre of the region will be San Pedro, which will include much of Wilmington and Long Beach. This is due to the fact that the southern transcontinental railway ends there, which gives the city a huge boost, and later on it'll be used as Colorado's primary oil port. Los Angeles, meanwhile, will be much smaller than IOTL, and very much a satellite city to San Pedro, but will be the political centre of the Basin, hosting the state capitol as well as remaining the county seat of Los Angeles County.

Now THAT's a major butterfly! L.A. as state capital but still a relative backwater *evil grin*

Well, I'm currently working on one, which will probably take a while, but when that's done, sure.

Oh yeah, that thing ;)
 
This TL is well written and very enjoyable Ares! I just hope it won't go too DoD : I realy don't like the idea of either a German or an Américan hegemony on their respective continent. But after all this is your TL it has a real depth and show reserch so I can't say anything.

Alright. Fixed. There is no border in BC because its undefined.

Wouldn't the border follow the continental divide? The british wouldn't have given a random corner of land to the américan?
 
This TL is well written and very enjoyable Ares! I just hope it won't go too DoD : I realy don't like the idea of either a German or an Américan hegemony on their respective continent. But after all this is your TL it has a real depth and show reserch so I can't say anything.

Well, if that's the case, you're going to be in for a bit of a disappointment, I'm afraid. However, it's different from DoD in that the US isn't a slave-ocracy and Germany isn't, well, DoD Germany. A few other major things will also be very different (both from OTL and from DoD), none of which I'm going to reveal at this point.

Wouldn't the border follow the continental divide? The british wouldn't have given a random corner of land to the américan?

Well, the border isn't closely defined (since the Yukon is still an unexplored wilderness), but yes, the border does run along the divide up to roughly 54°40'.
 
Also, sorry to double-post like this, but 25,000 views, people! Keep reading, and I'll hopefully be able to update in the near future :eek:
 
Actually, I've been having a fit of writer's block recently; I've been working on other stuff for the last two weeks or so. I might be able to do some more work today, though.

Take your time, can't wait to read it! Also, congrats on 25,000 views!

OOC, do I have your permsion to showcase this TL on the AHWU?
 
Actually, I've been having a fit of writer's block recently; I've been working on other stuff for the last two weeks or so. I might be able to do some more work today, though.

I've had a similar problem myself. Not fun, man. :(

Also, sorry to double-post like this, but 25,000 views, people! Keep reading, and I'll hopefully be able to update in the near future :eek:

Can't wait! :D
 
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