A House Divided: A TL

#34: The Watch on the Mincio
Could it be? Could it be?

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A House Divided #34: The Watch on the Mincio

"The King will only call on me when he is danger. I will only take the ministry if I can be the master of it."

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Palais des Tuileries
Paris
18 October 1849

“Your Majesty sent for me?”

The King rose from his seat and walked up to the door, something his father had never conceived of. “Yes, of course. Thank you, M. Thiers, for coming on such short notice.”

“It is customary for the King, the President and the Minister of Foreign Affairs to advise and consult each other on matters of high politics, sire. And here we both are.” [1]

“Indeed,” the King replied. Adolphe took the guest’s chair set out in front of the royal desk.

“What matter concerns Your Majesty?”

“It’s Italy, Thiers. Our little war.”

“Yes?”

“You’ve given me your assurance that we can force a decisive battle by marching on Mantua. The Austrians will either submit to siege or come out and challenge us, and the war cannot survive the battle. Cavaignac says the same, as did General Mac-Mahon before he left us.”

“I still believe that to be the case. The great Napoléon was well served by this tactic, and with luck it can see the war over by Christmas.”

“I have my concerns.”

“Indeed, sire?”

“Napoléon led his armies from the front. That was his strength, and the strength of France. Should I not do the same?”

“Napoléon was a military genius first and foremost, trained in the school of battle. With respect, sire, you are not. Mac-Mahon is the best general in France, and he has proven it in Algeria. He is the man to lead our armies in Italy.”

The King sat silent for a while. “None of what you’re saying is wrong, Thiers. Even so, I feel as though I ought to be there. To share the war with my people, come victory or defeat. That is the duty of a king, isn’t it?”

“I have no doubt, sire, that you would acquit yourself well in the field. But you would be putting yourself at risk. You may be useful in Italy, but you are needed here in the city, so that the people can rally around you and your humble servants in the Government.”

They both looked out the window. Outside, across the exercise ground and the fences, was the rue de Rivoli. [2] Far from the poorest district in the city, and yet the King could see underdressed people hurrying from place to place in fear of the cold, and a queue outside a bakery up one of the side streets. And it was only October – things would get worse before they got better.

“All right, Thiers. Let’s stay in Paris, and pray to the Lord for a swift end to the war.”

***

From “Between Scylla and Charybdis: Italy in the Age of Empires”
(c) 1983 by Francis Guadagno
Philadelphia: Historical Press

On October 20, as the traditional campaign season neared its end, the French army crossed the Adda into hitherto Austrian-held land. There was some friction with the locals, some of whom remembered the days when Napoleon and his rivals had fought over Italy for nearly a decade, but most welcomed them as liberators.

A small contingent was sent north, to the foothills of the Alps, to capture the cities of Bergamo and Brescia. Both fell quickly, with only light Austrian garrisons in place. Even though Bergamo’s geography, with a fortified city on a steep hill, lent itself perfectly to a siege, all efforts were spent on the Quadrilateral, to which Bergamo would be an indefensible salient.

The main thrust, both sides knew, would come at Mantua. Both the largest and most exposed of the Quadrilateral cities, [3] Mantua would need to be forced by any army looking to relieve Venice. Knowing this, Radetzky opted to mass his army, which still outnumbered the Franco-Italian force, between Mantua and Peschiera, in preparation for a decisive engagement.

The engagement came on the November 3, at Castiglione delle Stiviere. In the largest battle held in Europe since the fall of Napoleon, 82,000 French and Italian soldiers faced 96,000 Austrians, and some thirty thousand were either killed, wounded or captured on both sides. It was a hard day for both armies, but when the dust settled, the French held the field.

Radetzky retreated into Verona, but the bulk of his army stayed in Mantua. MacMahon, borrowing a page from the Napoleonic playbook, raced to cross the Mincio and surround Mantua before Radetzky could relieve the city. A second, smaller battle ensued by the bridge at Goito, where the French advanced through Austrian artillery to secure a bridgehead. The Austrians inflicted heavy casualties, but were unable to stop the French advance, and by the 7th, Mantua was surrounded.

