Indeed. I intend to go more into the Klan and the anti-Klan acts in the next update.
NEW BIRTH OF FREEDOM: The Wilmot Proviso Passes
- Thread starter TheHedgehog
- Start date
Would it be a bad time to tell you it still says German Revoultion?
I'll fix that. Nothing Paint 3D can't handle.
Edit: and fixed.
ACT THREE, PART VII
The March of Progress
‘White Leagues and Red Shirts”, a lecture at the Ashburn High School, Vicksburg
With Prof. Gregory Samson, June 19th, 2018
Prof. SAMSON: As this is an in-depth course for you students in US History, we really have to begin before the White Leagues and these other groups emerged, and start before the 1868 elections, and talk about the Kuklus Clan. They’re not exactly the most remembered of the supremacist militias, but they were the forerunners of the White Leagues and later groups such as the Reclaimers that continue to make headlines and commit acts of terrorism. But for a brief period in the mid-1860s, the Clan was the premier white supremacist, anti-Reconciliation militia. What set it apart from others, like the Knights of the Camelia? Yes, Samuel.
SAMUEL: The key thing to remember is that the Clan, unlike the Knights of the Camelia, was predominantly made up of lower-class Southerners, especially veterans of the Confederate Army. This gave them a wider base of support and greater violent zeal than the aristocratic Knights. You can see that with the massacre at Liberty, just a few dozen miles from here, or the attempted assassination of Robert Smalls, or the massive campaigns of voter suppression in states like Louisiana and Alabama.
Prof. SAMSON: Very good, Samuel. Anyone else want to offer their insights?
VINCENT: The Clan – and let me begin this by saying that I’m more familiar with the Reclaimers than any of these old-timey militias – was very adept at using wanton, unchecked violence to send their message. This would, of course, be honed by the Redshirts and White Leagues with their flashy, intimidating get-ups, but the shootings, lynchings, burnings of homes, all that was more extreme than simple harassment or beatings that the Knights utilized.
SAMUEL: Yeah, it was the terror factor more than anything that made the Clan and the Redshirts and the White Leagues so feared and famous.
VINCENT: But they banned the KC, didn’t they?
Prof. SAMSON: Yes, the KC was crushed after President Sherman signed the Force Act in 1867. And if we could minimize the side chatter, that would be wonderful. Does anyone know why the Force Act of 1867 was signed? Harry, you haven’t said much, how about you take a stab at that one?
HARRY: Sure, I guess. That was after the Liberty Massacre… wait, no, was it the assassination of that Tennessee abolitionist?
PROF. SAMSON: That’s a part of it, and his murder, shot in broad daylight in Memphis, was certainly one factor, and perhaps the most immediate, but does anyone else have an idea on what else caused the Force Act of 1867? Yes, Ella.
ELLA: Could it have been reports of violence and widespread voter intimidation during the 1866 congressional elections?
Prof. SAMSON: If this were Yet Another Quiz Show, you’d have the Full Sweep. That’s exactly it. The leaders of the Freedom Party worried that, if they weren’t stopped, the Kuklos Clan could destroy the burgeoning black political presence, and, more importantly, Freedomite political power, in the south. Because, I don’t know about you, but if I saw a bunch of thugs with shotguns and crazy masks walking near the polling places, beating people who were gonna vote the same way as me, I would probably turn around and go home.
The 1866 congressional elections were the first in which large parts of the South were able to participate and saw a lot of black candidates and Southern Freedomites, such as the namesake of this school, George W. Ashburn, stand for election. William T. Mahone, who was interestingly a Confederate General, had been elected Governor the year prior, and was campaigning heavily for his Reconstructionist Party. The potential success of these pro-Reconciliationist candidates was deeply worrying to people like Nathan Bedford Forrest or Wade Hampton V, who were trying their hardest to return the South as close as possible to antebellum times. And so, they resorted to terror and racial violence to achieve their aims. We learned about the Liberty Massacre a few days ago, but that was a localized attack, while the Kuklus Clan’s actions during the elections spanned most of the South. Indeed-
KELLI: Weren’t there street battles in Charleston?
Prof. SAMSON: Yes, there were. I was just getting to that. As you well know, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Florida are the only black-majority states in the Union and have remained that way due to the Land Appropriations Act, which we learned about in our last unit. South Carolina was also the heart of the Confederacy, and there was a lot of opposition there, well, there was opposition to equal rights all over the south, but it was even more vitriolic in South Carolina. What Kelli brought up is the Battle of Calhoun Street, near the Emmanuel African Methodist Church, which was being used as a polling location for the Congressional and Gubernatorial elections. Kuklus Clan members, armed with… with shotguns and pistols, guns, they attempted to block Calhoun Street and prevent all these people from voting. And the thing to remember about South Carolina and the other states included under the Appropriations Act is that, with the economic security that came from the dirt-cheap farmland, the freedmen were able to form these citizen’s defense councils, which were basically militias founded to prevent Clan raids. So, what happened on Calhoun Street, and there’s a movie I’ll probably show you in the last week of school when we’ve run out of material, was the Citizen’s Defense Council in the area sent an armed band to try and force the KC to disperse after the local police were unable to defuse the situation. There was a firefight and hand-to-hand combat-
OLIVER: Awesome!
SAMSON -and the KC, outnumbered, were forced to retreat after suffering dozens of casualties. And there were other similar incidents across the south, but the crux of it is, because we need to keep moving or we won’t be able to watch Clash on Calhoun Street the last week of school, that the 1866 congressional elections saw widespread violence and attempted interference by white supremacist militias. And it looks like class ended thirty seconds ago, so y’all can go to your next classes…
From “AMERICA: A Textbook for Middle-Schoolers” by Reginald Douglas
Published 1991
“The violence surrounding the 1866 Congressional elections forced President Sherman to act. Street battles, lynchings, burnings of homes and churches, and all this as white supremacists in state governments and police forces acted to hinder the election process. As he told his circle of advisors, “We must stop the bloodshed, or we risk losing the south for a generation.” Leading Freedomite congressmen had been drafting anti-Kuklus Clan legislation after the Liberty Massacre, but after the violence, including the Battle of Calhoun Street and other vicious clashes between the KC and Citizen’s Defense Councils, President Sherman called for a law against the Clan and similar groups in his 1867 message to Congress. He also strongly endorsed such a measure in his speech at the dedication of the Soldier’s National Cemetery, telling a crowd of political figures, Generals, and dignitaries, “let us not stand by and allow the progress we have made, the new America we have built and paid for with the blood of civil strife, be abandoned to the bandits and marauders who still bear the banner of the Confederacy.”
The new 40th Congress immediately began work on an expanded anti-Clan act. The new Elections Security Act was designed to not only criminalize violence to suppress the vote, but also to ensure free and fair elections. To the first end, the use of “terror, force, and bribery” to prevent people from voting on “a racially-motivated basis” was criminalized, and the President was authorized to use the army and federal marshals to uphold the law and prosecute violators. To the second end, the US federal government would be given the power to regulate congressional elections, as Freedomites felt they could not rely on state legislatures after Alabama, which had controversially passed a “Black Code” restricting the rights of black Americans, had refused to provide security for polling places, had reduced the number of polling places in certain areas, and had attempted in 1864 to impose literacy tests and a poll tax, but had had the law annulled by Richard Taylor, the General in charge of the Second Military District. As Senator Charles Sumner, in response to Stephen Douglas protesting ‘federal overreach,’ declared, “we cannot allow the states to manage elections for themselves if they use that power to oppress and silence a great number of citizens. When such attacks are made upon our elections, the Federal government must defend the rights of the American citizen, white or negro.”
