What would happen in the years following the end of In at the Death, and how would the US continue to manage a defeated Confederacy? I think that Texas would play a major role in bringing the rest of the South back into the US, by Texas becoming the first CS state to voluntarily rejoin the union. I think that an independent Texas would be stuck between a rock and hard-place in dealing with both the US and Mexico, and many Texans would probably be willing to rejoin the US if it meant that they might get back their former territories lost to the US state of Huston. I think that the president of Texas would have to sell the people of Texas on the idea that we are all Americans, and that the Confederate government in Richmond neglected Texas during its CS statehood. Below is a scene from a hypothetical TV docudrama made roughly twenty-five years after Texas becomes the first CS state to rejoin the Union.
(A Scene from the 1976 television miniseries, Texas an American story: Actor Berry Hagman portrays Texas President Wright Patman sitting at his desk in the President's Mansion in Austin. Actor Sven Elliot portrays US Ambassador to Texas, Joe Kennedy, who is angrily on his feet in front of Patman's desk. Actor Alex Thomas portrays Texas Attorney General, Lyndon Baines Johnson, who is standing somewhat to the side and behind Patman's chair. A wooden block calendar on Patman's desk reads, May 3, 1948. Ambassador Kennedy stabs his finger at Patman's desk to emphasis the point he is making.
Kennedy: And I'm telling you that the people of the US will never abide by you increasing your Self-Defense Forces up to a 65,000 man level, and we will not renegotiate our armistice agreement with you, PERIOD. Hell, half of the voters in the US think that all of you Texans are nothing a bunch of no good Freedom Party lunatics, and if Dewey allows you to increase the size of your military, then he may as well just hand the White House over to the Republicans on a silver platter, because that's what he'd be doing.
Patman: (Forced calm) Need I remind you, Mr. Ambassador, that it was I alone who pulled the rug out from underneath Jake Featherston's feet by taking Texas out of the Confederacy? Why, if it wasn't for me, the war probably would have dragged on another six or seven months, and maybe it would have even lasted all the way well into 1945.
Kennedy: That maybe so, but up in the US the papers are still talking about what went on out here in Camp Determination and Camp Humble, and with that in mind, President Dewey cannot be seen as taking too soft of a line with you people, or it would hurt him in the polls.
Patman: Oh pish-posh! The wars been over for nearly four years now, and with all the great US post-war prosperity I keep reading about in the papers, I find it hard to believe that the people of the US are still bellyaching over what went on in those camps, when they could be out shopping for brand new television sets! Besides, what used to be Camp Determination is now across the border in the US state of Houston, and last time I checked, no one over there was losing any sleep over it.
Kennedy: Oh they care plenty, believe me, and do you have any how many black refugees from those death camps of yours have traveled all the way to Russia in order to join that god-damned bloody Red revolutionary movement that's going on over there?
Patman: Firstly, those were never my death camps, I've always been an ardent member of the Whig Party, and secondly, I'd say that when all things are finally said and done, the number of black revolutionaries moving to Russia is probably going to end up being about equal to the number of whites fleeing Sonora and Chihuahua since your illustrious President Dewey announced the handover to Mexico a few months back. And what is more, Mr. Kennedy, I'm getting awfully tired of the US government holding the past sins of the Freedom Party over my head every time I ask for the tiniest bit of help from you people! Why if it wasn't for me, you'd be facing a much more difficult time with Freedom Party diehards all across the board.
Kennedy: What the hell are you driving at? We are the ones who won the war, not you, and don't you forget it!
Patman: Do you have any idea how many people my Rangers have sent to an early grave, without so much as even a mock trial, simply because they were merely suspected of harboring sympathies for Jake Featherston and the Freedom Party? (Patman pauses to let that sink in. Kennedy looks stunned by Patman's sudden outburst of insubordination but he does not speak) I've personally ordered the deaths of tens of thousands of men all across this great land of ours, and I've personally witnessed some of the executions myself in order to make sure that they were carried out, and now I've got the blood of my own people all the way up to my own elbows, just to keep you folks happy. Now, President Dewey can sit back all high and mighty in his nice safe White House back in Washington DC, but out here we are fighting a three-way war, Mr. Kennedy. And then there is the two regiments of Texas Rangers I loaned to Dewey last year in order to help him untangle resistance leadership back in the old Confederacy.
