Chapter 6- The Party of Lincoln (Sort Of)
"Honest Abe cost us the goddamn South in his first two years. If we give him another four, I expect he'll parcel away New England to the limeys!"
-Senator Charles Buckalew (D-PN), in a journal entry shortly before the 1864 election
"I have, throughout the preceding two years, been referred to time and time again as a traitor for failing to keep what is now the Confederate States under the control of this government. But I would like to point out that I had very few choices available to me in the tactical sphere, specifically as to which commanders I had control over in that conflict. The finger of blame must be pointed not at me for being presented with a
fait accompli from the British and French, but at my main opponent on this debate stage for displaying such profound incompetence that I had no choice but to surrender in order to avoid war with not just the Confederacy, but with Britain and France as well. I pose this valuable question: in the event that General McClellan is elected, what guarantee is there that he will handle the business of government better than the business of stopping Robert E. Lee?"
-Abraham Lincoln during the 1864 presidential debates
"Given that both the major candidates were in such disgrace, the American voter had absolutely no reason to trust either Lincoln, the failed president, or McClellan, the failed general. Virtually anyone, I am sure, could have beaten them. John C Fremont was the right man in the right place at the right time- and he knew what the American people wanted to hear, and he told them just that. As such, victory fell into his lap."
-Robert F. Cunningham, political scientist at the University of Vancouver, Columbia, in the preface to his 1964 work
The Core Union
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The US Presidential election of 1864 was remarkable for a number of reasons. For a start, it was the fifth election in US history where more than two candidates faced off against each other. In this case, election night featured Abraham Lincoln running on the Republican ticket with Hannibal Hamlin returning as vice-president (1). George McClellan was running as the Democrat, and his vice-presidential choice was George Pendelton. However, another man saw the division and sensed a real chance: John C. Fremont. Selecting Charles Sumner as his vice-presidential candidate, Fremont ran as an independent, on the platform of "oppose the Rebs wherever and whenever we can, no diplomatic relations with Richmond (because the Treaty of London never specified that the USA and CSA had to have ambassadors) and generally get ready to march on Richmond as soon as possible." To further this, he founded the Radical Democracy Party. By contrast, McClellan advocated letting bygones be bygones, and saying "good riddance" to the Confederacy. Lincoln's was a more moderate, centrist voice. Given that both Lincoln and McClellan were pretty much in disgrace over their conduct of the war, and that the entire country was incredibly pissed off at the Confederacy, and desperately wanted to go knocking heads together down in Dixieland, it was no surprise when Fremont emerged victorious.
The question of why Fremont won such a landslide victory has been hotly debated by political scientists for a century and a half, but some general conclusions have been reached. For a start, both Lincoln and McClellan were in a state of disgrace for obvious reasons. They only exacerbated this problem by spending much of their time on the debate stage sniping at each other, trying to convince the voters that he was not at fault for losing the war and that the other one's ineptitude was to blame for putting him in an unworkable position. This meant that little actual policy was discussed. American voters, not surprisingly, found very little in this infighting to be inspired by. What they basically wanted to know was how things were going to get better from here. And Fremont delivered them that promise. In his campaign, he vowed to restructure the American economy to make it a first-class industrial power (seeing as how 60% of the country's exports had just vanished) and to attract capital from other European states aside from Britain and France. Additionally, he promised to keep the American military strong to prevent a second catastrophe like this from ever occurring. Furthermore, Fremont advocated finding allies for the United States to match the Anglo-Franco-Confederate entente. Such new allies, he argued, could provide a useful source of financial aid for the USA, along with a source of military support. However, Fremont did not name any names. The one weak spot in his campaign was that it was clear that the new proposals- a stronger military and more focus on industry- would cost a great deal of money, and the USA was already fairly cash-strapped, had just lost most of its export capacity, and was on bad terms with the two strongest powers in the world. This meant that wartime taxes would have to stay on the books, something which Lincoln and McClellan were both quick to point out.