More specifically, the Elections Security Act allowed Federal circuit courts to, upon receipt of a petition of at least one-tenth the citizens from a district, appoint an Elections Commissioner to oversee congressional elections. Commissioners would visit polling places, inspect voter rolls, review suspect voter information, administer oaths to challenged voters, prevent non-citizens from casting ballots, and provide the final certification for the election. The Commissioner could also request federal aid in enforcing election results. However, the bill still allowed states to determine certain eligibility requirements, and did nothing against partisan gerrymandering, literacy tests, and criminal disenfranchisement (such as stripping blacks of their right to vote for jaywalking or ‘loitering’), which allowed many southern states to gradually strip southern blacks of their political power starting in the mid-1870s.
The Elections Security Bill sparked fierce debate in the House, where Southern Nationalists furiously attacked it, with unionist Southerners, mainly from Brazos, Austin, Kentucky, and Missouri, forming the leaders of the opposition. Rep. Francis P. Blair Jr. called it “federal tyranny” and “a blatantly unconstitutional move to entrench the black’s political power, to the detriment of the white man”. Others more tactfully couched their criticisms on the issue of states’ rights, with Senator Thomas A. Hendricks stating that “we cannot concentrate power of such magnitude in the hands of the Federal government. It infringes on the constitutional rights of states to run their elections. My colleague’s intentions may seem noble, but such concentrated power can be easily misused.” Nevertheless, Colfax and his allies forged ahead, as the 1866 elections had also seen the Lincolnite faction’s collapse in favor of more radical Freedomite candidates, giving him enough votes to pass the bill. After over eleven hours of heated debate, the Elections Security Bill narrowly passed the House, having sharply polarized the public. And so, it was on to the Senate, where it faced even stiffer resistance.
A number of moderate Freedomites demanded concessions, with amendments raising the minimum number of petitioners to one-eighth and requiring at least one state official or, failing that, half of a state’s congressional delegation, to co-sign on a Commissioner’s certification of an election result. While a good half of the southern states were still barred from participating in elections, Southern Nationalists (from North Carolina, Louisiana, Tennessee, and Georgia) threatened to filibuster the bill, while northern Nationalists demanded certain concessions on other legislation in exchange for voting to end debate. One major concession that Sherman, Sumner, and Colfax were forced to make was agreeing not to push for any tariff increases for the remainder of the Congress. On August 3rd, the Senate voted for cloture, effectively ensuring the Elections Security Act’s passage, and after passing the bill by a margin of three votes, sent it back to the House to approve the amendments. The House duly passed the amended legislation
To better manage the defense of free elections to the House, President Sherman pushed for, and signed in 1868, a bill establishing the Department of Justice, which was headed by the Attorney General and would oversee the US Marshals Service, the Elections Security Bureau, the Federal Investigation and Security Agency, and tasking the Attorney General with overseeing all US Attorneys and representing the US Government in court matters. The Justice Department Act created a whole new department, which quickly became one of the most important Federal departments.”
From “Plains, Trains, and Indians: The Story of the Frontier”, presented by Tom Hammond and Sam Grenville
Released on InstaMedia, 2012
HAMMOND: It was under President Lincoln that the Western Development Act was passed. The WDA granted Congressional approval of, and government funds for, the much-lobbied-for Transcontinental Railroad.
The Western Development Act answered calls for a faster way to connect the two coasts of the United States, and those calls had only grown after the failure in 1854 of an earlier bill, which foundered due to partisan bickering over slavery. While the 1854 Kansas-Utah bill called for two routes, both a northern and a southern, the end of the Civil War led to the abandoning of the proposed Atlanta terminus and southern route.
Without a southern branch to consider, Congress deliberated between three main routes: a northern one, through Lakota, Yellowstone, and Oregon to Willamette, a central one along the Platte River and along the Oregon Trail to New Helvetia, and a southwestern route, through Brazos, Austin, and New Mexico, with a terminus in Los Angeles. Brazian and Austinian congressmen and Senators, including Andrew J. Hamilton of Brazos and John Hemphill of Austin, pushed hard for the southwestern route. Meanwhile, northern politicians, especially those from Missouri and Illinois, lobbied for the adoption of the central route, which would bring increased rail traffic through the Midwest.
GRENVILLE: The debate turned acrimonious, with Hemphill at one point declaring:
“The northern interests would content themselves with concentrating infrastructure and the wealth it brings into their own hands, while leaving their southern countrymen, even those who fought with them in the recent war, behind. Let me remind those people that there’s a whole other half of the country that could use some railroad track.”
-Senator John Hemphill (N-AU)
GRENVILLE (cont.): Northern politicians refused to countenance a southwestern route, believing it would allow the south to once again resume the dominance over the north that had existed in the 1840s and 1850s. But, Speaker Sherman, loathe to approve the southwestern passage, knew he did not have the votes to push through the central route. First, while Midwesterners, both National and Freedomite, supported the aforementioned path, many southern Freedomites, such as Congressmen Robert Smalls and Newton Knight, and Senator Hiram Revels, supported a southwestern route.
Eager to broker a compromise and achieve some sort of legislative victory in his own right, President Lincoln suggested the approval of both a southwestern and a central route, with northern termini at Chicago and Independence, and southern termini at Galveston and Travis. The two would be connected at St. Louis. The compromise was quickly adopted, and the Western Development Act was passed without much further controversy.
HAMMOND: And that brings us to the ‘present’, where John Sherman, now President, is overseeing the awarding of contracts as the United States prepares to actually build the railroads. Armies of surveyors were dispatched to Nebraska and the mountain west, while John Wesley Powell led surveying expeditions into Rio Grande and New Mexico to find the best route.
The Southwestern Route, already determined to begin at Galveston and proceed north-west to Travis, Austin, would then, based upon Powell’s expeditions, proceed south to San Antonio and then north-west through the town of Pecos to El Paso in Rio Grande territory, and then to what is now Crocker, Taylor and Wallace, Taylor, before turning north to what is now Norton, New Mexico, but was then known as Santa Catalina. From Norton, the line would go almost straight west, stopping at what is now Santa Ana, Colorado, then north-west to San Bernardino and Los Angeles, its Pacific terminus. Throughout its path, the Southwestern route followed as many rivers as possible, as Powell had conducted his expedition by flat-boat and raft.
The Central Route was in some ways easier to survey, as it passed through plains and was in a less arid climate, though it was more mountainous. A number of US army surveyors made the trip, under the insistence of William Tecumseh Sherman, who was in charge of that area of the Plains. The Central Route was to leave Independence and proceed north to Fontenelle, Nebraska, along the Oregon Trail through Tilden, Lakota, Rock Springs, Yellowstone, Payute, Yutah, and west Argenton and New Helvetia, Sacramento. The final terminus would ultimately be Encinal, just north of San Francisco.
[…]
The Western Development Act had authorized the creation of three new companies to construct the railroad. The actual establishment and funding of these companies was delayed until after Sherman’s inauguration, due to political gridlock after Lincoln’s failed attempt to pass the Ten Percent Plan. The Pacific Railroad Acts, passed during Sherman’s first hundred days in 1865, rectified this problem. To construct the central route, two companies were authorized: The Union Pacific, and the Central Pacific. To construct the southwestern route, the Sonora-Pacific was created. The companies were funded by a combination of Federal financing and investments from wealthy Sacramentans, Coloradans, and eastern businessmen eager to capitalize on the flood of opportunities the new railroads would bring. The Central Pacific was effectively run by four Sacramentan businessmen: Leland Stanford, Timothy Phelps, Mark Hopkins, and Charles Crocker. The Union Pacific was run by Thomas C. Durant, a friend of Abraham Lincoln, and the Southern Pacific was run by former Generals William Rosecrans, Richard Taylor and Lew Wallace, and San Francisco businessman Joshua Norton. The three companies quickly raised tens of thousands of dollars from other investors as preparations began to actually construct the first transcontinental railroads.