Kennedy: Spare me the drama, Patman, you haven't got anything remotely resembling a war going on out here, and you know it. Besides, Dewey more than made it worth your while to send those men of yours back east.
Patman: (Now standing and facing Kennedy) I've got on going clashes with the Mexican Army all along the Rio Grande to contend with, and I've also got outlaw elements of the old Freedom Party Guard coming across the Red River and hitting us from their hideouts in the Cherokee Homeland you people established within your state of Sequoyah! If armed invaders attacking my citizens isn't a sign of open warfare, then I don't know what is!
Kennedy: If you can't handle such measly inconsequential conflicts with a 40,000 man army, then maybe the size of your army isn't really the problem, and maybe the problem is actually you! Maybe I need to fly back to Washington DC and tell President Dewey that you're just not a reliable partner. Maybe the US just needs to install a more reliable leader out here in Austin, someone who knows how to take care of problems without giving us too much grief over every trivial little problem that crops up? How about you, Johnson, are you interested in becoming president? I think that the title "President Johnson" has a nice enough ring to it, don't you?
Johnson: No thank you, Mr. Ambassador, I support our president one hundred percent, and I agree with everything he has said during this meeting. (Johnson sheepishly avoiding eye contact with Kennedy as he gazes at the polished wooden floor.)
Kennedy: Alright then, if not you, then maybe someone else? I don't think that anyone from the Radical Liberal Party has held an office out here in Texas for quite awhile. I'm certain that we could find someone to do our bidding for us if we were simply to go around and ask a few people....
Patman: Now that's enough of your horse-shit, Kennedy! I didn't want it to come down to this, but you've left me no choice. (Patman angrily sits back down and opens the top draw of his desk.)
Kennedy: Are you threatening me, Patman, because if you are, then you better be careful to not write any checks which your sorry little ass cannot cash! Back in my prohibition days, I used to chew people like you up and spit them out all over the sidewalks of Boston, so you're not the only one in this room who knows how to get someone else's blood under their fingernails,...Mr. President.
Patman: (In a measured business like tone) That imbecile you people have helped to put in power down in Mexico City is no better than Jake Featherston ever was, and when Dewey announced that he'd be handing Sonora and Chihuahua over to his Excellency Presidente Valdés, you only encouraged the little tin-pot's bloated sense of pride. (Patman places a blue manila folder on his desk as he is speaking.)
Kennedy: Valdés is our loyal ally, and can we help it if some people in his administration have an axe to grind against you? Who are we to interfere in the diplomatic relations between two sovereign countries? Not our problem.
Patman: Valdés has made it perfectly clear that he doesn't think that Mexico's expansion should stop at the Rio Grand, and there are even some hard-core fanatics within his party who think that the entire US Southwest should be reunited with Mexico. You know, California, Nevada, New Mexico,...and so on. So...perhaps...Mr. Ambassador, this is indeed your problem.
Kennedy: Let them dream all they want. Sometimes dreams are good for keeping a people united and marching along in the same general direction. Am I right? FREEDOM! (As Kennedy does a mock Freedom Party salute.)
Patman: Well, in case you haven't noticed, Valdés, has a real hardon for bringing Tejas, as he calls it, back into Mexico, and who is to say that perhaps he shouldn't get his wishes. Am I right, Lyndon?
Johnson: If you say so, Mr. President. (While doing a pretty good impression of a military cadet standing at parade rest.)
Kennedy: You wouldn't dare!
Patman: In fact I already have! Just last week I sent an encoded telex to our ambassador in Mexico City instructing him to open up negotiations with the Republic of Mexico regarding Texas rejoining their country.
Kennedy: You stupid fool, you have no idea what kinda game your playing here! You got away with stabbing the CSA in the back because the Confederacy was already down for the count anyway. But, you try that kinda stunt with us and you and your people are gonna get burned real bad.
