Congratulations on the Turtledove win, @TheHedgehog! Richly deserved and befitting of such a creative and well-thought out timeline. Here's to one more year of The American System!
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The American System: A Henry Clay TL
- Thread starter TheHedgehog
- Start date
Extremely well deserved win! Probably the best worldbuilding on the site!
Congratulations! The Lyon's Roar has guided you to victory (still love that ATL book title).
Congratulations! Well deserved! Henry Clay is certainly smiling at you for wining hahaha 
No, I think he is more jealous. After all, @TheHedgehog has done what he was never able to do IOTL!Congratulations! Well deserved! Henry Clay is certainly smiling at you for wining hahaha
Congratulations! Well deserved! Henry Clay is certainly smiling at you for wining hahaha
Thanks so much you guys! And a huge thank you to everyone else who voted for TAS. I really appreciate you all!
87. A Time for Choosing
87. A Time for Choosing
“For all of his successes as President, John Fountain was an unpopular, endangered incumbent. The Development Act had proved unpopular with voters, provoking a sudden and strong backlash against the Whigs in 1922. He had struggled to work with the new Democratic majorities, as the new speaker pushed lower tariffs and an end to subsidies. Fountain was able to negotiate a slight tariff reduction, but he refused to budge over any modifications to the Development Act. Though he was certainly embattled, the Whigs remained steadfastly united behind Fountain.
The 1924 Whig convention was thus intended to remind the American people of the strengths of the party and present a party united in purpose. There were dozens of speeches touting the early signs of economic recovery, but it was the President’s speech, delivered on the last night of the convention, that really set the tone. “The Democratic Party has strove to convince us since the era of Jackson that the government is an impediment to freedom, that government action is an undesirable last-resort. But the truth is that government is not the problem. Expanding the duties of the government will not send us on the road to dictatorship and crisis. Government is not the problem. Government is the solution.”
From there, Fountain launched into a full-throated defense of his presidency, to the cheers of the crowd. “Since I took the oath of office nearly four years ago, this nation has made great strides towards prosperity for all. The voting franchise has undergone its largest expansion in a century. Our economy is stronger now than at any point in our history. And with our victories in El Salvador and Cuba, we remain the undisputed policemen of the Hemisphere. But these are mere policies. Tonight, I want to speak about a difference in philosophies.”
Here, he pivoted to once again attacking the Democrats, criticizing them for shrinking away from what he saw as the government’s societal duties. “Our opposition embraces the Jacksonian fear of government, but we of the Whig party embrace a different vision: that of Henry Clay, that the government is a tool to be mobilized in defense of the economy, in defense of the American people and their livelihoods [1]. This is the question put before the American people: to choose between a government withdrawal from its duties to the people, or a government that embraces wholeheartedly its obligations to promote the general welfare. If there is suffering in the nation, the people should be able to depend on their duly elected government to remedy it. The government must be there to protect the people from the excesses of business, from the ravages of disease, and the dark clouds of warfare.”
Newspapers raved about Fountain’s speech for days afterwards. While pro-Democratic journalists accused him of demagoguery, others praised his speech for its blunt, plain speech and decisive tone. While he still faced likely defeat, Whigs were reminded of why they voted for him, while undecideds were presented with a stark choice for November. Although the Whigs would ultimately lose in 1924, their convention that year has gone down as one of the best and most pivotal in American history.”
-From SOBER AND INDUSTRIOUS: A HISTORY OF THE WHIGS by Greg Carey, published 1986
“Elias Delaney had maintained his standing within the Democratic party, despite his 1920 defeat. Indeed, after regaining his chairmanship of Ways and Means in 1922, he had only strengthened his reputation as a fighter for liberalism and an effective bridge between the southern and northern patronage machines. With the staid moderation of the Hepburn faction out of favor, Delaney emerged once again as the Democrats’ compromise candidate. While it was incredibly rare for failed nominees to secure re-n0mination (in the two decades preceding 1924, both William McKinley and William S. Weldon had tried and failed to stage political comebacks, the former losing to William McGovern and the latter to James Hepburn [2]), Delaney proved to have rare staying power.
He was also incredibly adept at maintaining not just close ties, but strong friendships with southern kingmakers. Delaney was particularly close with Senator Harold McCord of North Carolina, who promised to build southern support for Delaney at the convention. Elements of the southern faction still opposed Delaney, however, and united behind their standard-bearer at the 1920 convention, Virginia Senator Thomas Wilder. Wilder was on shakier ground this time, in spite of his vociferous attacks against the Fountain presidency. Indeed, his criticisms of the President were occasionally too conservative, damaging his electability. While Wilder demanded free trade and massive cuts to internal improvement spending, Delaney was more moderate, lambasting the Development Act and advocating for tariff reductions, but did not condemn the decades-old precedents that underpinned American economic policy.
As a result, Delaney secured the nomination on the first ballot, benefitting from the strength of his allies and the weakness of even a united opposition. For vice president, the convention selected one of Wilder's close allies, former Virginia Governor Caleb Cabell. The platform was largely uncontroversial, calling for a repeal of the Development Act’s subsidies and the standard Democratic fare of tariff reductions and spending cuts. In his speech to the convention, he laid out his agenda, one which would ultimately define the coming decade. Though it was widely regarded as rather dull, especially in comparison to Fountain’s a month later, Delaney’s speech captivated the convention hall. He primarily attacked the Development Act and refuted Fountain’s criticisms of the Jacksonian philosophy, arguing that the government had overstepped and was imposing itself into the free market excessively."
-From IN THE SHADOW OF JACKSON by Michelle Watts, published 2012
“Howard Cameron’s first term as governor had been quite difficult. Between an unpopular Whig president and opposition from the legislature, he was unable to do much of anything. An unemployment compensation system was defeated by conservative Whigs in the legislature and his efforts to fight urban poverty were similarly stonewalled. However, Cameron could point to two things: an expansion of the state highway system and the construction of new state hospitals. These had created many new jobs and allowed the growth of business in Detroit and its suburbs. Unfortunately for Cameron, the additional spending was unpopular during a time where the state budget was already overstretched, and many voters were concerned about the slow economy.