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France and its Italian allies now held all the land west of the Adige and south of the Po (excepting the still-ambivalent Papal States), and seriously threatened the Austrian position from the west. To the east, the city of Venice was still in rebellion, guarded by the width of its lagoon. The Austrians still held two Quadrilateral forts, Verona and Legnago, and Mantua could possibly have been relieved through a concerted effort. But by the time Radetzky had gotten his army back into something resembling fighting shape, the French chokehold on the city had been established.

And things only got worse. Austria had a tacit policy of stationing troops away from their homelands, so few of Radetzky’s men were Italians, but many were Croats from the Military Frontier, which was at that moment being invaded by Magyars under the Imperial flag. They were beginning to question their masters, and few were eager to return to the breach. Radetzky, ever cautious, began to fear that a winter of sitting still would destroy his army – so, ever the loyal soldier, he drew up plans to relieve Mantua immediately and sent them along to the court in Vienna.

He was surprised to find Vienna rejecting his plan and ordering him to stand down…

***

From “Power and Glory: European Empires in the 19th Century”
(c) 1981 by Dr. William Henderson
New Orleans: National Publishers

The Congress of Karlsruhe was the brainchild of Austrian Minister-President Schwarzenberg, who came to power after the tumult of 1849 and sought above all to prevent those risings from turning into a second great cycle of revolutionary war. The French campaign in Italy had threatened his plans, but Lombardy had more or less definitively fallen by the time he could react. The peace feelers sent out to Paris in early December 1849 hinted that this fait accompli would be recognized, and that was enough for Thiers to entertain the proposal.

It was decided that the peace negotiations should be held on neutral ground, and the capital of Baden – German, but liberal and vaguely pro-French – proved a suitable venue. In the huge ducal palace surrounded by a circular garden, negotiations went on through the winter and early spring, and the peace was signed on the 8th of April by Austria, Prussia, France, the Two Sicilies and several smaller German and Italian states. It was actually divided into three documents – one establishing peace between Austria and France on an ostensible status quo ante bellum basis, one “reorganizing” the German Confederation into basically its pre-1849 shape, and one establishing a new Italian Confederation to go along with it.

The last of these was the Congress’ really significant achievement. Initially, Schwarzenberg had wanted the Confederation to include Austria as President, like its German counterpart, but this was unacceptable to the French, who preferred a solution where Corsica would nominally be included and King Philippe named “Protector of Italy”. The decision eventually reached was to exclude both great powers from the Confederation, and make the Pope its head. Pius IX expressed some concern over the notion of gaining temporal power over the entire peninsula, but the weakness of the Confederation and the symbolic nature of its presidency made this a lesser point of importance. The true driving force in the Confederation, instead, would be the ever-energetic Francis II of the Two Sicilies…

***

From “Between Scylla and Charybdis: Italy in the Age of Empires”
(c) 1983 by Francis Guadagno
Philadelphia: Historical Press

It was Francis who resolved the question of how to deal with the republics in Piedmont and Lombardy (Venetia and Mantua remaining in Austrian hands). The idea of two revolutionary republics in between Europe’s two largest military powers was none too appealing to the powers at the Congress, and while the Savoyards could be restored to Piedmont, the idea of Lombardy and Piedmont being fused into one north Italian kingdom was just as threatening to European stability. So, it was reasoned, Lombardy should be made an independent grand duchy. Francis’ contribution was to suggest a suitable grand duke – his uncle Leopold, who was nearly sixty years old but had two adult sons to succeed him. [4] Leopold was a Protestant, which caused some concern in Catholic Italy, but the Milanese had always been somewhat independent-minded Catholics, [5] and Leopold’s liberalism weighed far more heavily for them than his religion.

Leopold_I.jpg

Grand Duke Leopold I of Lombardy was proclaimed by the Lombard executive council on May 3, after Cattaneo had resigned in disgust, and his arrival in the city a few days later was greeted by huge cheering crowds. He would rule the territory until 1871, when he died of a stroke aged 80, and between Lombardy and the Two Sicilies, the Saxe-Coburg-Gotha dynasty would play a pivotal role in the slow unification of Italy.