Patman: Maybe so, but my list of requirements for Texas rejoining Mexico are all spelled out right here in this little folder, (As Patman gently rests his finger tips atop the blue folder sitting on his desk.) and among other things, I will continue to serve as Governor of Texas after it has been readmitted back into Mexico, I will get to keep my my own standing army on Texas soil, and the Mexican State of Texas will do everything within its power to recover territories it lost when the US state of Houston was created!
Kennedy: If you think that Valdés is going to back you in such a crazy power play, then you're completely out of your mind! Valdés and his Republicans are one hundred percent beholding to the US, and he knows it. Without our support he'd probably be bumped off by one of his own generals, and within a month the entire country would go right back into the fire where it came from.
Patman: You're right about one thing, Ambassador Kennedy, those so called Republicans down in Mexico City couldn't manage a popsicle stand without your guidance, but on the other hand there are still a great many people living on the other side of the Rio Grand who continue to hold dreams of making Mexico into a great country, or perhaps even making it into a country that could rival the US, or maybe even surpass it.
Kennedy: Not likely without a great deal of outside help, and why would anyone want to help them become a superpower? They're never going to be able to achieve that type of greatness on their own.
Patman: No, perhaps not, but if the capital of Mexico were to be moved out of Mexico City, and to be relocated up here to Austin, where good capable Texans could take over the reigns of the Mexican government, then who knows what maybe possible? Why, I could see a time twenty-five years in the future when Austin is the capital of a vast nation stretching from Central America all the way up to the Oregon border.
Kennedy: That could never happen!
Patman: Well now, eighty-five-years ago at the start of the War of Secession, President Lincoln thought that he could never lose the entire South, but just look how that turned out.
Kennedy: God-damned you, Patman! (As he quickly turns and heads for the door.)
Patman: Where are you going in such an all fire hurry, Mr. Ambassador?
Kennedy: I'm going back to the embassy to place a phone call to my superiors in Washington DC. Perhaps it is time we stopped buying your goddamn worthless treasury bonds, and maybe we need to start calling a few of them in! (As the door slams behind him)
Johnson: You've been negotiating with Valdés?
Patman: No, but he doesn't know that, and it will take him at least a week before anyone down in Mexico City will get around to denying what I just told him.
Johnson: But then why did you tell him such a nonsense poppycock story, and what is in that blue folder you just took out of your desk and shoved under his nose?
Patman: I told him that story to make him appear incompetent in the eyes of President Dewey, and to get him sacked from his position. The man is an arrogant hard-assed buffoon, and he's part of the reason why we aren't making any progress around here. This here folder ain't got nothing in it but purchased orders for new school books for the Texas Department of Education. The damned Yankees made us throw out all of our old Confederate history books at the end of the war, and now the nation of Texas is going broke just trying to print new ones.
Johnson: What if your plan backfires, aren't we playing a very dangerous game here? We both know what's going on right now, back east in the old Confederacy, and we really don't need any of that kinda trouble out here in our own woods.
Patman: Kennedy is right about one thing, Patman is up for reelection in a few more months, and at the moment it looks like he pretty much has everything sewn up in the bag. However, the last thing Dewey is gonna want right now is a scandal busting wide open out here in the Republic of Texas, especially if the scandal in question is centered upon the gross incompetence of that idiotic drunk Irishman he sent out here to be his enforcer. Once Kennedy starts flapping his lips about Texas rejoining Mexico, that's the end of him, he's finished. Dewey can't have a story like that floating around in the papers this close to an election, So he's going to have to declare Kennedy incompetent, and get rid of him.
Johnson: (Wistfully) The US is holding all of the cards right now, and they will likely continue to do so far into the foreseeable future.
Patman: (Sighs has he gets up from his desk and walks over to look out a nearby bay window.) Perhaps it is time we start thinking about what is best for our own future, and perhaps things would just be simpler if our students learned to read US history books instead of Texas ones. After all, we are all Americans, right, and this great land of ours was originally settled by people from the United States of America... What do you think, Lyndon?
Johnson: I think that the voters of Texas might be willing to buy into the notion that we are all Americans, provided that the US government decides to treat us like real Americans, and not just a defeated enemy. Anyway you slice it, the Confederate States of America is gone for good, and it is never coming back.