As part of his push for urban renewal, Cameron had condemned the conditions of poor black migrants from the south and called for redevelopment of their neighborhoods. While he was able to secure funding for building inspections and new apartment buildings and utilities, the public backlash was fierce. His Democratic challenger, the popular liberal [3] congressman John Ives, accused Cameron of “neglecting” his constituents, and even members of the established black community of Detroit were critical of “unnecessary” spending in poor communities. The bulk of the backlash was concentrated in white communities, however, who responded to the racial undertones of Ives’ campaign.
Amid a hostile national political landscape and with a series of unpopular policies, Cameron was facing a deeply uphill battle. Ives had a seemingly popular platform, advocating steep cuts to state personal and corporate income taxes, replacing them with a single 10% consumption tax. Cameron ignored the bulk of Ives’ platform and honed in on the consumption tax, attacking it ceaselessly as an imposition on the poor and a net loss of income for the state. At one rally, he declared “my opponent wants the tax burden to fall on the shoulders of the poor and the workers alone, so his friends and allies can hoard their wealth.”
Ives accused Cameron of calling for class warfare, but public opinion on the consumption tax swiftly reversed under Cameron’s relentless assault. Whig advertisements warned voters that “basic necessities of life – bread, clothing, medicine, will become more expensive for all but the richest,” and Cameron’s speeches frequently tore into the tax, along with the usual policy prescriptions [4]. The Democrats’ wide polling lead significantly narrowed through September and October 1924, but Ives was still the odds-on favorite to win. Experts warned that Michigan’s days of faithful Whiggism were over, and that the state was now a hotly contested marginal. Between his racial dog whistles and a broad, mostly uncontroversial platform, Ives was confident enough in victory that he spent the last week of the campaign vacationing in the Upper Peninsula, making a single radio speech to mock Cameron’s “desperation.” Meanwhile, Cameron continued to crisscross the state, attacking the “absentee” Ives and implied that he hated the working class.
In his second upset win, Cameron narrowly defeated Ives for a second term, winning by just 3,000 votes statewide, largely due to heavy turnout in working-class precincts in Detroit, Flint, Lansing, and mining cities like Marquette. Though he underperformed President Fountain in the state by about 10,000 votes, it was nevertheless an impressive victory for Cameron, and the last close race of his governorship. The narrow margin and heated rhetoric of the election had a profound impact on Cameron’s political philosophy. He had three takeaways from the 1922 and 1924 elections: campaigning and governance were one and the same, governing was a lonely business with inherent paranoia, and dirty tricks were the key to success. As Howard Cameron went off down the road to the Presidency, he was slowly becoming the cynical operator that many Americans remember him as…”
-From THE DETROIT LION by John Philip Yates, published 2012
“President Fountain faced a steep uphill battle to stay in office. Though he narrowed the gap with tireless campaigning and his personal popularity, the slow economy and the Development Act made his administration deeply unpopular. Congressman Delaney ran a safe campaign, focusing on the industrial subsidies and economic troubles, confident that Fountain’s record would do most of the campaigning for him.
Predictably, Fountain was denied a second term, but the race was closer than expected. He succeeded in winning New York on the back of the women’s vote, and narrowly held Pennsylvania and Wisconsin while losing Minnesota and Massachusetts by slim margins. Overall, his performance in the marginal seats exceeded expectations, though the Whigs still lost seats down ballot, losing two in the House and three in the Senate. Though the results were certainly disappointing, the Whigs had come quite close to the impossible, and though Fountain lost, his presidency would ultimately shape the current American political-economic consensus…”
-From STARING INTO THE ABYSS: AMERICA 1920-1940 by Greg Carey, published 2001
[1] Clay historiography is rather different TTL, as the left-wing interprets him from their POV.
[2] And even before that, John Sherman made several attempts after losing 1888.
[3] In a classical sense, that is.
[4] Inspired by John Hewson and the embarrassment of Fightback!
“For all of his successes as President, John Fountain was an unpopular, endangered incumbent. The Development Act had proved unpopular with voters, provoking a sudden and strong backlash against the Whigs in 1922. He had struggled to work with the new Democratic majorities, as the new speaker pushed lower tariffs and an end to subsidies. Fountain was able to negotiate a slight tariff reduction, but he refused to budge over any modifications to the Development Act. Though he was certainly embattled, the Whigs remained steadfastly united behind Fountain.
The 1924 Whig convention was thus intended to remind the American people of the strengths of the party and present a party united in purpose. There were dozens of speeches touting the early signs of economic recovery, but it was the President’s speech, delivered on the last night of the convention, that really set the tone. “The Democratic Party has strove to convince us since the era of Jackson that the government is an impediment to freedom, that government action is an undesirable last-resort. But the truth is that government is not the problem. Expanding the duties of the government will not send us on the road to dictatorship and crisis. Government is not the problem. Government is the solution.”
From there, Fountain launched into a full-throated defense of his presidency, to the cheers of the crowd. “Since I took the oath of office nearly four years ago, this nation has made great strides towards prosperity for all. The voting franchise has undergone its largest expansion in a century. Our economy is stronger now than at any point in our history. And with our victories in El Salvador and Cuba, we remain the undisputed policemen of the Hemisphere. But these are mere policies. Tonight, I want to speak about a difference in philosophies.”
Here, he pivoted to once again attacking the Democrats, criticizing them for shrinking away from what he saw as the government’s societal duties. “Our opposition embraces the Jacksonian fear of government, but we of the Whig party embrace a different vision: that of Henry Clay, that the government is a tool to be mobilized in defense of the economy, in defense of the American people and their livelihoods [1]. This is the question put before the American people: to choose between a government withdrawal from its duties to the people, or a government that embraces wholeheartedly its obligations to promote the general welfare. If there is suffering in the nation, the people should be able to depend on their duly elected government to remedy it. The government must be there to protect the people from the excesses of business, from the ravages of disease, and the dark clouds of warfare.”
