The American System: A Henry Clay TL
- Thread starter TheHedgehog
- Start date
So, Wisconsin was admitted. That means there is one more free state than slave state already. So the South already has something to complain about. The fire eaters are still going to be there although maybe not in as great a number. Unless you Cannon starts in earlier Bleeding Kansas, which is possible since we don't have California, I don't think he can mess things up quite as royally as even Pierce OTL. But it's possible.
I was a little concerned about how long has slavery with last with the comment about Seward letting with South keep their slaves, but if he is elected in 1852 there could be a miniature civil war with maybe South Carolina and some factions of other states rebelling. I just don't want to read anything where slavery is going to continue for decades more than OTL. But that comment by someone in the 21st century could refer to anything, including gradual emancipation. After all, someone posting in the 21st century could easily think that he should have just abolished it right away.
I was a little concerned about how long has slavery with last with the comment about Seward letting with South keep their slaves, but if he is elected in 1852 there could be a miniature civil war with maybe South Carolina and some factions of other states rebelling. I just don't want to read anything where slavery is going to continue for decades more than OTL. But that comment by someone in the 21st century could refer to anything, including gradual emancipation. After all, someone posting in the 21st century could easily think that he should have just abolished it right away.
That chapter was a great read! I'm always a fan of following the politics, but the writing is what really sealed the deal for me, probably the best chapter yet!
Oh definitely. Sectional tensions are rising.
Buchanan will definitely have an easier time of it than his OTL term, though that's admittedly a low bar.
Yeah, the south is starting to get restive and that's only going to get worse. I can say that there will be a bleeding Kansas at some point, and California's fate will be revealed in the next chapter.
About slavery, unfortunately I can't promise that it'll end with the Civil War, but it will end well before the 19th century is over.
Thanks so much! Glad you liked it.
8. The Western Question
8. The Western Question
“James Buchanan was inaugurated on Tuesday, March 4th, 1849. In his lengthy address, he referred to the “question of expansion” and pledged to maintain sectional balance in the western territories. He pledged not to run for a second term, saying “having determined not to become a candidate for reelection, I shall have no motive to administer the Government in any fashion other than to fairly and faithfully serve my country.” Buchanan also expressed his hope that “we shall not face great tests of our great Union’s durability,” but promised that “should a sectional crisis arise, we shall meet it head on and settle it in a calm and amicable manner.”
Aside from his statements on expansion, Buchanan called for a “small reduction” in the tariff, an expansion of the navy, and a strict interpretation of the constitution. He concluded by praising the acquisition of new territories for “extending equal and just laws, civil and religious liberty, to our new lands.” Buchanan was criticized by anti-slavery figures for not taking a strong stance on slavery and for seeming to endorse further territorial expansion.”
-From IN THE SHADOW OF JACKSON by Michelle Watts, published 2012
Presidential Cabinet of James Buchanan:
Vice President: William O. Butler
Secretary of State: William L. Marcy
Secretary of the Treasury: James K. Polk
Secretary of War: Franklin Pierce
Attorney General: Robert J. Walker
Postmaster General: George Bancroft
Secretary of the Navy: Solomon W. Downs
“Henry Clay was just the second former President to return to Congress, and the first to be elected to the Senate. There was some debate in the Democratic-controlled chamber over how, if at all, a former President should be honored. As most Senators, regardless of party, had worked with Clay both during his previous terms in the Senate and during his Presidency, it was quickly decided that the position of Deputy President Pro Tempore would be created and awarded to any former President who was elected to the Senate. Clay was honored by the gesture, regardless of its ceremonial nature.
Clay was never content to retire, and the rise of sectional tensions during his second term convinced him that he had to stay in Washington. He was concerned that the Whig Party, intended to unite the country behind its economic program, would become “suborned to sectional demands and the ultraism of abolition” as Whigs such as William Seward and Charles Sumner became more prominent. His concerns would prove well founded, as the increasing sectional polarization left men like Clay increasingly out in the cold…”
-From THE CLAY ERA: TRANSFORMING A NATION by Edmund Sellers, published 2017
“The constitution of the Second Republic mandated a President directly elected by universal manhood suffrage. Guided by the failures of the First Republic’s collective executive system, the 1848 National Constituent Assembly decided in favor of a single executive, the President.