Patman: Ain't that the truth, and maybe thank God as well that it isn't coming back, because when you look at the long and short of it, the CSA never bought the people of Texas anything but misery and humiliation. Bunch of damned no good losers out in Richmond nearly ruined us for good. (Patman thoughtfully gazes through the window glass at the seemingly lonesome flag of Texas flying in front of the president's mansion. The flagpole next to the Texas flag would have normally flown the national flag of the Confederate States of America, but that particular pole has not flown a flag in several years.)
(A Scene from the 1976 television miniseries, Texas an American story: Actor Berry Hagman portrays Texas President Wright Patman sitting at his desk in the President's Mansion in Austin. Actor Sven Elliot portrays US Ambassador to Texas, Joe Kennedy, who is angrily on his feet in front of Patman's desk. Actor Alex Thomas portrays Texas Attorney General, Lyndon Baines Johnson, who is standing somewhat to the side and behind Patman's chair. A wooden block calendar on Patman's desk reads, May 3, 1948. Ambassador Kennedy stabs his finger at Patman's desk to emphasis the point he is making.
Kennedy: And I'm telling you that the people of the US will never abide by you increasing your Self-Defense Forces up to a 65,000 man level, and we will not renegotiate our armistice agreement with you, PERIOD. Hell, half of the voters in the US think that all of you Texans are nothing a bunch of no good Freedom Party lunatics, and if Dewey allows you to increase the size of your military, then he may as well just hand the White House over to the Republicans on a silver platter, because that's what he'd be doing.
Patman: (Forced calm) Need I remind you, Mr. Ambassador, that it was I alone who pulled the rug out from underneath Jake Featherston's feet by taking Texas out of the Confederacy? Why, if it wasn't for me, the war probably would have dragged on another six or seven months, and maybe it would have even lasted all the way well into 1945.
Kennedy: That maybe so, but up in the US the papers are still talking about what went on out here in Camp Determination and Camp Humble, and with that in mind, President Dewey cannot be seen as taking too soft of a line with you people, or it would hurt him in the polls.
Patman: Oh pish-posh! The wars been over for nearly four years now, and with all the great US post-war prosperity I keep reading about in the papers, I find it hard to believe that the people of the US are still bellyaching over what went on in those camps, when they could be out shopping for brand new television sets! Besides, what used to be Camp Determination is now across the border in the US state of Houston, and last time I checked, no one over there was losing any sleep over it.
Kennedy: Oh they care plenty, believe me, and do you have any how many black refugees from those death camps of yours have traveled all the way to Russia in order to join that god-damned bloody Red revolutionary movement that's going on over there?
Patman: Firstly, those were never my death camps, I've always been an ardent member of the Whig Party, and secondly, I'd say that when all things are finally said and done, the number of black revolutionaries moving to Russia is probably going to end up being about equal to the number of whites fleeing Sonora and Chihuahua since your illustrious President Dewey announced the handover to Mexico a few months back. And what is more, Mr. Kennedy, I'm getting awfully tired of the US government holding the past sins of the Freedom Party over my head every time I ask for the tiniest bit of help from you people! Why if it wasn't for me, you'd be facing a much more difficult time with Freedom Party diehards all across the board.
Kennedy: What the hell are you driving at? We are the ones who won the war, not you, and don't you forget it!
Patman: Do you have any idea how many people my Rangers have sent to an early grave, without so much as even a mock trial, simply because they were merely suspected of harboring sympathies for Jake Featherston and the Freedom Party? (Patman pauses to let that sink in. Kennedy looks stunned by Patman's sudden outburst of insubordination but he does not speak) I've personally ordered the deaths of tens of thousands of men all across this great land of ours, and I've personally witnessed some of the executions myself in order to make sure that they were carried out, and now I've got the blood of my own people all the way up to my own elbows, just to keep you folks happy. Now, President Dewey can sit back all high and mighty in his nice safe White House back in Washington DC, but out here we are fighting a three-way war, Mr. Kennedy. And then there is the two regiments of Texas Rangers I loaned to Dewey last year in order to help him untangle resistance leadership back in the old Confederacy.
Kennedy: Spare me the drama, Patman, you haven't got anything remotely resembling a war going on out here, and you know it. Besides, Dewey more than made it worth your while to send those men of yours back east.