Newspapers raved about Fountain’s speech for days afterwards. While pro-Democratic journalists accused him of demagoguery, others praised his speech for its blunt, plain speech and decisive tone. While he still faced likely defeat, Whigs were reminded of why they voted for him, while undecideds were presented with a stark choice for November. Although the Whigs would ultimately lose in 1924, their convention that year has gone down as one of the best and most pivotal in American history.”
-From SOBER AND INDUSTRIOUS: A HISTORY OF THE WHIGS by Greg Carey, published 1986
“Elias Delaney had maintained his standing within the Democratic party, despite his 1920 defeat. Indeed, after regaining his chairmanship of Ways and Means in 1922, he had only strengthened his reputation as a fighter for liberalism and an effective bridge between the southern and northern patronage machines. With the staid moderation of the Hepburn faction out of favor, Delaney emerged once again as the Democrats’ compromise candidate. While it was incredibly rare for failed nominees to secure re-n0mination (in the two decades preceding 1924, both William McKinley and William S. Weldon had tried and failed to stage political comebacks, the former losing to William McGovern and the latter to James Hepburn [2]), Delaney proved to have rare staying power.
He was also incredibly adept at maintaining not just close ties, but strong friendships with southern kingmakers. Delaney was particularly close with Senator Harold McCord of North Carolina, who promised to build southern support for Delaney at the convention. Elements of the southern faction still opposed Delaney, however, and united behind their standard-bearer at the 1920 convention, Virginia Senator Thomas Wilder. Wilder was on shakier ground this time, in spite of his vociferous attacks against the Fountain presidency. Indeed, his criticisms of the President were occasionally too conservative, damaging his electability. While Wilder demanded free trade and massive cuts to internal improvement spending, Delaney was more moderate, lambasting the Development Act and advocating for tariff reductions, but did not condemn the decades-old precedents that underpinned American economic policy.
As a result, Delaney secured the nomination on the first ballot, benefitting from the strength of his allies and the weakness of even a united opposition. For vice president, the convention selected one of Wilder's close allies, former Virginia Governor Caleb Cabell. The platform was largely uncontroversial, calling for a repeal of the Development Act’s subsidies and the standard Democratic fare of tariff reductions and spending cuts. In his speech to the convention, he laid out his agenda, one which would ultimately define the coming decade. Though it was widely regarded as rather dull, especially in comparison to Fountain’s a month later, Delaney’s speech captivated the convention hall. He primarily attacked the Development Act and refuted Fountain’s criticisms of the Jacksonian philosophy, arguing that the government had overstepped and was imposing itself into the free market excessively."
-From IN THE SHADOW OF JACKSON by Michelle Watts, published 2012
“Howard Cameron’s first term as governor had been quite difficult. Between an unpopular Whig president and opposition from the legislature, he was unable to do much of anything. An unemployment compensation system was defeated by conservative Whigs in the legislature and his efforts to fight urban poverty were similarly stonewalled. However, Cameron could point to two things: an expansion of the state highway system and the construction of new state hospitals. These had created many new jobs and allowed the growth of business in Detroit and its suburbs. Unfortunately for Cameron, the additional spending was unpopular during a time where the state budget was already overstretched, and many voters were concerned about the slow economy.
As part of his push for urban renewal, Cameron had condemned the conditions of poor black migrants from the south and called for redevelopment of their neighborhoods. While he was able to secure funding for building inspections and new apartment buildings and utilities, the public backlash was fierce. His Democratic challenger, the popular liberal [3] congressman John Ives, accused Cameron of “neglecting” his constituents, and even members of the established black community of Detroit were critical of “unnecessary” spending in poor communities. The bulk of the backlash was concentrated in white communities, however, who responded to the racial undertones of Ives’ campaign.
Amid a hostile national political landscape and with a series of unpopular policies, Cameron was facing a deeply uphill battle. Ives had a seemingly popular platform, advocating steep cuts to state personal and corporate income taxes, replacing them with a single 10% consumption tax. Cameron ignored the bulk of Ives’ platform and honed in on the consumption tax, attacking it ceaselessly as an imposition on the poor and a net loss of income for the state. At one rally, he declared “my opponent wants the tax burden to fall on the shoulders of the poor and the workers alone, so his friends and allies can hoard their wealth.”
Ives accused Cameron of calling for class warfare, but public opinion on the consumption tax swiftly reversed under Cameron’s relentless assault. Whig advertisements warned voters that “basic necessities of life – bread, clothing, medicine, will become more expensive for all but the richest,” and Cameron’s speeches frequently tore into the tax, along with the usual policy prescriptions [4]. The Democrats’ wide polling lead significantly narrowed through September and October 1924, but Ives was still the odds-on favorite to win. Experts warned that Michigan’s days of faithful Whiggism were over, and that the state was now a hotly contested marginal. Between his racial dog whistles and a broad, mostly uncontroversial platform, Ives was confident enough in victory that he spent the last week of the campaign vacationing in the Upper Peninsula, making a single radio speech to mock Cameron’s “desperation.” Meanwhile, Cameron continued to crisscross the state, attacking the “absentee” Ives and implied that he hated the working class.
