Special election update! And it's interactive. I now beseech you, my readers, to select the presidents of the United States and the Confederate States of America!
The Poll
Part Thirty-Seven: The Elections of 1864
For Union:
The year 1864 was an election year for both sides of the War Between the States. In the Union, Andrew Johnson stood for reelection alongside New York senator Walt Whitman[1]. Johnson's platform involved the continuation of the war until the Confederacy surrendered. Johnson also stated that while he did oppose slavery on a personal level, he would not support bringing up the question of abolition until the Confederate rebellion had been put down and the Union was preserved. His appointment of New York senator Walt Whitman, a moderate abolitionist and eloquent speaker, gained Johnson approval among many citizens in the north. Johnson and Whitman also supported a quick transition of the Confederate states back into the Union should they surrender, which garnered support from the Texas region and the Appalachian states.
The Republicans renominated John C. Fremont and continued their staunch abolitionist platform and renominated John C. Fremont for president. Along with Fremont, the Republicans put David Wilmot of Pennsylvania as their vice presidential candidate. Wilmot had made a name for himself in the 1830s when he was elected to the House of Representatives and spoke out against president Calhoun's admittance of Tejas and Houston into the Union as slave states. Over the next decades, Wilmot had gained support from many abolitionists in Philadelphia and served over a decade as a Senator before the War Between the States broke out. Fremont and Wilmot called for harsh punishment of the Confederate states for their secession and the immediate emancipation of all slaves in the United States and the Confederacy.
A small splinter group of both Republicans and Democrats formed the Perfect Union Party, which advocated for reconciliation with the Confederacy and a cessation of hostilities between the two sides. Led by Charles P. Bush of Michigan and Oren Cheney of Maine, the Perfect Union Party did not gain much traction but served as a reminder that support for the war was not completely universal in the north. The general election in November of 1864 was heated, with both major parties struggling for the position to decide not just the fate of the Union, but the fate of the Confederacy and the people within.
For Liberty:
In the Confederacy, fully fledged parties had not been formed yet in the first two years in the country's existence. However, separate factions of the Liberty Party vied for control over the state legislatures and the Confederate Congress. The incumbent president, Howell Cobb, led the movement to continue the war and fight for the country's right to be independent. While the military offensives by the Confederacy were not seeing much success, Cobb felt that the Confederacy was slowly gaining ground on the Union and that with enough pushing, they could capture and hold a few important Union cities and force the Union to come to the negotiation table.
In opposition to Cobb in the Liberty Party was Judah P. Benjamin. Benjamin argued that the Confederacy was slowly losing its edge against the Union and that if the state and its ideals wished to survive, it should seek a peaceful solution to the war as soon as possible. Benjamin could see the fractious nature of the structure of the Confederacy with the great autonomy given to the individual states and was concerned that once the Union began gaining major victories, the individual states would attempt to break away and reconcile on their own. With the Confederacy choosing its president in March of 1864, the Union victory in Virginia later that year would serve as a strong vindication for Benjamin's warnings.
[1] Walt Whitman is only 9 at the time of the POD. ITTL, he goes into politics instead of becoming a writer and poet.