***

[1] Thiers would nearly always serve as his own foreign affairs minister – so too now.

[2] The Haussmann renovations haven’t happened so far ITTL, so the medieval labyrinth of streets and alleyways still exists in all its resplendence. The rue de Rivoli still exists, forming the north side of the Tuileries complex, but it stops a block or two ahead of the Palais-Royal.

[3] As a refresher, the Quadrilateral consists of: Mantua (the biggest of the fortresses) just off the meeting of the Po and the Mincio in the southeast, Peschiera at the outflow of Lake Garda into the Mincio in the northwest, Verona at the foothills on the Adige in the northeast, and Legnago further down the Adige in the southeast. Together, they prevented any army from moving into Venetia – the northern flank was guarded by the Alps and Lake Garda, and the southern flank by the Po, which was wide enough that crossings could be easily repelled.

[4] Leopold became King of the Belgians IOTL, but obviously no Belgium exists ITTL, so he languishes as a minor German nobleman for quite a while. Unlike OTL, where he married Louis-Philippe’s daughter, ITTL he marries a minor German noblewoman who bears him at least two healthy children. IOTL his first son died in infancy, and his second son was Leopold II, who… well, suffice it to say the word “healthy” is probably pushing it.

[5] The Archdiocese of Milan and surrounding areas actually practices a different rite of worship from that of the Latin Church as a whole. Known as the Ambrosian Rite after legendary 4th-century Bishop Ambrose, who may or may not have invented it, it features small but noticeable differences to nearly every aspect of Church life.
 
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Map of Europe, 1850
And as this is the last of our updates dealing with the Revolutions of 1849, here's a map of the post-revolutionary political settlement.

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Not many international borders have actually changed, as you can tell - within each country, OTOH...
 
Part of the credit goes to @Comisario, who originally suggested Albert as an alternative monarch for the Two Sicilies when we discussed it a year and a bit ago.

It's a good idea, tbh. It sure seemed like that family could not help but being overly ambitious for your typical minor German noble house. Kind of wonder what that'll do to the Italian unification, as you hint at.
 
Not to puncture everyone's joy (or pretend it doesn't warm my heart), but there's only one update to go before Act I is done and dusted, and as I've said before, I don't intend to post Act II on this forum. Indeed, the next step now (well, after #35, which wraps up the Mexican-American War) is probably to restructure, reorder and clean up the writing in Act I and republish it on Sea Lion Press.
 

Deleted member 109224

Surviving Orleanist France? This should be nice.

When can we expect a map of the United States and California?
 
#34: Young Americans
Hello everyone. I'm sure you've been waiting for this, and I'm very sorry it took me this long. I'm also sorry to say the maps will have to come in later, as I'm away from my usual computer. This is the final part of Act I, which means I'd like to package it with one final call for entries for the "Where are they now?" update. I've got a list of all the names you've asked about, and they will get done in good time, hopefully less than six months this time.

Without further ado, here we go - and a happy new decade!

A House Divided #34: Young Americans

“There are only two sides to this question. Every man must be for the United States or against it. There can be no neutrals in this matter; only patriots and traitors.”

***

From “The Mexican War”
(c) 1999 by Spencer Gage III
Athens: University of Georgia Press

The Battle of Angostura (January 17-18, 1850) marked the end of effective Mexican resistance to the U.S. advance. Before it, although far from the most cohesive fighting force in history, the Mexican Army was able to marshal a serious effort to prevent Taylor from advancing south. After it, more and more officers came to see the war as a lost cause, and supporters of Bustamante and Santa Anna (who was still professing his loyalty to the President at every opportunity) began to position themselves for the post-war power struggle. The usual quote is that the two sides “came to hate each other more than they hated the Americans”, and while this is hyperbole, it’s not too far from the truth…

…The American cause was further bolstered in March, when Sterling Price’s column came out of the northwest and joined Taylor’s army. Of the original 900 volunteer cavalrymen who’d marched out of Santa Fe with Price, only about a third were still in the saddle after nine months, but those three hundred men were hardened veterans of desert warfare. Price was promoted to brigadier general and given command of the Volunteer Division’s Third Brigade, a unit that included two more volunteer cavalry regiments and two regiments of volunteer infantry. Taylor hoped that this would allow the First Missouri to spread its knowledge to the other volunteers without the usual tactic of disbanding the regiment and spreading their men around, which he was prevented from doing… [1]