After the passage of the Elections Security Bill, President Sherman took a break from Washington to visit St. Louis, Independence, and Galveston for the breaking of ground on the new transcontinental railroads. In St. Louis, Sherman gave a brief speech, before travelling by train to Independence, where the new railroad was starting from. A ceremony was held, with a locomotive draped in flag bunting and a military band, where Sherman heralded the “monumental task you are about to embark on” as “a great triumph for our nation”. He drove in the first spike of the project, a specially made golden spike engraved with the names of the railroad company heads. A second, similar ceremony was held in Galveston, in the first major visit of a US President to a southern state since before the Civil War. Here, Sherman labeled the southern route as “the dawn of a new era for the South – an era of industry, commerce, and freedom”, and drove in a similar golden spike. Work on the Transcontinental Railroads had officially begun.
Construction on the railroad began in earnest, despite disease, bad weather, and Indian raids. In spite of these hardships, a virtual army of workers carried on building the railroad that would bring America further together…”
‘White Leagues and Red Shirts”, a lecture at the Ashburn High School, Vicksburg
With Prof. Gregory Samson, June 19th, 2018
Prof. SAMSON: As this is an in-depth course for you students in US History, we really have to begin before the White Leagues and these other groups emerged, and start before the 1868 elections, and talk about the Kuklus Clan. They’re not exactly the most remembered of the supremacist militias, but they were the forerunners of the White Leagues and later groups such as the Reclaimers that continue to make headlines and commit acts of terrorism. But for a brief period in the mid-1860s, the Clan was the premier white supremacist, anti-Reconciliation militia. What set it apart from others, like the Knights of the Camelia? Yes, Samuel.
SAMUEL: The key thing to remember is that the Clan, unlike the Knights of the Camelia, was predominantly made up of lower-class Southerners, especially veterans of the Confederate Army. This gave them a wider base of support and greater violent zeal than the aristocratic Knights. You can see that with the massacre at Liberty, just a few dozen miles from here, or the attempted assassination of Robert Smalls, or the massive campaigns of voter suppression in states like Louisiana and Alabama.
Prof. SAMSON: Very good, Samuel. Anyone else want to offer their insights?
VINCENT: The Clan – and let me begin this by saying that I’m more familiar with the Reclaimers than any of these old-timey militias – was very adept at using wanton, unchecked violence to send their message. This would, of course, be honed by the Redshirts and White Leagues with their flashy, intimidating get-ups, but the shootings, lynchings, burnings of homes, all that was more extreme than simple harassment or beatings that the Knights utilized.
SAMUEL: Yeah, it was the terror factor more than anything that made the Clan and the Redshirts and the White Leagues so feared and famous.
VINCENT: But they banned the KC, didn’t they?
Prof. SAMSON: Yes, the KC was crushed after President Sherman signed the Force Act in 1867. And if we could minimize the side chatter, that would be wonderful. Does anyone know why the Force Act of 1867 was signed? Harry, you haven’t said much, how about you take a stab at that one?
HARRY: Sure, I guess. That was after the Liberty Massacre… wait, no, was it the assassination of that Tennessee abolitionist?
PROF. SAMSON: That’s a part of it, and his murder, shot in broad daylight in Memphis, was certainly one factor, and perhaps the most immediate, but does anyone else have an idea on what else caused the Force Act of 1867? Yes, Ella.
ELLA: Could it have been reports of violence and widespread voter intimidation during the 1866 congressional elections?
Prof. SAMSON: If this were Yet Another Quiz Show, you’d have the Full Sweep. That’s exactly it. The leaders of the Freedom Party worried that, if they weren’t stopped, the Kuklos Clan could destroy the burgeoning black political presence, and, more importantly, Freedomite political power, in the south. Because, I don’t know about you, but if I saw a bunch of thugs with shotguns and crazy masks walking near the polling places, beating people who were gonna vote the same way as me, I would probably turn around and go home.
The 1866 congressional elections were the first in which large parts of the South were able to participate and saw a lot of black candidates and Southern Freedomites, such as the namesake of this school, George W. Ashburn, stand for election. William T. Mahone, who was interestingly a Confederate General, had been elected Governor the year prior, and was campaigning heavily for his Reconstructionist Party. The potential success of these pro-Reconciliationist candidates was deeply worrying to people like Nathan Bedford Forrest or Wade Hampton V, who were trying their hardest to return the South as close as possible to antebellum times. And so, they resorted to terror and racial violence to achieve their aims. We learned about the Liberty Massacre a few days ago, but that was a localized attack, while the Kuklus Clan’s actions during the elections spanned most of the South. Indeed-
KELLI: Weren’t there street battles in Charleston?
Prof. SAMSON: Yes, there were. I was just getting to that. As you well know, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Florida are the only black-majority states in the Union and have remained that way due to the Land Appropriations Act, which we learned about in our last unit. South Carolina was also the heart of the Confederacy, and there was a lot of opposition there, well, there was opposition to equal rights all over the south, but it was even more vitriolic in South Carolina. What Kelli brought up is the Battle of Calhoun Street, near the Emmanuel African Methodist Church, which was being used as a polling location for the Congressional and Gubernatorial elections. Kuklus Clan members, armed with… with shotguns and pistols, guns, they attempted to block Calhoun Street and prevent all these people from voting. And the thing to remember about South Carolina and the other states included under the Appropriations Act is that, with the economic security that came from the dirt-cheap farmland, the freedmen were able to form these citizen’s defense councils, which were basically militias founded to prevent Clan raids. So, what happened on Calhoun Street, and there’s a movie I’ll probably show you in the last week of school when we’ve run out of material, was the Citizen’s Defense Council in the area sent an armed band to try and force the KC to disperse after the local police were unable to defuse the situation. There was a firefight and hand-to-hand combat-
OLIVER: Awesome!
SAMSON -and the KC, outnumbered, were forced to retreat after suffering dozens of casualties. And there were other similar incidents across the south, but the crux of it is, because we need to keep moving or we won’t be able to watch Clash on Calhoun Street the last week of school, that the 1866 congressional elections saw widespread violence and attempted interference by white supremacist militias. And it looks like class ended thirty seconds ago, so y’all can go to your next classes…
From “AMERICA: A Textbook for Middle-Schoolers” by Reginald Douglas
Published 1991
“The violence surrounding the 1866 Congressional elections forced President Sherman to act. Street battles, lynchings, burnings of homes and churches, and all this as white supremacists in state governments and police forces acted to hinder the election process. As he told his circle of advisors, “We must stop the bloodshed, or we risk losing the south for a generation.” Leading Freedomite congressmen had been drafting anti-Kuklus Clan legislation after the Liberty Massacre, but after the violence, including the Battle of Calhoun Street and other vicious clashes between the KC and Citizen’s Defense Councils, President Sherman called for a law against the Clan and similar groups in his 1867 message to Congress. He also strongly endorsed such a measure in his speech at the dedication of the Soldier’s National Cemetery, telling a crowd of political figures, Generals, and dignitaries, “let us not stand by and allow the progress we have made, the new America we have built and paid for with the blood of civil strife, be abandoned to the bandits and marauders who still bear the banner of the Confederacy.”
The new 40th Congress immediately began work on an expanded anti-Clan act. The new Elections Security Act was designed to not only criminalize violence to suppress the vote, but also to ensure free and fair elections. To the first end, the use of “terror, force, and bribery” to prevent people from voting on “a racially-motivated basis” was criminalized, and the President was authorized to use the army and federal marshals to uphold the law and prosecute violators. To the second end, the US federal government would be given the power to regulate congressional elections, as Freedomites felt they could not rely on state legislatures after Alabama, which had controversially passed a “Black Code” restricting the rights of black Americans, had refused to provide security for polling places, had reduced the number of polling places in certain areas, and had attempted in 1864 to impose literacy tests and a poll tax, but had had the law annulled by Richard Taylor, the General in charge of the Second Military District. As Senator Charles Sumner, in response to Stephen Douglas protesting ‘federal overreach,’ declared, “we cannot allow the states to manage elections for themselves if they use that power to oppress and silence a great number of citizens. When such attacks are made upon our elections, the Federal government must defend the rights of the American citizen, white or negro.”
