This one is a bigun
America 1805-1808.
The continued economic growth in America during Laurens first term was an example of not only the robustness of the Federalist economic agenda articulated by the President, Governor Hamilton, Senator Dayton of New Jersey, Senator Clay of Kentucky, and Governor Jackson of Tennessee, but also as a testament to the fertility of the United States, for immigrants it proved to be worth moving. There were few losers during this time, yes there were tensions among slaves and contracted catholic workers in the south, as well as, among catholic immigrants in the north, but on the frontier opportunities abounded.
Meanwhile Washington City saw the return of James Madison to the House of Representatives in 1806. It was there that a majority of the political battles where waged. Madison proved to still be an adroit consensus builder occasionally pulling moderate Federalist westerners to block tariff hikes and similar bills. Madison along with Senator Monroe of Virginia and occasionally Vice President Burr would become known as the Gang of Three. The Gang proved to be an effective partnership but not a friendship, the men where just too different, between the aloof Monroe, shy and retiring Madison and of course the gregarious and charming Burr; most politicos considered Burr to be the most intelligent and Madison to be the most effective and Monroe to just be there, oddly this group (along with key Federalists) was instrumental in seeing through the domestic policies of the Laurens Administration. In this case, the opposition Republicans and the majority Federalists managed to agree. It was when war broke out again in Europe where there was a significant difference of opinion.
Domestically speaking, the Laurens Presidency was helped by boom years at home. Thanks in part to continued droughts in Southern France and Central Spain, which aided the export of foodstuffs from the south, internal improvements which streamlined the transportation of goods, as well as technological innovations helped along by the Laurenstown, New Jersey business incubator. Industrial development spread from there and quickly started to take root in better hubs such as Philadelphia, Baltimore, Boston, and in the south: Hampton Roads, Charleston, and Wilmington, North Carolina; DuPont and Sons would abandon their rifle works in New Jersey and relocate to Delaware in 1807. The DuPont-Henry breech-loading rifle was modeled on a captured Ferguson obtained from the President himself who had witnessed its deadly effectiveness at the Battle of Monmouth Courthouse. The company had been working on it in secret for most of two decades and was finally able to supply it in some quantities by the end of 1810. The DuPont-Henry would not replace the Philadelphia [1] Musket until the Legion appropriations of 1830 when the muzzle-loading rifle was finally phased out. The DuPont-Henry used a paper cartridge, which was not replaced with brass until the 1830s. Industry was moving and the exports where aided by a natural disaster in Europe and responsible state financing
Returning to federal government financing, most revenue came from tariffs and land sales. Land sales began to take off thanks to the huge acquisitions of new territory under President Laurens, most of the Old Northwest Territory, renamed Washington Territory, [2] and was going to be given to freedmen under the Compensated Manumission Act of 1800, but the territorial windfall that befell America during the end of the Planter War in 1804 was considerably larger than the area that was given to freedmen. As a result the concerns over cramming of “proper” Americans were negligible and more of a piece of rhetoric than an actual concern. What exactly did America acquire? That was the question that several expeditions began to answer. The expeditions sent out one, under Colonel Zebulon Pike, and a second under, Captains’ Lewis and Clark (although this was a private expedition mostly funded by the personal largesse of retired Vice President Jefferson), these were the two best known, numerous personal and private expeditions abounded including a Boone expedition to Central Kansas. The Lewis and Clark expedition headed up the Mississippi and Missouri rivers attempting to reach the head waters of the Missouri and the Pacific while the Pike Expedition was intended to define the Southern border with Spanish Mexico and meet up with the naval installation being built in Monterrey Bay and then it would hopefully meet up with the Lewis and Clark expedition somewhere in the north. Pike’s Expedition was also charged with finding an acceptable overland route to California and Monterrey Bay.
The Clark Expedition’s primary focus was scientific charged by its backer Jefferson with bringing back numerous exhibits of plant and animal life, which he would place in a museum to be studied and shown to foreign visitors in Washington City after it was studied in his new University in Charlottesville, Virginia. On this charge the expedition was a success, in terms of defining territory and establishing an American presence it was an utter failure.