…Taylor’s strategy remained to push down the center of Mexico and eventually approach Mexico City itself, but as he went south from Saltillo, it became clear that his supply lines were seriously threatened. Price was sent north with two thousand men to fortify the garrisons in Monterey, Saltillo and Laredo, but encountered opposition from Mexican militias led by Santiago Vidaurri, Governor of New Leon. [2] The Papagayos Incident, as the biggest skirmish was called, saw the deaths of around twenty men on each side, and marked the end of direct confrontation in the Rio Grande theater. From now on, the war would be centered in the heart of Mexico…

***


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Excerpts of the Treaty of Peace, Friendship, Limits and Settlement between the United States of America, the California Republic and the Mexican Republic
Signed at Santiago de Querétaro on August 24, 1850

Article I.

There shall be firm and universal peace between the United States of America, the California Republic and the Mexican Republic, and between their respective countries, territories, cities, towns, and people, without exception of places or persons.

[…]

Article V.

The Mexican Republic acknowledges the complete independence and sovereignty of the California Republic, renounces all claims upon its territory and people, and pledges firm and universal peace with it.

Mexicans living in the territory of the California Republic who, shall not preserve the character of citizens of the Mexican republic, conformably with what is stipulated in the preceding article, shall be incorporated into the California Republic, and be admitted as soon as possible to the enjoyment of all the rights of citizens thereof, according to the principles of the constitution; and in the meantime shall be maintained and protected in the free enjoyment of their liberty and property, and secured in the free exercise of their religion without restriction. [3]

Article VI.

The northern boundary line of the Mexican Republic shall commence in the Gulf of Mexico, three leagues from land, opposite the mouth of the Panuco River; from thence up the middle of that river, following the deepest channel where it has more than one, to the point where it strikes the northern boundary of the Mexican department of Veracruz; thence, along the northern boundaries of the Mexican departments of Veracruz, San Luis Potosí, Zacatecas, and Durango; and from the point where the Mexican departments of Durango, Chihuahua and Sinaloa meet, following a direct line to the Gulf of California meeting said Gulf at the middle point of the channel at the northernmost end of the island of Altamura; and finally proceeding into the middle of the Gulf and around the tip of the California Peninsula. [4]

The eastern boundary line of the California Republic, all territories east of which and north of Mexico shall fall under the jurisdiction of the United States, shall be determined by a commission of plenipotentiaries of the California Republic and the United States, to be appointed by a separate treaty between the aforesaid republics.

***

Population data for the United States, 1850
From “Twenty Censuses: America Through the Ages”
(c) 1982 by Dr Arthur Williamson (ed.)
Washington: United States Census Bureau


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***

Population data for the California Republic, 1851
Appendix to “Twenty Censuses: America Through the Ages”
(c) 1982 by Dr Arthur Williamson (ed.)
Washington: United States Census Bureau


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***

From “Henry Clay: Life of a Statesman”
(c) 1973 by Dr. Adam Greene
New Orleans: Stephens & Co.

With the war with Mexico ended, Clay would have his final blaze of congressional glory. In a speech to the Senate on the 15th of September, the day after the Treaty of Queretaro arrived in Washington, Clay heavily criticized the Treaty, calling it the result of a Southern delegation gone mad with power. A Republican amendment to remove all but California, New Mexico and Texas from the area ceded failed by 33-19, and the Treaty was eventually approved by the Senate in more or less its original content. [6]

It was not in opposing the Treaty that Clay would make his name for the last time, then, but in the organization of the territories now gained by the United States. California, deep in debt and with only the United States to turn to for help, soon abandoned its experiment with independence and applied for annexation much as Texas had a decade before. The annexation bill reached Congress in February of 1851, and unlike with Texas, it faced little determined opposition outside the usual circle of northern Republicans. It passed both houses by safe margins, and on March 31, California became part of the United States.