More specifically, the Elections Security Act allowed Federal circuit courts to, upon receipt of a petition of at least one-tenth the citizens from a district, appoint an Elections Commissioner to oversee congressional elections. Commissioners would visit polling places, inspect voter rolls, review suspect voter information, administer oaths to challenged voters, prevent non-citizens from casting ballots, and provide the final certification for the election. The Commissioner could also request federal aid in enforcing election results. However, the bill still allowed states to determine certain eligibility requirements, and did nothing against partisan gerrymandering, literacy tests, and criminal disenfranchisement (such as stripping blacks of their right to vote for jaywalking or ‘loitering’), which allowed many southern states to gradually strip southern blacks of their political power starting in the mid-1870s.
The Elections Security Bill sparked fierce debate in the House, where Southern Nationalists furiously attacked it, with unionist Southerners, mainly from Brazos, Austin, Kentucky, and Missouri, forming the leaders of the opposition. Rep. Francis P. Blair Jr. called it “federal tyranny” and “a blatantly unconstitutional move to entrench the black’s political power, to the detriment of the white man”. Others more tactfully couched their criticisms on the issue of states’ rights, with Senator Thomas A. Hendricks stating that “we cannot concentrate power of such magnitude in the hands of the Federal government. It infringes on the constitutional rights of states to run their elections. My colleague’s intentions may seem noble, but such concentrated power can be easily misused.” Nevertheless, Colfax and his allies forged ahead, as the 1866 elections had also seen the Lincolnite faction’s collapse in favor of more radical Freedomite candidates, giving him enough votes to pass the bill. After over eleven hours of heated debate, the Elections Security Bill narrowly passed the House, having sharply polarized the public. And so, it was on to the Senate, where it faced even stiffer resistance.
A number of moderate Freedomites demanded concessions, with amendments raising the minimum number of petitioners to one-eighth and requiring at least one state official or, failing that, half of a state’s congressional delegation, to co-sign on a Commissioner’s certification of an election result. While a good half of the southern states were still barred from participating in elections, Southern Nationalists (from North Carolina, Louisiana, Tennessee, and Georgia) threatened to filibuster the bill, while northern Nationalists demanded certain concessions on other legislation in exchange for voting to end debate. One major concession that Sherman, Sumner, and Colfax were forced to make was agreeing not to push for any tariff increases for the remainder of the Congress. On August 3rd, the Senate voted for cloture, effectively ensuring the Elections Security Act’s passage, and after passing the bill by a margin of three votes, sent it back to the House to approve the amendments. The House duly passed the amended legislation
To better manage the defense of free elections to the House, President Sherman pushed for, and signed in 1868, a bill establishing the Department of Justice, which was headed by the Attorney General and would oversee the US Marshals Service, the Elections Security Bureau, the Federal Investigation and Security Agency, and tasking the Attorney General with overseeing all US Attorneys and representing the US Government in court matters. The Justice Department Act created a whole new department, which quickly became one of the most important Federal departments.”
From “Plains, Trains, and Indians: The Story of the Frontier”, presented by Tom Hammond and Sam Grenville
Released on InstaMedia, 2012
HAMMOND: It was under President Lincoln that the Western Development Act was passed. The WDA granted Congressional approval of, and government funds for, the much-lobbied-for Transcontinental Railroad.
The Western Development Act answered calls for a faster way to connect the two coasts of the United States, and those calls had only grown after the failure in 1854 of an earlier bill, which foundered due to partisan bickering over slavery. While the 1854 Kansas-Utah bill called for two routes, both a northern and a southern, the end of the Civil War led to the abandoning of the proposed Atlanta terminus and southern route.
Without a southern branch to consider, Congress deliberated between three main routes: a northern one, through Lakota, Yellowstone, and Oregon to Willamette, a central one along the Platte River and along the Oregon Trail to New Helvetia, and a southwestern route, through Brazos, Austin, and New Mexico, with a terminus in Los Angeles. Brazian and Austinian congressmen and Senators, including Andrew J. Hamilton of Brazos and John Hemphill of Austin, pushed hard for the southwestern route. Meanwhile, northern politicians, especially those from Missouri and Illinois, lobbied for the adoption of the central route, which would bring increased rail traffic through the Midwest.
GRENVILLE: The debate turned acrimonious, with Hemphill at one point declaring:
“The northern interests would content themselves with concentrating infrastructure and the wealth it brings into their own hands, while leaving their southern countrymen, even those who fought with them in the recent war, behind. Let me remind those people that there’s a whole other half of the country that could use some railroad track.”
-Senator John Hemphill (N-AU)
GRENVILLE (cont.): Northern politicians refused to countenance a southwestern route, believing it would allow the south to once again resume the dominance over the north that had existed in the 1840s and 1850s. But, Speaker Sherman, loathe to approve the southwestern passage, knew he did not have the votes to push through the central route. First, while Midwesterners, both National and Freedomite, supported the aforementioned path, many southern Freedomites, such as Congressmen Robert Smalls and Newton Knight, and Senator Hiram Revels, supported a southwestern route.
Eager to broker a compromise and achieve some sort of legislative victory in his own right, President Lincoln suggested the approval of both a southwestern and a central route, with northern termini at Chicago and Independence, and southern termini at Galveston and Travis. The two would be connected at St. Louis. The compromise was quickly adopted, and the Western Development Act was passed without much further controversy.
HAMMOND: And that brings us to the ‘present’, where John Sherman, now President, is overseeing the awarding of contracts as the United States prepares to actually build the railroads. Armies of surveyors were dispatched to Nebraska and the mountain west, while John Wesley Powell led surveying expeditions into Rio Grande and New Mexico to find the best route.
The Southwestern Route, already determined to begin at Galveston and proceed north-west to Travis, Austin, would then, based upon Powell’s expeditions, proceed south to San Antonio and then north-west through the town of Pecos to El Paso in Rio Grande territory, and then to what is now Crocker, Taylor and Wallace, Taylor, before turning north to what is now Norton, New Mexico, but was then known as Santa Catalina. From Norton, the line would go almost straight west, stopping at what is now Santa Ana, Colorado, then north-west to San Bernardino and Los Angeles, its Pacific terminus. Throughout its path, the Southwestern route followed as many rivers as possible, as Powell had conducted his expedition by flat-boat and raft.
The Central Route was in some ways easier to survey, as it passed through plains and was in a less arid climate, though it was more mountainous. A number of US army surveyors made the trip, under the insistence of William Tecumseh Sherman, who was in charge of that area of the Plains. The Central Route was to leave Independence and proceed north to Fontenelle, Nebraska, along the Oregon Trail through Tilden, Lakota, Rock Springs, Yellowstone, Payute, Yutah, and west Argenton and New Helvetia, Sacramento. The final terminus would ultimately be Encinal, just north of San Francisco.
[…]
The Western Development Act had authorized the creation of three new companies to construct the railroad. The actual establishment and funding of these companies was delayed until after Sherman’s inauguration, due to political gridlock after Lincoln’s failed attempt to pass the Ten Percent Plan. The Pacific Railroad Acts, passed during Sherman’s first hundred days in 1865, rectified this problem. To construct the central route, two companies were authorized: The Union Pacific, and the Central Pacific. To construct the southwestern route, the Sonora-Pacific was created. The companies were funded by a combination of Federal financing and investments from wealthy Sacramentans, Coloradans, and eastern businessmen eager to capitalize on the flood of opportunities the new railroads would bring. The Central Pacific was effectively run by four Sacramentan businessmen: Leland Stanford, Timothy Phelps, Mark Hopkins, and Charles Crocker. The Union Pacific was run by Thomas C. Durant, a friend of Abraham Lincoln, and the Southern Pacific was run by former Generals William Rosecrans, Richard Taylor and Lew Wallace, and San Francisco businessman Joshua Norton. The three companies quickly raised tens of thousands of dollars from other investors as preparations began to actually construct the first transcontinental railroads.