Patman: (Now standing and facing Kennedy) I've got on going clashes with the Mexican Army all along the Rio Grande to contend with, and I've also got outlaw elements of the old Freedom Party Guard coming across the Red River and hitting us from their hideouts in the Cherokee Homeland you people established within your state of Sequoyah! If armed invaders attacking my citizens isn't a sign of open warfare, then I don't know what is!
Kennedy: If you can't handle such measly inconsequential conflicts with a 40,000 man army, then maybe the size of your army isn't really the problem, and maybe the problem is actually you! Maybe I need to fly back to Washington DC and tell President Dewey that you're just not a reliable partner. Maybe the US just needs to install a more reliable leader out here in Austin, someone who knows how to take care of problems without giving us too much grief over every trivial little problem that crops up? How about you, Johnson, are you interested in becoming president? I think that the title "President Johnson" has a nice enough ring to it, don't you?
Johnson: No thank you, Mr. Ambassador, I support our president one hundred percent, and I agree with everything he has said during this meeting. (Johnson sheepishly avoiding eye contact with Kennedy as he gazes at the polished wooden floor.)
Kennedy: Alright then, if not you, then maybe someone else? I don't think that anyone from the Radical Liberal Party has held an office out here in Texas for quite awhile. I'm certain that we could find someone to do our bidding for us if we were simply to go around and ask a few people....
Patman: Now that's enough of your horse-shit, Kennedy! I didn't want it to come down to this, but you've left me no choice. (Patman angrily sits back down and opens the top draw of his desk.)
Kennedy: Are you threatening me, Patman, because if you are, then you better be careful to not write any checks which your sorry little ass cannot cash! Back in my prohibition days, I used to chew people like you up and spit them out all over the sidewalks of Boston, so you're not the only one in this room who knows how to get someone else's blood under their fingernails,...Mr. President.
Patman: (In a measured business like tone) That imbecile you people have helped to put in power down in Mexico City is no better than Jake Featherston ever was, and when Dewey announced that he'd be handing Sonora and Chihuahua over to his Excellency Presidente Valdés, you only encouraged the little tin-pot's bloated sense of pride. (Patman places a blue manila folder on his desk as he is speaking.)
Kennedy: Valdés is our loyal ally, and can we help it if some people in his administration have an axe to grind against you? Who are we to interfere in the diplomatic relations between two sovereign countries? Not our problem.
Patman: Valdés has made it perfectly clear that he doesn't think that Mexico's expansion should stop at the Rio Grand, and there are even some hard-core fanatics within his party who think that the entire US Southwest should be reunited with Mexico. You know, California, Nevada, New Mexico,...and so on. So...perhaps...Mr. Ambassador, this is indeed your problem.
Kennedy: Let them dream all they want. Sometimes dreams are good for keeping a people united and marching along in the same general direction. Am I right? FREEDOM! (As Kennedy does a mock Freedom Party salute.)
Patman: Well, in case you haven't noticed, Valdés, has a real hardon for bringing Tejas, as he calls it, back into Mexico, and who is to say that perhaps he shouldn't get his wishes. Am I right, Lyndon?
Johnson: If you say so, Mr. President. (While doing a pretty good impression of a military cadet standing at parade rest.)
Kennedy: You wouldn't dare!
Patman: In fact I already have! Just last week I sent an encoded telex to our ambassador in Mexico City instructing him to open up negotiations with the Republic of Mexico regarding Texas rejoining their country.
Kennedy: You stupid fool, you have no idea what kinda game your playing here! You got away with stabbing the CSA in the back because the Confederacy was already down for the count anyway. But, you try that kinda stunt with us and you and your people are gonna get burned real bad.
Patman: Maybe so, but my list of requirements for Texas rejoining Mexico are all spelled out right here in this little folder, (As Patman gently rests his finger tips atop the blue folder sitting on his desk.) and among other things, I will continue to serve as Governor of Texas after it has been readmitted back into Mexico, I will get to keep my my own standing army on Texas soil, and the Mexican State of Texas will do everything within its power to recover territories it lost when the US state of Houston was created!