The new state’s position on slavery would be the cause of the most raucous debate. The California Republic’s constitution had not explicitly banned slavery, but nor had it explicitly condoned it, and only a handful of slaves were present in its territory. The Missouri Compromise line split Upper California down the middle, with the line meeting the sea just south of the capital in Monterey. And to make things worse, most of the potentially arable land (though still dry at this point in time) was north of the line, in the Sacramento Valley.

A constitutional convention was assembled in Monterey to settle the issue, but with communications slow, it would take months to settle on a constitution and send it to Washington for approval. In the meantime, heady disputes opened up in the Senate, as southern senators attempted to pre-empt the Monterey Convention and arrange for the explicit extension of slavery to California. William Yancey and Abel Upshur continued to argue that the U.S. Constitution explicitly protected the right to property, including in slaves, and that any law attempting to limit the institution was unconstitutional – even after their viewpoint had been defeated so spectacularly in the fight over the Lincoln Amendment. This time, they gained even less traction outside their narrow circle of radical pro-slavery southerners…

…Clay’s eventual solution, obvious in hindsight, was to simply admit California as two states – one free, one slave – and make the Missouri Compromise line the border between the two. This would, in time, turn out to be less than the ideal boundary it seemed at the time, but it satisfied both sides of Congress. Texas, having been admitted with the promise of future division, was also split in half, and to prevent the balance in the Senate from being affected, the sparsely-settled territory of Itasca was promised statehood as soon as a government could be organized. It would not be admitted in time for the 1852 presidential election, though, leading to a great deal of rumbling among northern voices in the years after the “Second Great Compromise”…

…With his legislative efforts complete for the year, and prospects looking bleak for the autumn’s presidential election, Clay left Washington on the Baltimore and Ohio in June of 1852. The old senator looked forward to a summer in his home state, consulting with local party leaders and preparing for the fight to come, but destiny would make other plans. Soon after arriving at Ashland, Clay suffered a repeat bout of tuberculosis. This time, both he and Lucretia could tell he wouldn’t survive.

Henry Clay passed away on the 4th of July, surrounded by his wife, children, grandchildren, servants, and slaves. He’d been born into an America whose very existence as a nation was in question, and left it a strong, continent-spanning republic whose population was equal to Great Britain’s. For much of the three-quarter-century in between, Clay was in the middle of politics, shaping the country he loved into its familiar form. We owe much to him – probably more than most of us realize. [7]

***

From “The Statistical Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections”
(c) 1992 by Horace Finkelstein (ed.)
New Orleans: Pelican Books


1852: The Birth of Young America

Held in the immediate aftermath of the Mexican War, the 1852 election marks the beginning of the “Young America” era of the Democratic Party. Elements of the new course had been seen in the 1848 election, with the diverse factions of the party united by an agenda focused on expansion and aggressive nationalism, but Thomas Hart Benton was fundamentally a man of the old Jacksonian democracy. With his decision not to run for a second term in 1852, citing the advance of old age, [8] the stage was set for the new forces to take control and shape the party’s destiny as well as that of the nation.

The man who shaped the ideology of Young America was Stephen Arnold Douglas, who at the time of the 1852 election was representing his home state of Illinois in the U.S. Senate. Like Benton, he was a determined and headstrong advocate for his party in that body, but unlike Benton, he was a young man, raised in the Age of Jackson, who had devoted all his energy to the modernization and rationalization of the Democratic ideology. Douglas believed in territorial expansion, westward settlement, national pride, support for democratization abroad, free trade, but also a number of issues thought unorthodox by the Democratic old guard. Most notably, he was an eager advocate of industrialization and internal improvements, who had voted for the Morehead Act and helped sell it to his fellow Democrats as a member of the House six years before. Sometimes this unorthodoxy aided the South as well, such as his support for introducing popular sovereignty as a solution to the slavery issue; we have no way of telling how things would have turned out had he been allowed to bring this vision to life, [9] because in his years as President he abided by the terms of the Second Great Compromise.