After the passage of the Elections Security Bill, President Sherman took a break from Washington to visit St. Louis, Independence, and Galveston for the breaking of ground on the new transcontinental railroads. In St. Louis, Sherman gave a brief speech, before travelling by train to Independence, where the new railroad was starting from. A ceremony was held, with a locomotive draped in flag bunting and a military band, where Sherman heralded the “monumental task you are about to embark on” as “a great triumph for our nation”. He drove in the first spike of the project, a specially made golden spike engraved with the names of the railroad company heads. A second, similar ceremony was held in Galveston, in the first major visit of a US President to a southern state since before the Civil War. Here, Sherman labeled the southern route as “the dawn of a new era for the South – an era of industry, commerce, and freedom”, and drove in a similar golden spike. Work on the Transcontinental Railroads had officially begun.
Construction on the railroad began in earnest, despite disease, bad weather, and Indian raids. In spite of these hardships, a virtual army of workers carried on building the railroad that would bring America further together…”
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?Looks like the Pacific Northwest isn't gonna develop like it has IOTL. As a native Washingtonian, this makes me a bit sad.
Well, there's still going to be railroads built to Oregon and Washington, but with a much larger Pacific Coast, there's a lot more development in the southwest. Don't worry, though, while Washington isn't as large as it is IOTL, it's still going to be large.
Both quote below is much smaller than what I intended. Sorry.
How do you INCREASE from 1/10 to 1/20? I think there's a typo/continuity error.
Dang it. I will fix as soon as I get back to my computer. Thanks for the catch
I love these. You should post this in Alternate Electoral Maps. Just one thing, I think the "Voting Method" info for House and Senate is backwards.
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Thanks so much!
And yeah, I did get those backwards (though several US states have Senate runoffs)
One thing I am hoping for is more info on General Taylor. That family's ITTL saga looks well set up yo be one of the more intriguing political military dynasties in the USA ITTL.
Richard Taylor will absolutely have a prominent role in the TL, and soon too. I havent thought much about any other prominent Taylors, but I could see some of his descendants in state politics, the Defense Department, or the army.
ACT THREE, PART VIII
The 1868 Election
From “The House of Freedom: A Story of America’s Oldest Party” by Leander Morris
Published 1987
“After an eventful first term and a successful implementation of much of his agenda, President Sherman looked forward to an easy renomination by his party. He had shepherded the Transcontinental Railroads through the final hurdles, passed a comprehensive, landmark voting rights protection act, and had stabilized the nation’s financial system after some post-war adjustment pains. And, perhaps most importantly, he had managed to reunite his party after the contentious election of 1864.
The 1868 Freedomite National Convention, held in Baltimore (Sherman had pushed for Baltimore as a show of unity – previously, all FNCs had been held in midwestern cities), was a calmer and briefer affair than the 1864 Convention. A new convention chair, Rep. William D. Kelley, had been chosen by acclamation after the previous holder of the position, Hannibal Hamlin, announced he did not want the job again. Kelley’s selection was a sign of the radical shift of the Freedom Party, as much of the old Lincolnite faction had been turfed out in the 1866 elections. A strong supporter of black suffrage and civil rights, Kelley was also acceptable to the remaining moderates in the party, as he was a close friend of Abraham Lincoln.
Sherman was nominated unanimously via voice vote, a strong show of support as almost the whole convention shouted ‘aye’. Henry Wilson was nominated on the first ballot, though Lafayette S. Foster, despite declining to be a candidate, received 12 votes. The nomination was, however, made unanimous after a motion by one of the delegates was adopted. Sherman’s platform was somewhat less ambitious than the platform of 1864, mainly because Sherman had accomplished many of his goals in his first term. The 1868 platform called for ‘continued efforts to be made in restoring the American financial system to a stable currency’ and supported ‘further efforts to safeguard the rights and freedoms of the freedman’.
The convention had gone off without a hitch, and President Sherman looked forward to his reelection…”
From “The Builders of the West” by Steve Henderson
Published 2009
“Joshua Norton made his fortune in Peruvian rice, taking advantage of a Chinese rice shortage by purchasing a large quantity of Peruvian rice that had just arrived in San Francisco at 4 cents per pound, and cornering the market, which allowed him to sell the rice for a steep markup. With his success in rice trading, Norton turned to other ventures, including real estate (an affluent neighborhood of San Francisco is named Norton Gardens after him) and lived a quietly prosperous life for more than a decade. That changed when he heard about the new transcontinental railroad. While most San Francisco investors flocked to the Central Pacific, Norton saw an opportunity to grow even richer in the southern route, and pooled his resources with William Rosecrans, Lew Wallace, and Richard Taylor to fund the Southern Pacific, and making the quartet the majority shareholders, and principal controllers, of the SPRR.
Norton hoped to expand his real estate empire into Colorado, and saw an opportunity to establish trading depots, hostels, and other businesses along the railroad’s route. Further, as he was going into business with Generals, not seasoned businessmen, he was able to have far more influence over the Southern Pacific’s decisions than the businessmen running the Central or Union Pacific. Norton arranged for two termini to be constructed – a main, mixed-use terminus in Los Angeles, and a smaller, more passenger-focused one in San Diego. This was because Norton had purchased a large stretch of beachfront property on Coronado Island, and hoped to develop it into a luxury beach resort. Norton planned this complex meticulously, planning a grand, Italianate train station on the mainland, with a bridge connecting the station (and San Diego) to Coronado Island. Wanting a cable car line to encourage further (Norton-funded) development of Coronado, he hired John A. Roebling to design and build a suspension bridge to accommodate foot, street, and cable car traffic to and from Coronado Island (Coronado Island still maintains this cable car line, and Norton’s grand hotel still operates, though as a Schenger property).
The Coronado Suspension Bridge, which was completed in 1874, sparked a lifelong interest in bridges for Norton, and upon his return to San Francisco, he lobbied for a suspension bridge to connect that city to Oakland.”
From “The Titan of Europe: A History of the German Empire” by Martin Brinkley
Published 2008
“With the death of Kronprinz Friedrich at the Battle of Sadowa, his young son Wilhelm was the new heir to the Prussian throne. While his father had been considered a liberal and was a favorite of German reformists, Wilhelm I was of a more conservative persuasion and sought to impart this upon the new Kronprinz. Otto von Bismarck, the powerful chancellor of Prussia (and by extension, North Germany) also took a role in the Prince’s upbringing, wanting to instill in him not just the conservative values of his father, but also the need for cold, calculating pragmatism and strong alliances.
As he grew up, Wilhelm took to these lessons eagerly, finding the world of diplomacy a fascinating exercise. Biographers have ruminated on this for decades, with the consensus being that he loved the chess-like machinations of diplomacy, realpolitik, and compromise. But suffice to say, once Wilhelm came to rule Germany, his impact on not just his own nation, but on the world as a whole, cannot be understated.”
From “Brockman High Class of 2015 EHAP Exam”
Question: Describe the effects of the Annexation on Cuba on either the US or Spain. Were the effects positive or negative? Explain.
The annexation of Cuba had a major effect on Spain [elaborate more in your opening sentence]. The loss of Cuba caused a lot of political turmoil in Spain, as such a wealthy and resource-rich colony had a very important role in the Spanish economy [rather redundant – could be shortened]. Not only was Spain humiliated by the US strong-arming them into selling, but Queen Isabella II’s mercurial, ever-shifting favor had resulted in a dysfunctional government where the Prime Ministership was cycled between different factions [A good statement – next time, don’t try and work in big words where they don’t fit well]. While Cuba’s annexation itself did not cause Queen Isabella’s overthrow, it did weaken her personal popularity, and led to a lot of public outrage at the government for bending to US demands. While liberal and Republican exiles saw Isabella as the root of Spain’s ills and had several plans to depose her, it was the perceived humiliation of being strongarmed into selling Cuba that damned Isabella in the public’s eyes. After the sale of Cuba, public anger built and built, and the Queen was tarred as the one who destroyed Spain’s American empire once and for all (despite Puerto Rico still being a Spanish possession). The last straw for Queen Isabella’s governmental house of cards [great phrasing] was the death of Leopoldo O’Donnell, a several-time Prime Minister and the glue that held the ruling Union Liberal together. His supporters, many of whom did not like Isabella, returned to the opposition. In September 1868, a naval mutiny occurred in Cadiz (coincidentally, the same place where a coup was launched against the even more unpopular Ferdinand VII). The mutiny spurred Generals Juan Prim and Francisco Serrano to denounce Isabella’s government, and that in turn brought much of the army to defect to the opposition.