In his second upset win, Cameron narrowly defeated Ives for a second term, winning by just 3,000 votes statewide, largely due to heavy turnout in working-class precincts in Detroit, Flint, Lansing, and mining cities like Marquette. Though he underperformed President Fountain in the state by about 10,000 votes, it was nevertheless an impressive victory for Cameron, and the last close race of his governorship. The narrow margin and heated rhetoric of the election had a profound impact on Cameron’s political philosophy. He had three takeaways from the 1922 and 1924 elections: campaigning and governance were one and the same, governing was a lonely business with inherent paranoia, and dirty tricks were the key to success. As Howard Cameron went off down the road to the Presidency, he was slowly becoming the cynical operator that many Americans remember him as…”
-From THE DETROIT LION by John Philip Yates, published 2012
“President Fountain faced a steep uphill battle to stay in office. Though he narrowed the gap with tireless campaigning and his personal popularity, the slow economy and the Development Act made his administration deeply unpopular. Congressman Delaney ran a safe campaign, focusing on the industrial subsidies and economic troubles, confident that Fountain’s record would do most of the campaigning for him.
| Elias Delany | John Fountain | |
| Electoral Vote | 300 | 237 |
| Popular Vote | 12,026,966 | 11,271,325 |
| Percentage | 50.2 | 47.1 |
Predictably, Fountain was denied a second term, but the race was closer than expected. He succeeded in winning New York on the back of the women’s vote, and narrowly held Pennsylvania and Wisconsin while losing Minnesota and Massachusetts by slim margins. Overall, his performance in the marginal seats exceeded expectations, though the Whigs still lost seats down ballot, losing two in the House and three in the Senate. Though the results were certainly disappointing, the Whigs had come quite close to the impossible, and though Fountain lost, his presidency would ultimately shape the current American political-economic consensus…”
-From STARING INTO THE ABYSS: AMERICA 1920-1940 by Greg Carey, published 2001
[1] Clay historiography is rather different TTL, as the left-wing interprets him from their POV.
[2] And even before that, John Sherman made several attempts after losing 1888.
[3] In a classical sense, that is.
[4] Inspired by John Hewson and the embarrassment of Fightback!
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why would you do this, my mental image of howard cameron as howard hamlin from better call saul has been shattered
I guess I am a little late, but still, awesome job man. This timeline is great, and I look forward to seeing it reach completion.
Thanks so much! Im honestly blown away at the support TAS has gotten, I really appreciate it!
88. Progress or Stagnation?
88. Progress or Stagnation?
“While the Guangxu Emperor’s massive reforms had shored up the Qing government’s position and restored popular respect and support in the short term, the reforms had both created a large reformist movement and failed to provide a proper outlet for these sentiments. The Qing Empire remained strong and avoided the worst of imperialism, save for the Russian occupation of Manchuria, Europe generally preferred to maintain peaceful trade with the cautiously pro-western Guangxu Court than instigate any conflict. The Great War further distracted Europe from any Oriental adventurism, allowing the Empire to continue the pace of reform and industrialization.
Under the Guangxu Emperor’s reforms, Beijing University had, by the 1920s, established itself as a center for not only innovation, but political radicalism. The army had also undergone a serious overhaul, resulting in an influx of forward-thinking army officers rapidly climbing through the ranks. By the dawn of the 1920s, the Beijing Army was dominated by these reformist officers who had been instilled with modern mindsets. Under the leadership of General Mao Zhanfeng, the New Army was an entirely professional force, structured around the defense of the Empire, which was contrasted with an embrace of both modern tactics and modern, western government.
One key tenet of the reformist program was the eventual introduction of a constitutional monarchy. Three new groups in China, the educated middle class, modern civil service, and politically-minded army officers, all supported democratic evolution. However, while the Emperor did create a weak parliament, the Common Council, in 1913, he proved reluctant to take further action. Also, powerful Imperial officials in the provinces actively resisted government reforms. These officials, often governors of the southern provinces, embraced the technological and economic benefits of modernization, but saw political reform as a threat to their power.
Despite the growing undercurrent of opposition to the Imperial Court, China remained stable throughout the 1910s and early 20s. The westernizing reforms had allowed the economy to expand rapidly, and the Emperor was respected for presiding over such prosperity. Provincial governments in Jiangsu and Anhui provinces were the most progressive in the nation, and spearheaded reforms such as directly electing mayors (Nanjing in Jiangsu and Hefei in Anhui) and introducing the land value tax. The Common Council, while often ignored, was dominated by moderate reformists who refrained from openly challenging Imperial authority.
Three events together upset the Qing Empire’s stability. The first was the 1919 Council elections, which saw the Tongmenghui win a narrow majority. The Tongmenghui (Chinese Revolutionary Alliance, often abbreviated TMH), led by the Cantonese lawyer Feng Demin, advocated for parliamentary supremacy and began openly disagreeing with the Emperor on issues such as taxation and naval spending. Second, the Guangxu Emperor died suddenly in 1922. His exact cause of death is still unknown – historians generally agree it was likely some form of cancer, but there are also theories that conservatives poisoned him because he was planning on granting more powers to the Council. His successor, the Zhengsheng Emperor [1], lacked the Guangxu Emperor’s tact in dealing with Feng’s Council and was generally more reactionary and conservative. The Zhengsheng Emperor quickly moved to stymie the reforms of Jiangsu and Anhui, issuing a decree that only he, not the people, could select a mayor, in August 1923.
The disbandment of the local government of Nanjing was deeply unpopular among the educated middle class, and even provoked ire from the newly-politically involved industrial workers of Nanjing and Hefei. 1926 brought the final event that would topple the Qing Dynasty: the Great Famine. Widespread drought struck northern and western China, followed by disease outbreak. While the government responded swiftly to the crisis, lingering civil service corruption delayed the relief efforts and the growth of cities meant that the price of food skyrocketed. As a result, many poor Chinese who flocked to the cities struggled to eat. The New Army was brought in to oversee relief work in the countryside, but the cities continued to fester. On June 14th, 1927, a market in Nanjing announced steep price increases due to the famine, prompting an ugly food riot as hungry, impoverished workers stormed the warehouses to steal food. The appointed mayor, panicking, summoned the provincial Imperial army to suppress the riot.
