Challenge: American Dictatorship

It's surprisingly uncommon to find a pre-1900 American dictatorship. I mean, of all the republics in the Americas - hell, in the world, how many have remained democratic since their inception? A damn sight fewer than those with El Generalissimo taking power, I'll bet. Probably because the board is populated mainly by Americans, the same way you don't see many TLs where the UK is a dictatorship.

Well, then, with a POD after 1795 and before 1900, rid the United States of freedom, liberty, and Mom's Home-Baked Apple Pie! In the words of a certain radical: "ready? go!"
 
America's political system makes it difficult, but then again other nations with strong consitutions have suffered such fates. In the UK making a dictatorship is easy-mode. A modern would, even more so, because Britain's political system is so flexible.

War On Terror - Take Away Rights - Government made Permanent Until the 'War' is over. - War is never over.

It's basically Ceasar and the Roman Republic Take II, if you go down that road.
 
I began mentally on the rudiments of turning America into a dictatorship for a Future History TL a few nights ago. Basically it was a cynical reaction to the way the Democratic race is going. Hillary is being a stereotypical political bitch, trying (and failing) to do to Obama what Bush and Rove did to McCain in 2000, while Obama is sort of trying to 'stay above' that sort of thing.

Well I thought, "What if Clinton is doing this on purpose?" Well, of course she's doing it on purpose, but what if not for the reason we would normally think she is?

Basically, some light-handed social engineering, to boost this JFK-wannabe savior image many Obama-ites are getting of their chosen candidate. An attempt to reinforce this view over a wider audience, and essentially just electioneer the whole thing through the media. 'Conspiracy', in other words.

This is interesting because it can be used as a base for a whole series of fictional political twists and turns. I guess it depends on whether you mean a de facto or de jure dictatorship, though.

But prior to 1900? I don't know how it could be done, would have to think about it for a while.
 
There's a couple of ways to get a U.S. dictatorship before 1900. The easiest alternative is a disaster like the failure to ratify the Consititution, followed by turmoil, until some enterprising person unites the squabbling states under his person fiefdom Shi Huangdi-style. That's ASB-level absurdity.

Another alternative is that you could have the Constitutional Convention decide on a Presidential life term, like was an alternative. That situation would only remain Democratic so long as the President is a scrupulous man. In pre-1900 America? The rise of John Adams as dictator over America is not such an impossibility, when one considers the Alien and Sedition Acts, and that he was Washington's VP, and that Washington died in the late 1790s.

However, if you look later, there's the Civil War-era General Hooker who threatened to become a dictator if he won Chancellorsville, and meant it. Had he won that battle somehow, it's not out of the realm of possibility to see the U.S. experiment fail and fall into military rule.

Another possibility is the Burr conspiracy, with Burr choosing to overthrow the President instead of building an empire in Louisiana, and becoming a dictator then.

There's lots of possibilities, just no likely ones.
 
in the Civil War Lincoln came close to being a dictator, thankfully Lincoln was a saint so things didn't get to out of hand, but if some one else was in the White House who knows how bad things would of gotten.

WI Lincoln dies a little early? the end of the war gets bollocksed up, maybe Johnson dies Seward too. you have a care-taker government headed by Edwin M. Stanton and Radical Republicans they go a little nuts and have Lee and others killed, Reconstruction is hard and the Confederates fight a guerilla war all over the nation, the CSA States aren't let back into the Union all over the nation civil rights brake down and the office of the President become greatly more powerful.
 
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