The Pike Expedition was successful meeting up with the Naval forces stationed in Monterrey Bay. Newspaper accounts of Pike’s expedition made him out to be a great frontiersman and leader of men. On numerous occasions this proved to be true. He contacted numerous Indian tribes for the first time as well as making contact with Spanish garrisons in Santa Fe and Albuquerque. It proved difficult to find a good way through the mountains in the Southern desert but it was easier to cross further north to the east of Monterrey Bay and then across the plains into Missouri Territory. The success of the surveying trip made it much easier to begin selling land in Texas and in the west generally.
The importance of these two expeditions and the numerous surveying trips lead out later in the 1810s to the 1830s by both Legion and Interior Department Surveyors proved crucial to providing money to the Federal Government when lower tariffs began to have an impact in 1816 and 1817 as well as demonstrating the prestige of the Government by showing it could exercise power in far off places, further cementing the Federal Government in the eyes of the people.
While the Government enjoyed prestige it did not enjoy the soundest of finances. American debt incurred both from the recent wars and the Compensated Manumission Act was becoming burdensome. In 1804, the land sale money from Spanish territories was still far off, but sales in Florida [3] as well as in the remaining Federal lands in Arkansas Territory, Missouri Territory, as well as Illinois, Indiana and Ohio, proved to be helpful along with booming agricultural exports and the exports of timber and whiskey [5]. American debt was a concern in many capital markets and lead to the reduction of some programs throughout Laurens first term. The size of the active regular Legion was reduced [5], but naval spending remained high. Also several Federalist agenda items where shelved or reduced, the two largest examples where curbing spending on Laurenstown (which had begun to show profits and was being sold off to private entities) as well as axing a planned Federal University in Washington City, additionally they expanded some import duties but did continue the relatively low export duties. These policies and the strengthening of Free Trade agreements with Prussia and the favored rates for Russian and French trade helped to diversify the American trade network as well as increase Federal income. Secretary Wolcott predicted that the deficit would end when the last slave was freed in 1830. This proved good enough for the Republican House and the Federalist Senate. The debt issue and the Bank of the United States seemed to be working.
Politics took its normal runs, domestically the country’s wounds seemed to be healing and President Laurens had the country going in the right direction. If there were concerns they were centered in Europe especially with the tensions between France and Spain.
1806 also saw the retirement of John Paul Jones and Anthony Wayne from active service. They both remained key advisors to the President Laurens Jones remaining at the Naval Department and Wayne replacing Thomas Pinckney at War when retired to run for Governor of South Carolina with Laurens’ blessing. The 1806 cabinet looked like this:
President John Laurens
Vice President: Aaron Burr
Secretary of State: Timothy Pickering
Secretary of Treasury: Oliver Wolcott Jr.
Secretary of War: Anthony Wayne
Secretary of Navy: John Paul Jones (Commodore ret.)
Attorney General: William Wirt
Secretary of the Interior: Henry Knox
Ambassador to England: Arnoldus Vanderhorst
Ambassador to France: Edmund Harrison
Ambassador to Russia: John Lowell Jr.
Ambassador to Netherlands: Francis Dana
Ambassador to Spain: Stephen Girard
[1] The Philadelphia Musket is roughly analogous to the Springfield.
[2] Roughly OTL’s Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, and the Dakotas north of the Red River. The Northern border is still unsettled at this time but is understood by America to mean the 54th Parallel while in England it means the 50th Parallel.
[3] Florida had originally been considered part of the Yazoo but as a result of political wrangling it was whittled away and the old territories of East and West Florida were condensed into one territory stretching from Louisiana to the Atlantic.
[4] European forests where beginning to go bare thanks to incessant warfare of the last decade. Additionally Whiskey enjoyed a brief period in the French court as being Fashionable and stylish to drink, thanks mostly to Edmund Harrison’s love of strong drink.
[FONT="][5] This decision was painful and was justified to Marshall Wayne as a necessary savings. Certain reforms where enacted that had Legion members attached to state legions if they were invited. This reform allowed for a better-trained state legion, easing the concerns of many governors especially the southern kind, as well as the mind of Marshall Wayne. [/FONT]
America 1805-1808.