Nonetheless, Fremont ended up winning by a sizeable amount. However, the nature of the victory came as a surprise of sorts to political analysts, and set the tone for future election years.To be sure, everyone had known that the Republicans wouldn't carry many states, and the fact that the Midwest voted Republican was also fairly expected. In future years, the Midwest would be the Republican Party's main source of support. Lincoln was clearly at the end of his political rope, and a new leader and new ideology would be needed for the Republicans to carry on as a viable party and to remove the stain of defeat. The situation for the Democrats, however, was worse. With the exception of New Jersey, every state which voted for McClellan was culturally part of the South. This was a paltry total of twenty electoral votes, plus three for New Jersey. The Democratic Party had based itself off of being the party of the South, the party of slaveholders. Now, though, there was one small problem... their main constituency had just seceded from the Union. Oops. If the Democrats were to survive, a dynamic leader would be required, one a good deal more vibrant and skilled than McClellan.
The new Fremont administration was quick to shape what the United States would look like for decades. Indeed, the term "Fremont Era", referring to the period in American politics between 1864 and the end of World War II, is an accurate term indeed. Essentially, Fremont (who had a fairly solid Radical Democracy majority in both House and Senate) wanted to keep the USA at near-wartime levels permanently, so as to continue to menace both the Confederacy and hostile Canada. The Union Army was kept at approximately 225,000 men. This was fairly easy to do, as it simply entailed not giving most of the young men in the field their demobilisations. The US Army was also seriously reorganised in Fremont's four years, a project which the president himself took personal interest in. The Army of the Potomac, now commanded by Major General Henry Halleck, was 75,000-strong and based in Baltimore. Its responsibilities covered everything between the Kentucky border and the Atlantic Ocean. General William Tecumseh Sherman, who had impressed higher-ups with his ability to get things done during the war, found himself in command of the Army of the West. It too had a strength of 75,000, and was headquartered in Columbia, Missouri. Although it was stretched out over a much wider area than Halleck's force, it would still hopefully vastly outnumber Confederate forces in the theatre. As Great Britain was now seen as a hopelessly hostile enemy, it was deemed necessary to garrison the Canadian border extensively as well. Ulysses S Grant, whose performance in the Dixie Revolution had been merely average, managed to work his way up the ranks quickly, currying favour with the right people and generally displaying a high degree of competence, managed to get himself promoted to general. He was entrusted with command of the Army of New England, which contained 50,000 men. Meanwhile, General George Custer found himself out on the wide prairie of the West, commanding the Army of Oregon, 25,000-strong. A further 20,000 soldiers were kept for garrisoning the country, and were scattered across various military bases. The Union Navy was also expanded, with ironclad warships becoming the latest invention. However, a modern navy was inordinately expensive, and as such Fremont was forced to limit the scope of his naval ambitions. Most of the Union Navy was centred in New York and Boston, where it would be expected to protect the east coast from British ships (the Confederate Navy not being much of a factor at this point.) All of this preparedness was generally popular, but it did mean that society as a whole in the 1860s became a lot more militaristic. Although Fremont was careful to follow the Constitution in every particular, there were fears that he was opening Pandora's Box, and that a hyper-powerful US Army could launch a coup at some point and place a powerful general in the White House
ad infinitum.
One area where Fremont and the Radical Democracy Party borrowed heavily from Lincoln and the Republicans was in the issues of slavery and civil rights. The Radical Democracy-dominated 1865 Congress passed the Abolition Act by an 85% majority, and the Civil Rights Act passed with 60%. Together, these twin pieces of legislation emancipated all enslaved people remaining in the USA, while at the same time making any form of racial discrimination illegal. These laws were passed and signed not because Fremont had any great love for black people, but because he recognised the immense propaganda value of their situation. While the CSA was letting pirates cross the Atlantic to capture Africans for slavery, the USA was banning discrimination based on colour! Many Republicans- Lincoln included- wholeheartedly backed these two laws. Owing to this, some began to refer to the Radical Democracy Party as the "Party of Lincoln", although it was not in truth a very fitting description. As a snub to Washington, who after all had been born in what was now the CSA, Fremont moved the federal capital to Philadelphia, annexed Washington, DC to Maryland, and then proceeded to rename the former capital Franklinburg.
It was immensely clear that the Radical Democrats were not going anywhere anytime soon. John C Fremont had catapulted himself into the position of one of the most important presidents in US history, setting trends which would remain for over forty years and the after-effects of which are still being felt today. And if you don't believe me, just ask the first Franklinburger you see...
POTUS #17, founder of the Radical Democracy Party.