Isabella quickly fled to France, where she remained until her death. Serrano, Prim, and the rest of the opposition formed a provisional government and drafted a new, liberal constitution while the Cortes searched for a new King. Ultimately, Prince Amadeo of Savoy was selected as the new King of Spain, and his coronation inaugurated a new era of liberal government in Spain, shepherded along by Prim and Serrano’s able hands, with both serving as Prime Minister. The loss of Cuba helped spur the collapse of Isabella’s government, which definitely helped Spain.
[Very nice work, Jon. Next time try to be more concise and try to make your writing flow better. 9/10. – Ms. Shaw]
From “World Events”, on the Foreign Intelligence Service’s ‘World Factbook’
Published 2017
1868 was a relatively uneventful year, with Europe still in the decades-long ‘Continental Peace’ that would only truly shatter in the 20th century. That being said, here are some of the more interesting things that happened:
April 29th: General William T. Sherman brokers the Treaty of Fort Sublette with the Plains Indians. The Treaty ended Red Cloud’s War and saw the Federal government create a Sioux Reservation, brokered peace between the Lakota and Ponca Indians, and mandated the government’s abandonment of several forts and outposts along the Bozeman Trail. The Treaty of Fort Sublette was generally upheld by General Sherman’s brother, John Sherman, during his administration, though several provisions were ignored by the more expansionist Richard Taylor. Nevertheless, the Treaty of Fort Sublette laid the foundation for a fairer Federal policy towards the Indian peoples of America, though such a policy has admittedly taken a long time to coalesce.
[...]
June 10th: Prince Mihailo Obrenovic of Serbia survives an assassination attempt in Belgrade
[...]
From “From Taylor to Linton: The Evolution of the National Party”, by Tom Jenkins
Published 2009
“Stephen Douglas shocked many in the Nationalist Party when, in February of 1868, he announced that he would not stand as a candidate for the nomination of the party he helped to found. As he told an assembly of Nationalist Party leaders, he disliked the “convention politicking,” thinking it “a chaotic and thoroughly exhausting system that [he didn’t] want to navigate again.” With Douglas out of the running early, a whole host of candidates emerged, meeting with important partymen, shaking hands at gatherings, and giving speeches. Several major candidates emerged, including former Quartermaster General, and 1864 vice presidential nominee, George McClellan, Indiana Senator Thomas A. Hendricks (who had been accepted into the Nationalist Party despite his role, as chair of the 1860 DNC, in allowing Horatio Seymour to pass his peace plank), and Congressman John A. Logan, who had served as a divisional commander during the New Orleans Campaign and had risen to a corps command by the Atlanta Campaign. Logan had been a Democrat, had briefly joined the Ignorants and the Freedomites, before following Stephen Douglas to the Nationalist Party. A number of minor candidates, including Francis P. Blair Jr. (who’s influence within the party had declined significantly since 1864), Andrew Johnson (who, without Douglas, was no longer such a magnet for anti-Douglas forces within the party), and 1864 nominee William R. Doolittle (who did not declare his candidacy and never campaigned).
The Convention was held in Independence, Missouri, which was touted by the party as a “crossroads of the nation – west, south, and north”. The convention was gaveled in as the assembled delegates wondered what course the convention would take without Douglas as a candidate.
The first ballot saw McClellan take a narrow lead of 5 delegates, with much of his support coming from the west and south, though he split the south almost evenly with Hendricks. Louisiana was a curious lone island of support for Logan within the south, mostly thanks to the endorsement of Richard Taylor, who had been Logan’s commander for much of the war and thought he was an “able commander and leader, and one of my best Generals”. Taylor thought McClellan to be a “pompous, arrogant fool” and disliked Hendricks for his pro-peace views during the war. Logan split the Midwest in three with McClellan and Hendricks and enjoyed the strong support of northern delegates. Minor candidates took the rest of the vote, with Andrew Johnson winning Tennessee and peeling off a couple of delegates in the other southern states. After the first ballot, Doolittle, Blair, and several others who did not even win a single delegate withdrew their names, though Johnson stubbornly remained in the running.
The second ballot saw a dramatic shift, as McClellan bled delegates. Logan surged into a strong lead of just under 30 delegates, while McClellan sank into third place, with many of his midwestern delegates going over to Logan. Some of the more conservative southern delegates were worried about nominating Logan, as they disliked his previous association with the Freedom Party (though he was decidedly in the moderate camp and was regarded as one of the most conservative members of the party) and felt he was too moderate. The third ballot saw the almost total collapse of McClellan’s candidacy, as those delegates who still supported him due to his wartime service defected to Logan, who had had a more illustrious record than McClellan, who had been sacked by President Fremont for being too cautious. Logan emerged with just six votes shy of a simple majority (though he needed a two-third majority to actually be nominated). Hendricks received most of McClellan’s southern support, though Andrew Johnson also made minor gains, enough for him to refuse calls to withdraw his name from contention.
The fourth ballot was the deciding one – Logan received 209 votes as he secured most of the northern and midwestern delegates, while Hendricks’s support in the mid-Atlantic collapsed. With Logan’s momentum clear, Hendricks approached Logan with a deal – in exchange for his support, Hendricks would become the vice-presidential nominee. Logan agreed, and on the fifth ballot, was nominated unanimously. Hendricks was nominated for vice president with only the 7 delegates from Tennessee refusing to vote for him (they supported Andrew Johnson).
A revised version of the 1864 platform, this time condemning the Elections Security Act and other ‘radical’ policies of the Sherman administration, was adopted by the convention, before it adjourned five days after first convening.”
From “We Must Endeavor: The Story of Reconciliation” by Sir Andrew Dickerson
Published 1997
“John A. Logan presented an interesting opponent for President Sherman. Having served ably in the Civil War, Logan ran on his war record while continuing to endorse Douglasite proposals such as expanding the homestead acts, aggressive Federal support for westward expansion, and the withdrawal of Federal troops from the south. He, his surrogates, and friendly newspapers attacked Sherman for “radicalism… radicalism that will turn this nation into an anarchic non-state, ruled by whichever mob the public finds favorable.” For his part, Logan actively campaigned, taking a page from Stephen Douglas’s energetic travels in 1860. Precedent held that a candidate was to rely on allies and the press to spread his message, while he held small events and presses spread speech copies around. Logan broke with this, speaking at large event halls and outdoor gatherings. A strong speaker, Logan drew sizeable crowds during his sweep of the Midwest, forcing Sherman to respond lest he lose critical swing states like Indiana or New York.
While Sherman was not an especially inspiring speaker, he went on a speaking tour of modest size, visiting central Illinois and Indiana. However, he still relied on more charismatic allies like Charles Sumner and Henry Winter Davis to spread his message. And Sherman’s message was simple – a gold standard, internal improvements, and protective tariffs. He also endorsed federal support for voting rights, saying at a campaign stop in Peoria that “the Federal government’s duty is to ensure our nation survives as a free and united one. If some citizens cannot vote, then our existence as a democracy is in jeopardy.” But Sherman did not run entirely on what he hoped to accomplish in the future, but mainly on his previous accomplishments. Everywhere, Sherman campaign posters emphasized the financial stability, the transcontinental railroad that, as Sherman put it in a speech in Indianapolis, “will be the final triumph of the United States over the untamed vastness of the west”, and the successful reintegration of much of the south back into the Union.