The continued economic growth in America during Laurens first term was an example of not only the robustness of the Federalist economic agenda articulated by the President, Governor Hamilton, Senator Dayton of New Jersey, Senator Clay of Kentucky, and Governor Jackson of Tennessee, but also as a testament to the fertility of the United States, for immigrants it proved to be worth moving. There were few losers during this time, yes there were tensions among slaves and contracted catholic workers in the south, as well as, among catholic immigrants in the north, but on the frontier opportunities abounded.
Meanwhile Washington City saw the return of James Madison to the House of Representatives in 1806. It was there that a majority of the political battles where waged. Madison proved to still be an adroit consensus builder occasionally pulling moderate Federalist westerners to block tariff hikes and similar bills. Madison along with Senator Monroe of Virginia and occasionally Vice President Burr would become known as the Gang of Three. The Gang proved to be an effective partnership but not a friendship, the men where just too different, between the aloof Monroe, shy and retiring Madison and of course the gregarious and charming Burr; most politicos considered Burr to be the most intelligent and Madison to be the most effective and Monroe to just be there, oddly this group (along with key Federalists) was instrumental in seeing through the domestic policies of the Laurens Administration. In this case, the opposition Republicans and the majority Federalists managed to agree. It was when war broke out again in Europe where there was a significant difference of opinion.
Domestically speaking, the Laurens Presidency was helped by boom years at home. Thanks in part to continued droughts in Southern France and Central Spain, which aided the export of foodstuffs from the south, internal improvements which streamlined the transportation of goods, as well as technological innovations helped along by the Laurenstown, New Jersey business incubator. Industrial development spread from there and quickly started to take root in better hubs such as Philadelphia, Baltimore, Boston, and in the south: Hampton Roads, Charleston, and Wilmington, North Carolina; DuPont and Sons would abandon their rifle works in New Jersey and relocate to Delaware in 1807. The DuPont-Henry breech-loading rifle was modeled on a captured Ferguson obtained from the President himself who had witnessed its deadly effectiveness at the Battle of Monmouth Courthouse. The company had been working on it in secret for most of two decades and was finally able to supply it in some quantities by the end of 1810. The DuPont-Henry would not replace the Philadelphia [1] Musket until the Legion appropriations of 1830 when the muzzle-loading rifle was finally phased out. The DuPont-Henry used a paper cartridge, which was not replaced with brass until the 1830s. Industry was moving and the exports where aided by a natural disaster in Europe and responsible state financing
Returning to federal government financing, most revenue came from tariffs and land sales. Land sales began to take off thanks to the huge acquisitions of new territory under President Laurens, most of the Old Northwest Territory, renamed Washington Territory, [2] and was going to be given to freedmen under the Compensated Manumission Act of 1800, but the territorial windfall that befell America during the end of the Planter War in 1804 was considerably larger than the area that was given to freedmen. As a result the concerns over cramming of “proper” Americans were negligible and more of a piece of rhetoric than an actual concern. What exactly did America acquire? That was the question that several expeditions began to answer. The expeditions sent out one, under Colonel Zebulon Pike, and a second under, Captains’ Lewis and Clark (although this was a private expedition mostly funded by the personal largesse of retired Vice President Jefferson), these were the two best known, numerous personal and private expeditions abounded including a Boone expedition to Central Kansas. The Lewis and Clark expedition headed up the Mississippi and Missouri rivers attempting to reach the head waters of the Missouri and the Pacific while the Pike Expedition was intended to define the Southern border with Spanish Mexico and meet up with the naval installation being built in Monterrey Bay and then it would hopefully meet up with the Lewis and Clark expedition somewhere in the north. Pike’s Expedition was also charged with finding an acceptable overland route to California and Monterrey Bay.
The Clark Expedition’s primary focus was scientific charged by its backer Jefferson with bringing back numerous exhibits of plant and animal life, which he would place in a museum to be studied and shown to foreign visitors in Washington City after it was studied in his new University in Charlottesville, Virginia. On this charge the expedition was a success, in terms of defining territory and establishing an American presence it was an utter failure.
