I don't believe so. The Donkey for the Dems and the Elephant for the GOP comes out of Civil War and Guilded Age political cartoons. If the Whigs had stuck together as a party and not dissolved, they likely would have gotten one - but they didn't last long enough in OTL.
The American System: A Henry Clay TL
- Thread starter TheHedgehog
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I don't believe so. The Donkey for the Dems and the Elephant for the GOP comes out of Civil War and Guilded Age political cartoons. If the Whigs had stuck together as a party and not dissolved, they likely would have gotten one - but they didn't last long enough in OTL.
Federalist and Democratic-Republicans seem to have had spinning wheels or something.....if you believe Wikipedia. 🤔
Still the Whigs were a credible party of sorts when they had a unifying figure...of course that seems to be Zachary Taylor and no one else.
Even then you had the northern and southern Whigs and their interests, nevermind that Webster and Clay hated each other and could not accept anyone else but themselves as president/party leader. And even then continued to undermine each other.
Just a jug with x's on it lol
Log cabins and cider (at least circa the 1840 campaign)
I've seen some people use an owl, otherwise see above
Windows95
Banned
I like Henry Clay, he was an advocate of state economic planning, to build a defensive, state capitalism, industrialize the state and lift people up out of poverty. His kind of economic policies helped Deng Xiaoping, and South Korea to lift themselves out of poverty, using policies that would've been ironically been described as... something else.
His policies are inspired by Alexander Hamilton, revolutionary, and an underrated radical in central economic planning/industrial policy for economic development and self-defence militarily and economically, not to be confused with the Soviet GOSPLAN, but more with the French General Planning Commission, and Japanese Ministry of International Trade and Industry. Those policies are state capitalism/economic nationalism like Ataturk's.
Clay's economic writings and possibly this timeline will attract the attention of one German economist, Friedrich List (there wasn't the only economist whose named Friedrich), we will receive and see more of the German-American contact closely. It might not be too far off the mark to see that Bismarck and Henry Clay might meet each in other in person, since we never see both of any of them in contact, in person, only through maybe letters and ambassadors, and thereby Bismarck going further and earlier in colonization.
His policies are inspired by Alexander Hamilton, revolutionary, and an underrated radical in central economic planning/industrial policy for economic development and self-defence militarily and economically, not to be confused with the Soviet GOSPLAN, but more with the French General Planning Commission, and Japanese Ministry of International Trade and Industry. Those policies are state capitalism/economic nationalism like Ataturk's.
Clay's economic writings and possibly this timeline will attract the attention of one German economist, Friedrich List (there wasn't the only economist whose named Friedrich), we will receive and see more of the German-American contact closely. It might not be too far off the mark to see that Bismarck and Henry Clay might meet each in other in person, since we never see both of any of them in contact, in person, only through maybe letters and ambassadors, and thereby Bismarck going further and earlier in colonization.
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Interesting.
I am hoping for butterflies toad to an independent Texas and Utah myself.
I am hoping for butterflies toad to an independent Texas and Utah myself.
Thanks!
Although I will say that the hard cider thing was completely OTL, I just repurposed it to be about Clay.
Yeah, pretty much. A lot of how we identify the Democrats and Republicans are very recent -- blue and red only became consistent in the 1990s/early 2000s.
And this does get me thinking about alternate party symbology...
I think the Federalist/D-R wheels had party colors or something.
The Whigs were certainly dominated by personality, and while Clay's leadership and presidency will help the party coalesce, the various ideological and, as you point out, sectional, factions will rear their heads. The Whigs were basically their own worst enemy back then.
I hadn't heard about Friedrich List, but I'll check him out -- he could be more prominent TTL and/or correspond with President Clay.
While Clay and Bismarck meeting would be interesting, Clay died OTL in 1852, while Bismarck rose to prominence in the 1860s, so I don't think it would happen. Who knows if Bismarck will even be prominent TTL...
I'm going to have to dust off my Henry Clay biography - the "Essential American" , as well as "The Rise and Fall of the American Whig Party."
Interesting idea, although from what I know Clay was more a horse racing guy than a cattle farmer, so maybe a horse?
Or the merger of the Democrats and Whigs: the MulesHorse vs Donkey?
To piggyback off others I’m most curious how a Clay that actually has the ability to implement his American System does; state capitalism and developmentalism wasn’t on anybody else’s radar at this point really but it’d be fascinating if that is what America became known for rather than pure laissez-faire
While I don’t think the US could realistically go full state capitalist, the American System will definitely leave a stronger precedent for federal intervention in the economy, even (down the line) in the Jacksonian Democratic party. Stephen Douglas, for instance, supported a transcontinental railroad.
Windows95 mentioned Friedrich List, and I could see a more successful Clay making List more prominent, which could affect the development of European industrial economies. Perhaps an earlier emergence of alt-Keynesian theory, even.
Debatable. Clay is an ardent expansionist, just not for sectional reasons, nor really for war reasons.
The Man wants the US to reach the pacific like everyone else of that time. He may find it easier to make a treaty with Britain for Oregon though...
He might purchase SF and above just to expand the pacific coast holdings.
A Whig owl against a Democratic rooster or a barrel of cider against a barrel of whiskey