By comparison to the unruly state of the Democratic Party at the 1844 and (to a lesser extent) 1848 elections, the 1852 Democratic National Convention was a spectacular show of unity – Douglas was nominated on the second ballot with a sizeable majority. There were minor groups who dissented both in New York, where the Locofocos distrusted Douglas’ moderate stance on slavery, [10] and much more prominently in the Deep South, where William R. King enjoyed monolithic support much like that of Upshur four years prior. Douglas would shore up support in the southern wing of the party by selecting fellow Senator and former Speaker of the House Robert M. T. Hunter of Virginia as his running mate, a decision that was approved by a near-unanimous convention. [11]


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Stephen A. Douglas, Senator from Illinois
Democratic nominee for President, 1852
The Republicans, meanwhile, were having a harder time finding their man. The now 75-year-old Henry Clay wisely decided to bow out and would die before election day; Daniel Webster briefly wanted to try, but his star was on the wane after he’d opposed the Lincoln Amendment and inflamed opinions in his state. The new generation of Republicans included few men of similar renown – there was plenty of talent, but few if any of these homines novi displayed national popularity as Webster and Clay had. [12] William Dayton, Thomas Corwin, John Jordan Crittenden, Joshua Giddings, Hamilton Fish – all these men tried to claim the prize at the 1852 convention, and all have largely passed unnoticed into the annals of history. James Turner Morehead had name recognition, but as a supporter of harsh action against fugitive slaves, he was far too controversial in the North to be seriously considered.

So, the nomination fell to Edward Everett, ex-Governor of Massachusetts. Everett was known as an eloquent and persuasive orator, whose long speeches swayed minds and aroused the public interest, but also as a shrewd politician who was willing to compromise on values if it meant achieving a workable political settlement. This hardly endeared him to ardent Whig partisans in his home state, the focal point of radical abolitionism in pre-1870s America, but they made him a respected figure within the national party, and ultimately handed him the nomination in the crowded field of the 1852 convention. For regional balance, Everett was joined on the ticket by a fellow former Governor, James Chamberlain Jones of Tennessee. Jones had governed his state during the early Mangum era, when the Republican Party was at its zenith of national power, and built the Tennessee Republicans into one of the strongest branches of the party. [13]


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Edward Everett, fmr. Governor of Massachusetts
Republican nominee for President, 1852

The campaign was a spirited affair, as usual, but it rapidly became clear that, much as the Republican candidates were men of ability and renown, they hadn’t captured the public imagination in anywhere near the same way as Stephen Douglas…

…Election Day came and went, and the result was clear. At age 39, Stephen Douglas had become the youngest president in the history of the United States…


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***

[1] As discussed in chapter #24, the way the US Army pre-Civil War worked was that a small core of regular troops was kept in peacetime, which would be bolstered in wartime by volunteer recruitment. The volunteer units were raised by private citizens and/or state governments, and their states exercised administrative control over them even as they were subject to the command of regular army officers. This is obviously not a great way to run an army, which is why it changed as soon as they had to deal with a major conflict.

[2] IOTL, Vidaurri was one of the leading conservative centralists in northeast Mexico during the 1840s, but broke with them after the Mexican-American War and joined the liberal Revolution of Ayutla in 1854. He switched sides again when the Constitution of 1857 rearranged the northeastern states, merging his native Nuevo León with Coahuila, and backed the French in their attempts to create a Mexican Empire. He was also chummy with the Confederacy, and his open-door policy toward Confederate trade greatly helped the CSA secure its arms supply during the Civil War. He was executed by the patriotic army as the French were driven out in 1867.

[3] This is the major difference from OTL’s Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which only involved the US and Mexico, and deliberately avoided mentioning claims of sovereignty over Texas and California in favor of just stating what the new border would be. Here, it’s deemed necessary to have Mexico formally recognize California as an independent state in the treaty text.

[4] A fairly sizeable chunk of northern Mexico is ceded to the US in addition to its OTL gains; this is because, with the Missouri Compromise line extended to the Pacific, the southern interest is even more adamant about pushing for major territory south of the line.