The Pike Expedition was successful meeting up with the Naval forces stationed in Monterrey Bay. Newspaper accounts of Pike’s expedition made him out to be a great frontiersman and leader of men. On numerous occasions this proved to be true. He contacted numerous Indian tribes for the first time as well as making contact with Spanish garrisons in Santa Fe and Albuquerque. It proved difficult to find a good way through the mountains in the Southern desert but it was easier to cross further north to the east of Monterrey Bay and then across the plains into Missouri Territory. The success of the surveying trip made it much easier to begin selling land in Texas and in the west generally.
The importance of these two expeditions and the numerous surveying trips lead out later in the 1810s to the 1830s by both Legion and Interior Department Surveyors proved crucial to providing money to the Federal Government when lower tariffs began to have an impact in 1816 and 1817 as well as demonstrating the prestige of the Government by showing it could exercise power in far off places, further cementing the Federal Government in the eyes of the people.
While the Government enjoyed prestige it did not enjoy the soundest of finances. American debt incurred both from the recent wars and the Compensated Manumission Act was becoming burdensome. In 1804, the land sale money from Spanish territories was still far off, but sales in Florida [3] as well as in the remaining Federal lands in Arkansas Territory, Missouri Territory, as well as Illinois, Indiana and Ohio, proved to be helpful along with booming agricultural exports and the exports of timber and whiskey [5]. American debt was a concern in many capital markets and lead to the reduction of some programs throughout Laurens first term. The size of the active regular Legion was reduced [5], but naval spending remained high. Also several Federalist agenda items where shelved or reduced, the two largest examples where curbing spending on Laurenstown (which had begun to show profits and was being sold off to private entities) as well as axing a planned Federal University in Washington City, additionally they expanded some import duties but did continue the relatively low export duties. These policies and the strengthening of Free Trade agreements with Prussia and the favored rates for Russian and French trade helped to diversify the American trade network as well as increase Federal income. Secretary Wolcott predicted that the deficit would end when the last slave was freed in 1830. This proved good enough for the Republican House and the Federalist Senate. The debt issue and the Bank of the United States seemed to be working.
Politics took its normal runs, domestically the country’s wounds seemed to be healing and President Laurens had the country going in the right direction. If there were concerns they were centered in Europe especially with the tensions between France and Spain.
1806 also saw the retirement of John Paul Jones and Anthony Wayne from active service. They both remained key advisors to the President Laurens Jones remaining at the Naval Department and Wayne replacing Thomas Pinckney at War when retired to run for Governor of South Carolina with Laurens’ blessing. The 1806 cabinet looked like this:
President John Laurens
Vice President: Aaron Burr
Secretary of State: Timothy Pickering
Secretary of Treasury: Oliver Wolcott Jr.
Secretary of War: Anthony Wayne
Secretary of Navy: John Paul Jones (Commodore ret.)
Attorney General: William Wirt
Secretary of the Interior: Henry Knox
Ambassador to England: Arnoldus Vanderhorst
Ambassador to France: Edmund Harrison
Ambassador to Russia: John Lowell Jr.
Ambassador to Netherlands: Francis Dana
Ambassador to Spain: Stephen Girard
[1] The Philadelphia Musket is roughly analogous to the Springfield.
[2] Roughly OTL’s Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, and the Dakotas north of the Red River. The Northern border is still unsettled at this time but is understood by America to mean the 54th Parallel while in England it means the 50th Parallel.
[3] Florida had originally been considered part of the Yazoo but as a result of political wrangling it was whittled away and the old territories of East and West Florida were condensed into one territory stretching from Louisiana to the Atlantic.
[4] European forests where beginning to go bare thanks to incessant warfare of the last decade. Additionally Whiskey enjoyed a brief period in the French court as being Fashionable and stylish to drink, thanks mostly to Edmund Harrison’s love of strong drink.
[FONT="][5] This decision was painful and was justified to Marshall Wayne as a necessary savings. Certain reforms where enacted that had Legion members attached to state legions if they were invited. This reform allowed for a better-trained state legion, easing the concerns of many governors especially the southern kind, as well as the mind of Marshall Wayne. [/FONT]
Also, in case it wasn't noticed, BUMP!