This culminated in Imperial forces opening fire on the hungry rioters, provoking greater discontent. Workers went on strike in Nanjing, followed by strikes in Hefei and Beijing. In Beijing, the strikes and protests took on a uniquely political tone, with Feng himself addressing the marchers. He called for greater democracy and criticized the Emperor for allowing corruption in the government to fester. It was the unrest in Beijing that worried the Emperor, and so he ordered General Mao to restore order. However, Mao sympathized with the TMH and secretly negotiated with Feng. Shen advised the Emperor that his position in Beijing was unsafe and advised him to leave the city until the army could suppress the protests. The Emperor quickly fled, and the New Army marched into Beijing, only for Mao to renounce Qing authority and recognize the Council as the sole legal authority. In the days after the coup in Beijing, revolution spread to the other provinces. Jiangsu and Anhui’s pro-Imperial leaders were overthrown by a mixture of New Army units and unorganized revolutionaries, while New Army units overthrew the Viceroy of Huguang.
By the end of July, the Viceroyalties of Zhili, Liangjiang, and Huguang were in revolutionary hands, as well as much of the Shandong peninsula. The Emperor fled south, where the loyal Viceroys of Sichuan, Yun-Gui, Liangguang, and Min-Zhe declared their opposition to Feng’s provisional government. Feng perceived this flight as a sign that the Emperor was determined to crush the revolution, and canceled the tentative negotiations with the Imperial Court over a constitutional compromise. On August 19th, he declared a republic and demanded that the Emperor abdicate and his loyalists surrender, or the new Republic of China would suppress the “rebellion” by force. Mao and the revolutionary leadership moved south to Nanjing, Mao in order to be closer to the fighting and the TMH in order to set up their new government in a more revolutionary location.
The revolutionaries convened in Nanjing throughout September and October to draft a new constitution for China. Feng presided over the convention, while Mao served as an informal advisor and occasionally visited the delegates. Operating under the Three Principles of the People (civic nationalism, popular democracy, and popular welfare), the delegates set about remaking China, for the first time without an Emperor. The Common Council and the various noble councils were replaced with the unicameral National Assembly, its representatives to be elected by direct popular vote from single-member districts. The Assembly would in turn select the President and approve his ministers. An American-style bill of rights was included, and Han Chinese was enshrined as the sole official national language. Revolutionary-controlled provinces quickly approved the 1927 Constitution, and as the New Army advanced rapidly south, these newly occupied provinces’ military governments also implemented the constitution.
Within two years, the southern provinces had been totally brought to heel and the Emperor forced into exile in French Indochina. In 1928, with only small pockets of resistance on the mainland, China held its first elections. Feng had stepped down as TMH leader shortly before the elections, and the party selected Mao Zhanfeng as the new leader. He had become close with many revolutionaries during the convention and was popular with the people, and so he resigned from the army and dove into the world of politics. Mao led the TMH to a landslide majority, winning 578 out of 596 seats in the Assembly. As all monarchist parties had been banned and the voting public was broadly supportive of the revolution [2], the remainder of the seats were all independent republicans.
As President, Mao proposed a new program of reform that went far beyond the Guangxu Emperor’s policies. His vision of China called not only for physical modernization, through new railroads, mines, and the massive expansion of the education system, but also cultural modernization. A surname law was passed, banning names associated with royalty like Wang (King) or Hou (Marquis), and ethnic names like Hu (barbarian). Qing-era queues and opium dens were banned, as was the practice of foot-binding. Mao fought against “superstitious” traditions such as herbal medicine, potions, geomancy, the veneration of ancestors and spirits, and what the TMH termed a “village-centric” worldview. He also directed the new education system to discourage certain “backwards” Confucian tenets mainly filial piety, which was seen as an obstacle towards women’s rights and social modernity.
The western calendar was adopted for official use, with the goal of phasing out the old lunar calendar within a generation. These social modernization programs were coupled with the construction of hundreds of rural schools, new railroads, the mass redistribution of land among the peasantry, the creation of an American-style semi-centralized Bank of the Republic, and the modernization of farming techniques. Mao’s ideology, known as Maoism, earned him the new surname of Hanfu (father of the Han), in an act of the Assembly. Even today, he is revered among the Chinese people for his transformational role in their nation’s history and society. 1928-1932 was only the beginning of his reforms, as he attempted to introduce multiparty rule and reach a self-imposed goal of 80% literacy nationwide…”
-From THE RISE OF NEW CHINA by Hannah Kang, published 2012
“The Whig party today stands at a crossroads. Rhetoric and policies that won us elections for decades have lost their shine. Primarily this is due to a shift in what voters care about – today, culture issues dominate national discourse. Up until just a few years ago, talk of trade and tariffs was purely economical, focused on job losses and potential foreign competition. Immigration debate revolved around efficiency and the danger of drug trafficking. Today, analysts and pundits have asked why the new free trade deal or the immigration reform law have aroused such furious debate, because surely the average voter is not very invested in the economics of trade. These people, including even former president Claire Huntington, miss the point. It’s not that people are experts in economics, but that they have come to associate some stance on trade or immigration with the American identity.
There has been an undeniable decline in manufacturing jobs in the six years since the United States’s accession to the North American Common Market. Economists have wrote at length at how this will be outweighed by an expansion of the American tech industry and the fall in the price of consumer goods. However, these points don’t matter to a factory worker from Ohio, for example. The worker is either unemployed or worried about the prospect, and fear motivates his opposition. Farmers out west, even though they benefit from free trade, are nevertheless opposed to it. Both oppose immigration reform. The core, underlying reason for this is that they see protectionism and restricted immigration as a way to preserve their perception of American society.
From the perspective of these voters, who are the traditional core constituencies of the Whigs [3], trade lets in foreign-made goods, destroys jobs and decimates regional prosperity. Immigration does much the same, the newcomers take jobs away from American citizens, and they bring with them new cultural practices. And so, for many Americans, these two policies represent the death of the America they grew up with [4], even if the benefits far outweigh the downsides. The only voters looking out for their self-interests in the current Whig coalition are the urbanites, who overlook the protectionism and anti-immigration stances of the rest of the party because the Whigs are the party of subsidies and welfare. Yet, like the factory worker and the farmer, the urbanite is also motivated by fear – fear of liberal policies.