Sherman enjoyed a comfortable advantage, with a strong financial recovery, buoyed by massive infrastructure projects (namely, the railroads) and the swarm of investors and hired laborers that cropped up to build them. Though the south chafed under the new civil rights laws and were thus backing Logan, Sherman enjoyed the support of the radicals, the workers with steady jobs, and the freedmen grateful for civil rights protections.
In the end, despite an energetic campaign on the part of Logan, President Sherman coasted to a comfortable victory, winning 54 percent of the popular vote and 214 electoral votes, while Logan won 45 percent of the vote and 120 electoral votes, even narrowly losing his home state. Down ballot, the Freedom Party gained a handful of seats in the house and gained three seats in the Senate (defending the seats of Frederick T. Frelinghuysen and Benjamin Wade and picking up two seats in Colorado and Indiana). While not a resounding win, Sherman could remain confident in having Congressional support to pass his agenda, and he fully intended to make use of this opportunity.”
From “The House of Freedom: A Story of America’s Oldest Party” by Leander Morris
Published 1987
“After an eventful first term and a successful implementation of much of his agenda, President Sherman looked forward to an easy renomination by his party. He had shepherded the Transcontinental Railroads through the final hurdles, passed a comprehensive, landmark voting rights protection act, and had stabilized the nation’s financial system after some post-war adjustment pains. And, perhaps most importantly, he had managed to reunite his party after the contentious election of 1864.
The 1868 Freedomite National Convention, held in Baltimore (Sherman had pushed for Baltimore as a show of unity – previously, all FNCs had been held in midwestern cities), was a calmer and briefer affair than the 1864 Convention. A new convention chair, Rep. William D. Kelley, had been chosen by acclamation after the previous holder of the position, Hannibal Hamlin, announced he did not want the job again. Kelley’s selection was a sign of the radical shift of the Freedom Party, as much of the old Lincolnite faction had been turfed out in the 1866 elections. A strong supporter of black suffrage and civil rights, Kelley was also acceptable to the remaining moderates in the party, as he was a close friend of Abraham Lincoln.
Sherman was nominated unanimously via voice vote, a strong show of support as almost the whole convention shouted ‘aye’. Henry Wilson was nominated on the first ballot, though Lafayette S. Foster, despite declining to be a candidate, received 12 votes. The nomination was, however, made unanimous after a motion by one of the delegates was adopted. Sherman’s platform was somewhat less ambitious than the platform of 1864, mainly because Sherman had accomplished many of his goals in his first term. The 1868 platform called for ‘continued efforts to be made in restoring the American financial system to a stable currency’ and supported ‘further efforts to safeguard the rights and freedoms of the freedman’.
The convention had gone off without a hitch, and President Sherman looked forward to his reelection…”
From “The Builders of the West” by Steve Henderson
Published 2009
“Joshua Norton made his fortune in Peruvian rice, taking advantage of a Chinese rice shortage by purchasing a large quantity of Peruvian rice that had just arrived in San Francisco at 4 cents per pound, and cornering the market, which allowed him to sell the rice for a steep markup. With his success in rice trading, Norton turned to other ventures, including real estate (an affluent neighborhood of San Francisco is named Norton Gardens after him) and lived a quietly prosperous life for more than a decade. That changed when he heard about the new transcontinental railroad. While most San Francisco investors flocked to the Central Pacific, Norton saw an opportunity to grow even richer in the southern route, and pooled his resources with William Rosecrans, Lew Wallace, and Richard Taylor to fund the Southern Pacific, and making the quartet the majority shareholders, and principal controllers, of the SPRR.
Norton hoped to expand his real estate empire into Colorado, and saw an opportunity to establish trading depots, hostels, and other businesses along the railroad’s route. Further, as he was going into business with Generals, not seasoned businessmen, he was able to have far more influence over the Southern Pacific’s decisions than the businessmen running the Central or Union Pacific. Norton arranged for two termini to be constructed – a main, mixed-use terminus in Los Angeles, and a smaller, more passenger-focused one in San Diego. This was because Norton had purchased a large stretch of beachfront property on Coronado Island, and hoped to develop it into a luxury beach resort. Norton planned this complex meticulously, planning a grand, Italianate train station on the mainland, with a bridge connecting the station (and San Diego) to Coronado Island. Wanting a cable car line to encourage further (Norton-funded) development of Coronado, he hired John A. Roebling to design and build a suspension bridge to accommodate foot, street, and cable car traffic to and from Coronado Island (Coronado Island still maintains this cable car line, and Norton’s grand hotel still operates, though as a Schenger property).
The Coronado Suspension Bridge, which was completed in 1874, sparked a lifelong interest in bridges for Norton, and upon his return to San Francisco, he lobbied for a suspension bridge to connect that city to Oakland.”
From “The Titan of Europe: A History of the German Empire” by Martin Brinkley
Published 2008
“With the death of Kronprinz Friedrich at the Battle of Sadowa, his young son Wilhelm was the new heir to the Prussian throne. While his father had been considered a liberal and was a favorite of German reformists, Wilhelm I was of a more conservative persuasion and sought to impart this upon the new Kronprinz. Otto von Bismarck, the powerful chancellor of Prussia (and by extension, North Germany) also took a role in the Prince’s upbringing, wanting to instill in him not just the conservative values of his father, but also the need for cold, calculating pragmatism and strong alliances.
As he grew up, Wilhelm took to these lessons eagerly, finding the world of diplomacy a fascinating exercise. Biographers have ruminated on this for decades, with the consensus being that he loved the chess-like machinations of diplomacy, realpolitik, and compromise. But suffice to say, once Wilhelm came to rule Germany, his impact on not just his own nation, but on the world as a whole, cannot be understated.”
From “Brockman High Class of 2015 EHAP Exam”
Question: Describe the effects of the Annexation on Cuba on either the US or Spain. Were the effects positive or negative? Explain.
The annexation of Cuba had a major effect on Spain [elaborate more in your opening sentence]. The loss of Cuba caused a lot of political turmoil in Spain, as such a wealthy and resource-rich colony had a very important role in the Spanish economy [rather redundant – could be shortened]. Not only was Spain humiliated by the US strong-arming them into selling, but Queen Isabella II’s mercurial, ever-shifting favor had resulted in a dysfunctional government where the Prime Ministership was cycled between different factions [A good statement – next time, don’t try and work in big words where they don’t fit well]. While Cuba’s annexation itself did not cause Queen Isabella’s overthrow, it did weaken her personal popularity, and led to a lot of public outrage at the government for bending to US demands. While liberal and Republican exiles saw Isabella as the root of Spain’s ills and had several plans to depose her, it was the perceived humiliation of being strongarmed into selling Cuba that damned Isabella in the public’s eyes. After the sale of Cuba, public anger built and built, and the Queen was tarred as the one who destroyed Spain’s American empire once and for all (despite Puerto Rico still being a Spanish possession). The last straw for Queen Isabella’s governmental house of cards [great phrasing] was the death of Leopoldo O’Donnell, a several-time Prime Minister and the glue that held the ruling Union Liberal together. His supporters, many of whom did not like Isabella, returned to the opposition. In September 1868, a naval mutiny occurred in Cadiz (coincidentally, the same place where a coup was launched against the even more unpopular Ferdinand VII). The mutiny spurred Generals Juan Prim and Francisco Serrano to denounce Isabella’s government, and that in turn brought much of the army to defect to the opposition.
Isabella quickly fled to France, where she remained until her death. Serrano, Prim, and the rest of the opposition formed a provisional government and drafted a new, liberal constitution while the Cortes searched for a new King. Ultimately, Prince Amadeo of Savoy was selected as the new King of Spain, and his coronation inaugurated a new era of liberal government in Spain, shepherded along by Prim and Serrano’s able hands, with both serving as Prime Minister. The loss of Cuba helped spur the collapse of Isabella’s government, which definitely helped Spain.
