The Democratic Party was the number one party in the USA before the ACW but died out soon after a CSA victory from French intervention. Is there any way for it to survive to the present day?
The Democratic Party was the number one party in the USA before the ACW but died out soon after a CSA victory from French intervention. Is there any way for it to survive to the present day?
I think you mean the Confederate War of Independence. If the CS lost, the US would have a conservative backwater, so thank goodness for the Confederate victory.
For the Democrats to survive, you could maybe have Andrew Johnson, a Unionist Southerner, gain the Democratic nomination in 1868. Maybe he could redeem the Democrats after being the Party of Defeat. However, I doubt it would be enough to avoid the emergence of the rightist Liberal Party to take away the Democratic votes.
Black people would almost certainly been better off with a Union victory. After all the Emancipation Proclamation went into effect and a couple hundred thousand or so Blacks were freed under it. If it won they all would have been freed. As is they were slaves until 1925 and then more or less serfs until 2005. Even now they are second hand citizens at best.
Ummm...being termed "citizen" infers the right to vote and full government participation. Even "redeemed negroes" only hold the title of "permanent resident". Heck, ever since the withdrawal of French sovereignty in the French Quarter of New Orleans even liberal Louisiana was forced to end its practice of allowing blacks to have slaves and vote in state wide elections.
In the Union blacks gained the right to vote in the Homestead States pretty much from the start and following the Supreme Court decision of Kennedy v. the State of Colorado states were free to allow any citizen over the age of 18 to vote in national elections. By 1876 women could vote in 2/3 of all states and blacks had regained the vote throughout the Northeast.
Benjamin
Black people would almost certainly been better off with a Union victory. After all the Emancipation Proclamation went into effect and a couple hundred thousand or so Blacks were freed under it. If it won they all would have been freed. As is they were slaves until 1925 and then more or less serfs until 2005. Even now they are second hand citizens at best.
The Democratic Party was the number one party in the USA before the ACW but died out soon after a CSA victory from French intervention. Is there any way for it to survive to the present day?
OOC: A lot of this stuff is good, but to be honest, that bit about McClellan turning into an actual dictator(and arresting most of the Republicans? Really?) isn't believable, I'm afraid-I really do think we should toss it out for plausibility's sake.
I don't think so. Sadly for the Democrats, their party would become a total pariah after the War of the Secession, and many of the immigrants who might have otherwise saved it, had flocked either to the Republicans or the new Federalist Party(which gave us President Sam Tilden, who was assassinated by a Know-Nothing in 1885, and Chester Arthur who followed him), thus dooming them.
As for McClellan? He was incompetent, yes, and a bit too willing to look away from some of his shadier fellow Democrats, but he was no dictator.
OOC: A lot of this stuff is good, but to be honest, that bit about McClellan turning into an actual dictator(and arresting most of the Republicans? Really?) isn't believable, I'm afraid-I really do think we should toss it out for plausibility's sake.
IC: By the way, doesn't anybody else find it quite ironic that the French would ultimately share responsibility for the demise of the C.S.A. after the North American War? Remember, by the time of Napo3's death in 1872, the French public felt fairly embarrassed about what happened, so much so that they wholeheartedly cheered the arrival of Louis Trochu when the Republic was restored again in September of that year; interestingly enough, it was Trochu himself who started the trend to repair their relationship with the U.S., which eventually blossomed into a true friendship by the 1890s.
But what if the French hadn't gotten involved in the American Civil War? Would Louis Trochu have amounted to as much? And could the C.S.A. have even survived at all, let alone for the time that it did(just a tad over half a century), in our world?
McClellan was an idiot, a scoundrel and a traitor.
Even with the French aid the South was losing, France had to fight both us and try to prop up their failing puppet state in mexico. They were bleeding men and treasure and were doomed.
The only consolation is that we were able to keep all of out western gains and maintain our control off the missippi river. God imagine if we had let that fool have his way in the entirety, Texas and the missippi river in conferate hands they would have collapsed our economy three times over!
The 1890s was the start of better relations with France but more baby steps than anything else. The US was still furious at France over its actions in the ACW and all the effort was made by the French. The French wisely remained patient and by 1900 some effort was being made by the US government to reach an understanding.
From what I understand, the French were ashamed of having helped the slaveocrats in Richmond, which prompted them to attempt to mend their relations with the Union.
True enough, but people hold grudges. It took about ten years of patient French effort before the US let bygones be bygones. Of course the Union soldiers of that war starting to die out helped.
Its less we let bygones be bygones and more that we decided to arm every anti french resistance group their empire had. Why fight them directly when there are oh so many resistance groups who will gladly do it for us?
Back to the original topic...
The Confederate Democratic Party probably didn't help branding in the North... surprised nobody's mentioned that.
Maybe if the pro-Establishment/pro-Davis party chose a different name in 1866 the Union Democratic Party could've continued?
The American Democratic Party would have nevertheless been seen as a treasonous party, as it's the party that lost the war.
The easiest way for it to survive is by avoiding the Confederate victory. Maybe we have Napoleon III die in 1851?
Back to the original topic...
The Confederate Democratic Party probably didn't help branding in the North... surprised nobody's mentioned that.
Maybe if the pro-Establishment/pro-Davis party chose a different name in 1866 the Union Democratic Party could've continued?