In the last two presidential elections, the Whigs have run technocratic candidates, who spoke of the issues in dry, almost academic terms. The only exception to the dullness of Ahrendt and Whitney was Ahrendt’s forceful defense of his legalization of same-sex marriage, but this alienated more rural traditionalists than it attracted suburbanites or disaffected progressives. The overall lack of emotion prevented them from standing out next to the equally stiff Charlie Breathitt, and so many party-line Whigs simply stayed home, or left the presidential section of their ballot blank. Last year’s midterms showed the electoral benefits of stoking popular anger. Some 70% of Whig candidates in swing House, Senate, and Gubernatorial races who embraced more pugnacious rhetoric won their races. On the other side, only 40% of those who took a more moderate, even-handed approach won. Those supporting the new way of campaigning point to these races as the reason for the new Whig House and expanded Senate majority [5].
So far, there are just two declared candidates for next year’s convention, and each one represents the two paths our party could take. First, there’s Tom Pepper, who’s been around for decades. He has a wealth of experience, having served as Governor of Florida, Secretary of State, and as Senator. He’s technocratic, moderate on tariffs, and pro-immigration. He’s also reasonably personable on the stump and has come close to the nomination twice: in 2004 against Claire Huntington, and in 2020 against Kate Whitney. There’s just one small problem with Tom Pepper: he’s currently back in court on a pared-down twelve counts of embezzlement, fraud, and bribery. Ignoring the numerous allegations of corruption, he would represent the continued evolution of the Whigs into a cosmopolitan, modern party that represents in policy the sunny optimism that Charlie Breathitt represents in personality [6].
The other candidate is Thad Marshall, the young Senator from Nebraska. He is a proud protectionist, firmly anti-immigration, and a staunch political progressive. He has leaned hard into the populist, identity-focused rhetoric, emerging in the headlines every so often. So far, he has picked a fight with the President over irrigation (and won), attempted to block a Commerce Secretary nominee for being pro-free trade, and, just recently, branded the Democrats a “party of ivory-tower elites with fancy diplomas.” Marshall’s worldview is simple: America is under threat and the Democratic party is too concerned with wealth and their own status to care. He is the kind of politician who mocks someone for having an Ivy-league education or refers to middle America as “real America.” He represents the current trend of the party, as signaled by the midterms.
To nominate Senator Marshall would be a grave mistake. Though Senator Pepper has been dogged by a cloud of scandal for over a year, his brand of optimistic progressivism is what this party needs to promote if we care about a healthy democracy. Senator Marshall draws needless dividing lines through society and has built his brand on vicious attacks and belligerent speeches. He treats education as untrustworthy and sees the word liberal as an insult, not an ideology. We as a party stand at a fork in the road, one path leading to a brighter, more tolerant future and the other down into the mud-pits, towards hatred and fear. We must choose wisely, or we shall all, Whig and Liberal, rural and urban, pay the price together.”
-From A PARTY AT A CROSSROADS by Rep. Edmund Kimberly Swayne, published in The Atlantic, March 15th, 2023
[1] I’m not 100% sure how Chinese era names are crafted, but this is intended to mean ‘righteous prosperity.’
[2] Popular participation in the government will grow, but right now voters are either part of the educated middle class or heavily influenced by them.
[3] The Whigs essentially have three core constituencies since the civil war: factory workers, Plains farmers, and black people.
[4] Curiously, TTL the issue of gay rights is far less salient of a cultural issue.
[5] Because there are a bunch of small Whiggish states, they hold a slight advantage in the Senate.
[6] One key difference in the political spectrum TTL is we have a pessimistic, cynical progressive party and an optimistic conservative party. That helps produce a lot of the political weirdness in the US.
“While the Guangxu Emperor’s massive reforms had shored up the Qing government’s position and restored popular respect and support in the short term, the reforms had both created a large reformist movement and failed to provide a proper outlet for these sentiments. The Qing Empire remained strong and avoided the worst of imperialism, save for the Russian occupation of Manchuria, Europe generally preferred to maintain peaceful trade with the cautiously pro-western Guangxu Court than instigate any conflict. The Great War further distracted Europe from any Oriental adventurism, allowing the Empire to continue the pace of reform and industrialization.
Under the Guangxu Emperor’s reforms, Beijing University had, by the 1920s, established itself as a center for not only innovation, but political radicalism. The army had also undergone a serious overhaul, resulting in an influx of forward-thinking army officers rapidly climbing through the ranks. By the dawn of the 1920s, the Beijing Army was dominated by these reformist officers who had been instilled with modern mindsets. Under the leadership of General Mao Zhanfeng, the New Army was an entirely professional force, structured around the defense of the Empire, which was contrasted with an embrace of both modern tactics and modern, western government.
One key tenet of the reformist program was the eventual introduction of a constitutional monarchy. Three new groups in China, the educated middle class, modern civil service, and politically-minded army officers, all supported democratic evolution. However, while the Emperor did create a weak parliament, the Common Council, in 1913, he proved reluctant to take further action. Also, powerful Imperial officials in the provinces actively resisted government reforms. These officials, often governors of the southern provinces, embraced the technological and economic benefits of modernization, but saw political reform as a threat to their power.
Despite the growing undercurrent of opposition to the Imperial Court, China remained stable throughout the 1910s and early 20s. The westernizing reforms had allowed the economy to expand rapidly, and the Emperor was respected for presiding over such prosperity. Provincial governments in Jiangsu and Anhui provinces were the most progressive in the nation, and spearheaded reforms such as directly electing mayors (Nanjing in Jiangsu and Hefei in Anhui) and introducing the land value tax. The Common Council, while often ignored, was dominated by moderate reformists who refrained from openly challenging Imperial authority.