[Very nice work, Jon. Next time try to be more concise and try to make your writing flow better. 9/10. – Ms. Shaw]
From “World Events”, on the Foreign Intelligence Service’s ‘World Factbook’
Published 2017
1868 was a relatively uneventful year, with Europe still in the decades-long ‘Continental Peace’ that would only truly shatter in the 20th century. That being said, here are some of the more interesting things that happened:
April 29th: General William T. Sherman brokers the Treaty of Fort Sublette with the Plains Indians. The Treaty ended Red Cloud’s War and saw the Federal government create a Sioux Reservation, brokered peace between the Lakota and Ponca Indians, and mandated the government’s abandonment of several forts and outposts along the Bozeman Trail. The Treaty of Fort Sublette was generally upheld by General Sherman’s brother, John Sherman, during his administration, though several provisions were ignored by the more expansionist Richard Taylor. Nevertheless, the Treaty of Fort Sublette laid the foundation for a fairer Federal policy towards the Indian peoples of America, though such a policy has admittedly taken a long time to coalesce.
[...]
June 10th: Prince Mihailo Obrenovic of Serbia survives an assassination attempt in Belgrade
[...]
From “From Taylor to Linton: The Evolution of the National Party”, by Tom Jenkins
Published 2009
“Stephen Douglas shocked many in the Nationalist Party when, in February of 1868, he announced that he would not stand as a candidate for the nomination of the party he helped to found. As he told an assembly of Nationalist Party leaders, he disliked the “convention politicking,” thinking it “a chaotic and thoroughly exhausting system that [he didn’t] want to navigate again.” With Douglas out of the running early, a whole host of candidates emerged, meeting with important partymen, shaking hands at gatherings, and giving speeches. Several major candidates emerged, including former Quartermaster General, and 1864 vice presidential nominee, George McClellan, Indiana Senator Thomas A. Hendricks (who had been accepted into the Nationalist Party despite his role, as chair of the 1860 DNC, in allowing Horatio Seymour to pass his peace plank), and Congressman John A. Logan, who had served as a divisional commander during the New Orleans Campaign and had risen to a corps command by the Atlanta Campaign. Logan had been a Democrat, had briefly joined the Ignorants and the Freedomites, before following Stephen Douglas to the Nationalist Party. A number of minor candidates, including Francis P. Blair Jr. (who’s influence within the party had declined significantly since 1864), Andrew Johnson (who, without Douglas, was no longer such a magnet for anti-Douglas forces within the party), and 1864 nominee William R. Doolittle (who did not declare his candidacy and never campaigned).
The Convention was held in Independence, Missouri, which was touted by the party as a “crossroads of the nation – west, south, and north”. The convention was gaveled in as the assembled delegates wondered what course the convention would take without Douglas as a candidate.
The first ballot saw McClellan take a narrow lead of 5 delegates, with much of his support coming from the west and south, though he split the south almost evenly with Hendricks. Louisiana was a curious lone island of support for Logan within the south, mostly thanks to the endorsement of Richard Taylor, who had been Logan’s commander for much of the war and thought he was an “able commander and leader, and one of my best Generals”. Taylor thought McClellan to be a “pompous, arrogant fool” and disliked Hendricks for his pro-peace views during the war. Logan split the Midwest in three with McClellan and Hendricks and enjoyed the strong support of northern delegates. Minor candidates took the rest of the vote, with Andrew Johnson winning Tennessee and peeling off a couple of delegates in the other southern states. After the first ballot, Doolittle, Blair, and several others who did not even win a single delegate withdrew their names, though Johnson stubbornly remained in the running.
The second ballot saw a dramatic shift, as McClellan bled delegates. Logan surged into a strong lead of just under 30 delegates, while McClellan sank into third place, with many of his midwestern delegates going over to Logan. Some of the more conservative southern delegates were worried about nominating Logan, as they disliked his previous association with the Freedom Party (though he was decidedly in the moderate camp and was regarded as one of the most conservative members of the party) and felt he was too moderate. The third ballot saw the almost total collapse of McClellan’s candidacy, as those delegates who still supported him due to his wartime service defected to Logan, who had had a more illustrious record than McClellan, who had been sacked by President Fremont for being too cautious. Logan emerged with just six votes shy of a simple majority (though he needed a two-third majority to actually be nominated). Hendricks received most of McClellan’s southern support, though Andrew Johnson also made minor gains, enough for him to refuse calls to withdraw his name from contention.
The fourth ballot was the deciding one – Logan received 209 votes as he secured most of the northern and midwestern delegates, while Hendricks’s support in the mid-Atlantic collapsed. With Logan’s momentum clear, Hendricks approached Logan with a deal – in exchange for his support, Hendricks would become the vice-presidential nominee. Logan agreed, and on the fifth ballot, was nominated unanimously. Hendricks was nominated for vice president with only the 7 delegates from Tennessee refusing to vote for him (they supported Andrew Johnson).
A revised version of the 1864 platform, this time condemning the Elections Security Act and other ‘radical’ policies of the Sherman administration, was adopted by the convention, before it adjourned five days after first convening.”
From “We Must Endeavor: The Story of Reconciliation” by Sir Andrew Dickerson
Published 1997
“John A. Logan presented an interesting opponent for President Sherman. Having served ably in the Civil War, Logan ran on his war record while continuing to endorse Douglasite proposals such as expanding the homestead acts, aggressive Federal support for westward expansion, and the withdrawal of Federal troops from the south. He, his surrogates, and friendly newspapers attacked Sherman for “radicalism… radicalism that will turn this nation into an anarchic non-state, ruled by whichever mob the public finds favorable.” For his part, Logan actively campaigned, taking a page from Stephen Douglas’s energetic travels in 1860. Precedent held that a candidate was to rely on allies and the press to spread his message, while he held small events and presses spread speech copies around. Logan broke with this, speaking at large event halls and outdoor gatherings. A strong speaker, Logan drew sizeable crowds during his sweep of the Midwest, forcing Sherman to respond lest he lose critical swing states like Indiana or New York.
While Sherman was not an especially inspiring speaker, he went on a speaking tour of modest size, visiting central Illinois and Indiana. However, he still relied on more charismatic allies like Charles Sumner and Henry Winter Davis to spread his message. And Sherman’s message was simple – a gold standard, internal improvements, and protective tariffs. He also endorsed federal support for voting rights, saying at a campaign stop in Peoria that “the Federal government’s duty is to ensure our nation survives as a free and united one. If some citizens cannot vote, then our existence as a democracy is in jeopardy.” But Sherman did not run entirely on what he hoped to accomplish in the future, but mainly on his previous accomplishments. Everywhere, Sherman campaign posters emphasized the financial stability, the transcontinental railroad that, as Sherman put it in a speech in Indianapolis, “will be the final triumph of the United States over the untamed vastness of the west”, and the successful reintegration of much of the south back into the Union.
Sherman enjoyed a comfortable advantage, with a strong financial recovery, buoyed by massive infrastructure projects (namely, the railroads) and the swarm of investors and hired laborers that cropped up to build them. Though the south chafed under the new civil rights laws and were thus backing Logan, Sherman enjoyed the support of the radicals, the workers with steady jobs, and the freedmen grateful for civil rights protections.
In the end, despite an energetic campaign on the part of Logan, President Sherman coasted to a comfortable victory, winning 54 percent of the popular vote and 214 electoral votes, while Logan won 45 percent of the vote and 120 electoral votes, even narrowly losing his home state. Down ballot, the Freedom Party gained a handful of seats in the house and gained three seats in the Senate (defending the seats of Frederick T. Frelinghuysen and Benjamin Wade and picking up two seats in Colorado and Indiana). While not a resounding win, Sherman could remain confident in having Congressional support to pass his agenda, and he fully intended to make use of this opportunity.”
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