AHC: Slave to President

NKVD

Frederick Douglass is the only one I know of who could do it. But you'd have to take the Southern electoral votes out of the picture and reduce racism in the North. Even then, I think his best chance is to be elected vice president and then rise to the presidency due to, well...the death of the president.
 

Zuvarq

XNM said:
Frederick Douglass is the only one I know of who could do it. But you'd have to take the Southern electoral votes out of the picture and reduce racism in the North. Even then, I think his best chance is to be elected vice president and then rise to the presidency due to, well...the death of the president.
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If Douglass became the President, would there be a second Civil War?
 

Zuvarq

Derek Jackson said:
No because the institutions of the States of MISSISSIPPI and South Carolina in particular would be in radical hands
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But opponents wouldn't just be in the South, they would be everywhere.

If Obama winning a second term in 2012 was so controversial, think how controversial Douglass would be in the 1870/80s.
 
Jonathan Edelstein

Jonathan Edelstein

If you're willing to look beyond the United States, an ex-slave is the president of the Mauritanian parliament and was a credible presidential contender in both the 2007 and 2009 elections. With a different candidate field in 2007, he might have made the runoff against Sidioca, and after that, it would have been a matter of building alliances.
 

Lycaon pictus

Donor
Here's another idea. A slave, black but light-skinned enough to pass for white, escapes from slavery and arrives north under a new name. He learns to read, studies law, then goes into politics…
 

January First-of-May

Lycaon pictus said:
Here's another idea. A slave, black but light-skinned enough to pass for white, escapes from slavery and arrives north under a new name. He learns to read, studies law, then goes into politics…
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Make him a child carried by his parents at the time of the escape and I could easily imagine that.
Though having no documentation of him being born would probably lead to serious problems if he ever gets into major politics... :D
 

Evan

January First-of-May said:
Make him a child carried by his parents at the time of the escape and I could easily imagine that.
Though having no documentation of him being born would probably lead to serious problems if he ever gets into major politics... :D
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Would that ever have been a problem in the 1800's? I can't imagine anyone on the frontier had birth certificates. At least this person would have gotten documentation from whatever American ambassadors his parents saw after escaping / being rescued, which would probably have been an earlier first documentation than (say) Abraham Lincoln.

Besides, weren't there rumors Chester A. Arthur was born in Canada?
 
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