Three events together upset the Qing Empire’s stability. The first was the 1919 Council elections, which saw the Tongmenghui win a narrow majority. The Tongmenghui (Chinese Revolutionary Alliance, often abbreviated TMH), led by the Cantonese lawyer Feng Demin, advocated for parliamentary supremacy and began openly disagreeing with the Emperor on issues such as taxation and naval spending. Second, the Guangxu Emperor died suddenly in 1922. His exact cause of death is still unknown – historians generally agree it was likely some form of cancer, but there are also theories that conservatives poisoned him because he was planning on granting more powers to the Council. His successor, the Zhengsheng Emperor [1], lacked the Guangxu Emperor’s tact in dealing with Feng’s Council and was generally more reactionary and conservative. The Zhengsheng Emperor quickly moved to stymie the reforms of Jiangsu and Anhui, issuing a decree that only he, not the people, could select a mayor, in August 1923.
The disbandment of the local government of Nanjing was deeply unpopular among the educated middle class, and even provoked ire from the newly-politically involved industrial workers of Nanjing and Hefei. 1926 brought the final event that would topple the Qing Dynasty: the Great Famine. Widespread drought struck northern and western China, followed by disease outbreak. While the government responded swiftly to the crisis, lingering civil service corruption delayed the relief efforts and the growth of cities meant that the price of food skyrocketed. As a result, many poor Chinese who flocked to the cities struggled to eat. The New Army was brought in to oversee relief work in the countryside, but the cities continued to fester. On June 14th, 1927, a market in Nanjing announced steep price increases due to the famine, prompting an ugly food riot as hungry, impoverished workers stormed the warehouses to steal food. The appointed mayor, panicking, summoned the provincial Imperial army to suppress the riot.
This culminated in Imperial forces opening fire on the hungry rioters, provoking greater discontent. Workers went on strike in Nanjing, followed by strikes in Hefei and Beijing. In Beijing, the strikes and protests took on a uniquely political tone, with Feng himself addressing the marchers. He called for greater democracy and criticized the Emperor for allowing corruption in the government to fester. It was the unrest in Beijing that worried the Emperor, and so he ordered General Mao to restore order. However, Mao sympathized with the TMH and secretly negotiated with Feng. Shen advised the Emperor that his position in Beijing was unsafe and advised him to leave the city until the army could suppress the protests. The Emperor quickly fled, and the New Army marched into Beijing, only for Mao to renounce Qing authority and recognize the Council as the sole legal authority. In the days after the coup in Beijing, revolution spread to the other provinces. Jiangsu and Anhui’s pro-Imperial leaders were overthrown by a mixture of New Army units and unorganized revolutionaries, while New Army units overthrew the Viceroy of Huguang.
By the end of July, the Viceroyalties of Zhili, Liangjiang, and Huguang were in revolutionary hands, as well as much of the Shandong peninsula. The Emperor fled south, where the loyal Viceroys of Sichuan, Yun-Gui, Liangguang, and Min-Zhe declared their opposition to Feng’s provisional government. Feng perceived this flight as a sign that the Emperor was determined to crush the revolution, and canceled the tentative negotiations with the Imperial Court over a constitutional compromise. On August 19th, he declared a republic and demanded that the Emperor abdicate and his loyalists surrender, or the new Republic of China would suppress the “rebellion” by force. Mao and the revolutionary leadership moved south to Nanjing, Mao in order to be closer to the fighting and the TMH in order to set up their new government in a more revolutionary location.
The revolutionaries convened in Nanjing throughout September and October to draft a new constitution for China. Feng presided over the convention, while Mao served as an informal advisor and occasionally visited the delegates. Operating under the Three Principles of the People (civic nationalism, popular democracy, and popular welfare), the delegates set about remaking China, for the first time without an Emperor. The Common Council and the various noble councils were replaced with the unicameral National Assembly, its representatives to be elected by direct popular vote from single-member districts. The Assembly would in turn select the President and approve his ministers. An American-style bill of rights was included, and Han Chinese was enshrined as the sole official national language. Revolutionary-controlled provinces quickly approved the 1927 Constitution, and as the New Army advanced rapidly south, these newly occupied provinces’ military governments also implemented the constitution.
Within two years, the southern provinces had been totally brought to heel and the Emperor forced into exile in French Indochina. In 1928, with only small pockets of resistance on the mainland, China held its first elections. Feng had stepped down as TMH leader shortly before the elections, and the party selected Mao Zhanfeng as the new leader. He had become close with many revolutionaries during the convention and was popular with the people, and so he resigned from the army and dove into the world of politics. Mao led the TMH to a landslide majority, winning 578 out of 596 seats in the Assembly. As all monarchist parties had been banned and the voting public was broadly supportive of the revolution [2], the remainder of the seats were all independent republicans.
As President, Mao proposed a new program of reform that went far beyond the Guangxu Emperor’s policies. His vision of China called not only for physical modernization, through new railroads, mines, and the massive expansion of the education system, but also cultural modernization. A surname law was passed, banning names associated with royalty like Wang (King) or Hou (Marquis), and ethnic names like Hu (barbarian). Qing-era queues and opium dens were banned, as was the practice of foot-binding. Mao fought against “superstitious” traditions such as herbal medicine, potions, geomancy, the veneration of ancestors and spirits, and what the TMH termed a “village-centric” worldview. He also directed the new education system to discourage certain “backwards” Confucian tenets mainly filial piety, which was seen as an obstacle towards women’s rights and social modernity.