[5] This is complete and utter spitballing on my part. IOTL, the 1850 Census lost the data from several counties, none of which were included in the official population estimate of 92,597. The population of the state was most likely around 120,000, but that’s at the height of the gold rush, which hasn’t quite taken off yet ITTL. My spitball estimate is somewhere in between that and the circa 1840 population of eight thousand whites. Likewise, Mexico didn’t conduct an official census until 1895, but population estimates for the mid-19th century have the total population of the country at about half what it was then, so I’m assuming Baja California follows that trend. The round number is because the region is barely under Californian control, so I imagine the census ran into difficulties there.

[6] Believe it or not, this sort of thing happened IOTL with the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which the Senate seemed to have viewed as less of a definite agreement and more of a rough draft to be tinkered with to their heart’s content. Jefferson Davis tried to amend the Treaty to add most of northeast Mexico to the US, while Whig senator George Washington Badger did the same but to remove all territorial gains aside from Texas. Both amendments failed by lopsided margins.

[7] Clay lives a few days longer than OTL, mainly to add a poetic twist at the end – John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, of course, both also died on the Fourth (and in the same year, no less). He also dies at Ashland and not in Washington.

[8] IOTL, Benton died in 1858, aged 76, and remained active in Missouri state politics even after he’d been shut out of the Senate by radical pro-slavery forces in the legislature. ITTL, however, the strain of leading the country – and leading it into war at that – takes its toll, and his life will be shortened by a fair amount.

[9] Spoiler alert: things would’ve turned out very badly indeed.

[10] The Locofoco faction has now largely blended with the group we know as the Barnburners IOTL – the continued prominence of Martin van Buren in the state party enabled the former group to carry on long enough to take in most of the generation of anti-slavery Democrats who in his absence would form the latter group.

[11] Hunter was a titan of the southern Democratic Party in the 1850s, chairing the Senate Finance Committee for the entirety of the decade. He generally supported the mainline orthodoxy of the party, but with an emphasis on securing a future for the institution of slavery, which made him popular in his home state and the wider South. After having his name put forward at the chaotic 1860 convention and failing to win any support outside those few southern delegates who hadn’t bolted in disgust, he returned to his state, where he tried and failed to persuade it to stay in the Union. Accepting the inevitability of secession, he was elected as one of Virginia’s Confederate senators, and became President pro tempore of the Confederate States Senate for the entire duration of that body’s existence.

[12] IOTL, this problem was staved off when Zachary Taylor suddenly and unexpectedly declared himself a Whig and stated that he would not refuse the nomination if presented with it, despite never having voted before in his life and generally having shown no interest in politics. He doesn’t do this ITTL, and this makes things quite interesting.

[13] Jones was in largely the same place IOTL, but by the 1850s he’d grown more and more disillusioned by the Whig Party’s domination by northerners who opposed first the Fugitive Slave Act and then the Kansas-Nebraska Act – the latter would cause him to switch parties and campaign for Buchanan in 1856. He died in 1859, aged only 50, and much like Douglas, he could probably have gone on to great things if he hadn’t been so out of step with the factions that were forming at the time.
 
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Great to see another update to a TL I very much enjoy. This was a very nice surprise to end off the year. Looking forward to seeing maps once you get the chance. Happy New Year's Eve everyone!
 
Glad to see this back before the decade ends! Looks like slavery gets to extend deep into the West (albeit without a lot of prime California agricultural land) -- and Joseph Smith's IOTL prophecy about Pres. Stephen Douglas comes true! Wonder what a Douglas presidency portends for the Mormons...
 

Deleted member 109224

No Bleeding Kansas and the South has lots more lands for slavery... but those lands aren't all that great for Cotton Production.

That bit about California seems ominous. 36-30 means that much of the San Joaquin Valley is in slave-state SoCal. I wonder if we'll end up with a southern railroad here.
There may be tensions between the Mexicans in what is now the American Southwest and the Slavers. The American Latino lobby is going to be larger TTL given how the US just annexed 600,000 more people than historically (going off of populstat.info).

No Mexican North means a more centralized Mexico. Historically most opposition to Mexico City was in the north. Juarez's capital-in-exile was in today's Juarez. This can mean big butterflies for Mexican development. Viva Emperador Maximiliano?

I imagine the Civil War will be delayed without Kansas-Nebraska, but Dred Scott is still going to come up in 1857.
 
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