Kennedy: If you think that Valdés is going to back you in such a crazy power play, then you're completely out of your mind! Valdés and his Republicans are one hundred percent beholding to the US, and he knows it. Without our support he'd probably be bumped off by one of his own generals, and within a month the entire country would go right back into the fire where it came from.
Patman: You're right about one thing, Ambassador Kennedy, those so called Republicans down in Mexico City couldn't manage a popsicle stand without your guidance, but on the other hand there are still a great many people living on the other side of the Rio Grand who continue to hold dreams of making Mexico into a great country, or perhaps even making it into a country that could rival the US, or maybe even surpass it.
Kennedy: Not likely without a great deal of outside help, and why would anyone want to help them become a superpower? They're never going to be able to achieve that type of greatness on their own.
Patman: No, perhaps not, but if the capital of Mexico were to be moved out of Mexico City, and to be relocated up here to Austin, where good capable Texans could take over the reigns of the Mexican government, then who knows what maybe possible? Why, I could see a time twenty-five years in the future when Austin is the capital of a vast nation stretching from Central America all the way up to the Oregon border.
Kennedy: That could never happen!
Patman: Well now, eighty-five-years ago at the start of the War of Secession, President Lincoln thought that he could never lose the entire South, but just look how that turned out.
Kennedy: God-damned you, Patman! (As he quickly turns and heads for the door.)
Patman: Where are you going in such an all fire hurry, Mr. Ambassador?
Kennedy: I'm going back to the embassy to place a phone call to my superiors in Washington DC. Perhaps it is time we stopped buying your goddamn worthless treasury bonds, and maybe we need to start calling a few of them in! (As the door slams behind him)
Johnson: You've been negotiating with Valdés?
Patman: No, but he doesn't know that, and it will take him at least a week before anyone down in Mexico City will get around to denying what I just told him.
Johnson: But then why did you tell him such a nonsense poppycock story, and what is in that blue folder you just took out of your desk and shoved under his nose?
Patman: I told him that story to make him appear incompetent in the eyes of President Dewey, and to get him sacked from his position. The man is an arrogant hard-assed buffoon, and he's part of the reason why we aren't making any progress around here. This here folder ain't got nothing in it but purchased orders for new school books for the Texas Department of Education. The damned Yankees made us throw out all of our old Confederate history books at the end of the war, and now the nation of Texas is going broke just trying to print new ones.
Johnson: What if your plan backfires, aren't we playing a very dangerous game here? We both know what's going on right now, back east in the old Confederacy, and we really don't need any of that kinda trouble out here in our own woods.
Patman: Kennedy is right about one thing, Patman is up for reelection in a few more months, and at the moment it looks like he pretty much has everything sewn up in the bag. However, the last thing Dewey is gonna want right now is a scandal busting wide open out here in the Republic of Texas, especially if the scandal in question is centered upon the gross incompetence of that idiotic drunk Irishman he sent out here to be his enforcer. Once Kennedy starts flapping his lips about Texas rejoining Mexico, that's the end of him, he's finished. Dewey can't have a story like that floating around in the papers this close to an election, So he's going to have to declare Kennedy incompetent, and get rid of him.
Johnson: (Wistfully) The US is holding all of the cards right now, and they will likely continue to do so far into the foreseeable future.
Patman: (Sighs has he gets up from his desk and walks over to look out a nearby bay window.) Perhaps it is time we start thinking about what is best for our own future, and perhaps things would just be simpler if our students learned to read US history books instead of Texas ones. After all, we are all Americans, right, and this great land of ours was originally settled by people from the United States of America... What do you think, Lyndon?
Johnson: I think that the voters of Texas might be willing to buy into the notion that we are all Americans, provided that the US government decides to treat us like real Americans, and not just a defeated enemy. Anyway you slice it, the Confederate States of America is gone for good, and it is never coming back.
Patman: Ain't that the truth, and maybe thank God as well that it isn't coming back, because when you look at the long and short of it, the CSA never bought the people of Texas anything but misery and humiliation. Bunch of damned no good losers out in Richmond nearly ruined us for good. (Patman thoughtfully gazes through the window glass at the seemingly lonesome flag of Texas flying in front of the president's mansion. The flagpole next to the Texas flag would have normally flown the national flag of the Confederate States of America, but that particular pole has not flown a flag in several years.)