The western calendar was adopted for official use, with the goal of phasing out the old lunar calendar within a generation. These social modernization programs were coupled with the construction of hundreds of rural schools, new railroads, the mass redistribution of land among the peasantry, the creation of an American-style semi-centralized Bank of the Republic, and the modernization of farming techniques. Mao’s ideology, known as Maoism, earned him the new surname of Hanfu (father of the Han), in an act of the Assembly. Even today, he is revered among the Chinese people for his transformational role in their nation’s history and society. 1928-1932 was only the beginning of his reforms, as he attempted to introduce multiparty rule and reach a self-imposed goal of 80% literacy nationwide…”
-From THE RISE OF NEW CHINA by Hannah Kang, published 2012
“The Whig party today stands at a crossroads. Rhetoric and policies that won us elections for decades have lost their shine. Primarily this is due to a shift in what voters care about – today, culture issues dominate national discourse. Up until just a few years ago, talk of trade and tariffs was purely economical, focused on job losses and potential foreign competition. Immigration debate revolved around efficiency and the danger of drug trafficking. Today, analysts and pundits have asked why the new free trade deal or the immigration reform law have aroused such furious debate, because surely the average voter is not very invested in the economics of trade. These people, including even former president Claire Huntington, miss the point. It’s not that people are experts in economics, but that they have come to associate some stance on trade or immigration with the American identity.
There has been an undeniable decline in manufacturing jobs in the six years since the United States’s accession to the North American Common Market. Economists have wrote at length at how this will be outweighed by an expansion of the American tech industry and the fall in the price of consumer goods. However, these points don’t matter to a factory worker from Ohio, for example. The worker is either unemployed or worried about the prospect, and fear motivates his opposition. Farmers out west, even though they benefit from free trade, are nevertheless opposed to it. Both oppose immigration reform. The core, underlying reason for this is that they see protectionism and restricted immigration as a way to preserve their perception of American society.
From the perspective of these voters, who are the traditional core constituencies of the Whigs [3], trade lets in foreign-made goods, destroys jobs and decimates regional prosperity. Immigration does much the same, the newcomers take jobs away from American citizens, and they bring with them new cultural practices. And so, for many Americans, these two policies represent the death of the America they grew up with [4], even if the benefits far outweigh the downsides. The only voters looking out for their self-interests in the current Whig coalition are the urbanites, who overlook the protectionism and anti-immigration stances of the rest of the party because the Whigs are the party of subsidies and welfare. Yet, like the factory worker and the farmer, the urbanite is also motivated by fear – fear of liberal policies.
In the last two presidential elections, the Whigs have run technocratic candidates, who spoke of the issues in dry, almost academic terms. The only exception to the dullness of Ahrendt and Whitney was Ahrendt’s forceful defense of his legalization of same-sex marriage, but this alienated more rural traditionalists than it attracted suburbanites or disaffected progressives. The overall lack of emotion prevented them from standing out next to the equally stiff Charlie Breathitt, and so many party-line Whigs simply stayed home, or left the presidential section of their ballot blank. Last year’s midterms showed the electoral benefits of stoking popular anger. Some 70% of Whig candidates in swing House, Senate, and Gubernatorial races who embraced more pugnacious rhetoric won their races. On the other side, only 40% of those who took a more moderate, even-handed approach won. Those supporting the new way of campaigning point to these races as the reason for the new Whig House and expanded Senate majority [5].
So far, there are just two declared candidates for next year’s convention, and each one represents the two paths our party could take. First, there’s Tom Pepper, who’s been around for decades. He has a wealth of experience, having served as Governor of Florida, Secretary of State, and as Senator. He’s technocratic, moderate on tariffs, and pro-immigration. He’s also reasonably personable on the stump and has come close to the nomination twice: in 2004 against Claire Huntington, and in 2020 against Kate Whitney. There’s just one small problem with Tom Pepper: he’s currently back in court on a pared-down twelve counts of embezzlement, fraud, and bribery. Ignoring the numerous allegations of corruption, he would represent the continued evolution of the Whigs into a cosmopolitan, modern party that represents in policy the sunny optimism that Charlie Breathitt represents in personality [6].
The other candidate is Thad Marshall, the young Senator from Nebraska. He is a proud protectionist, firmly anti-immigration, and a staunch political progressive. He has leaned hard into the populist, identity-focused rhetoric, emerging in the headlines every so often. So far, he has picked a fight with the President over irrigation (and won), attempted to block a Commerce Secretary nominee for being pro-free trade, and, just recently, branded the Democrats a “party of ivory-tower elites with fancy diplomas.” Marshall’s worldview is simple: America is under threat and the Democratic party is too concerned with wealth and their own status to care. He is the kind of politician who mocks someone for having an Ivy-league education or refers to middle America as “real America.” He represents the current trend of the party, as signaled by the midterms.
To nominate Senator Marshall would be a grave mistake. Though Senator Pepper has been dogged by a cloud of scandal for over a year, his brand of optimistic progressivism is what this party needs to promote if we care about a healthy democracy. Senator Marshall draws needless dividing lines through society and has built his brand on vicious attacks and belligerent speeches. He treats education as untrustworthy and sees the word liberal as an insult, not an ideology. We as a party stand at a fork in the road, one path leading to a brighter, more tolerant future and the other down into the mud-pits, towards hatred and fear. We must choose wisely, or we shall all, Whig and Liberal, rural and urban, pay the price together.”
-From A PARTY AT A CROSSROADS by Rep. Edmund Kimberly Swayne, published in The Atlantic, March 15th, 2023
[1] I’m not 100% sure how Chinese era names are crafted, but this is intended to mean ‘righteous prosperity.’
[2] Popular participation in the government will grow, but right now voters are either part of the educated middle class or heavily influenced by them.
[3] The Whigs essentially have three core constituencies since the civil war: factory workers, Plains farmers, and black people.
[4] Curiously, TTL the issue of gay rights is far less salient of a cultural issue.
[5] Because there are a bunch of small Whiggish states, they hold a slight advantage in the Senate.
[6] One key difference in the political spectrum TTL is we have a pessimistic, cynical progressive party and an optimistic conservative party. That helps produce a lot of the political weirdness in the US.
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