The Bonapartists might have staged a comeback in the 1848 elections, but Prince Louis-Napoleon had been died in 1845 of the flu while imprisoned for an attempted coup three years prior [1]. In any case, General Louis-Eugene Cavaignac amassed a strong coalition of the middle-class, fearful of socialist agitation, and the apolitical rural populace, to whom name recognition was the strongest factor. Cavaignac was nominated by the center-right Moderate Republican party to run against Alexandre Ledru-Rollin, the leader of the Democratic Socialists, and Nicolas Changarnier, the Monarchists’ candidate. In the election, held on December 10th, 1848, Cavaignac won in a landslide, with over 80% of the vote. Ledru-Rollin, the second-place candidate, won just 16%, largely from urban workers.
As President, Cavaignac defended universal manhood suffrage from an 1850 attempt to restrict the franchise and refused to suppress the revolutionary Roman Republic in central Italy [2]. The early days of the Second Republic were unstable, but between Cavaignac’s middle-of-the-road leadership and disputes within the monarchist camp, no better option presented itself and France gradually came to accept to the Republic [3].”
-From THE GRAND CONSENSUS: EUROPE 1815-1898 by Rebecca Gardner, published 2001
“William Walker had become enamored with the concept of Manifest Destiny during his time as editor of the New Orleans Crescent, and in 1849, with the inauguration of the expansionist Buchanan, hatched a plan to further enlarge the United States. The Mexican province of Alta California had a sizeable population of American settlers, and Walker organized a group of armed men to seize control of San Francisco and declare an independent republic that would then be annexed by the United States. Walker set out with 45 men to conquer Alta California. He arrived covertly in San Francisco and allied with a group of American immigrants who were unhappy with the Mexican government’s refusal to allow Americans to rent land. Led by William Ide, these Americans joined forces with Walker and John C. Fremont, an American army captain camped at Sutter’s Fort. While Walker wanted to introduce slavery to California, he came to an understanding with his co-conspirators that the issue would be settled later, once independence was achieved.
On April 24th, 1850, Walker, Ide, and Fremont launched their attack. While Ide and a contingent of rebels were able to secure the surrender of Mariano Vallejo and his San Francisco garrison [4], Walker seized the Sonoma Presidio in a bloody battle and Fremont secured most towns in the Sacramento Valley. Within a week, Monterey, San Francisco, Sonoma, San Jose, and Sacramento were under the control of the rebels, who declared the California Republic on May 2nd. Fremont, as an active-duty army captain, had essentially disobeyed his orders to survey Oregon. Despite the threat of a court-martial, he telegrammed word of the victory of the filibusterers to President Buchanan and Secretary of State Marcy. While Commanding General Winfield Scott was furious over Fremont’s conduct, the Administration was ecstatic. Both Buchanan and Marcy were supportive of southern desires for expansion and saw California as the perfect target to appease the south.
Marcy transmitted to Fremont and Walker that the United States recognized the independence of the Californian Republic and would be willing to begin annexation talks. Meanwhile, President Buchanan publicly declared American recognition of California. This infuriated Mexico – they had already acquiesced to the American annexation of Texas, and now they were back for more? Meanwhile, Henry Clay and William Seward led the Whigs in opposing any plans to annex the new nation. “When will it end?” Clay asked in a Senate address. Many abolitionists were asking the same question.”
-From EXPANDING FRONTIERS by John Freeman, published 1989
“The annexation of Texas and Oregon only served to whet the appetite of American expansionists. Now, with coastal California in the hands of filibusterers, the calls for expansion grew louder. With President Buchanan openly supportive of annexing northern California, Senate expansionists began organizing to ratify the treaty of annexation.
…an initial treaty was concluded in June of 1850, annexing the Republic of California from Monterey north and the Colorado River west. It made no mention of slavery, leading free-soil Whigs to question whether William Walker would unilaterally instate slavery and entrench southern dominance in the Senate. When the treaty was put to a vote in the Senate, a majority of Senators approved, but it fell far short of the required two-thirds.
Buchanan and his allies tried a different strategy: submit the treaty as a joint resolution [5], which only needed a simple majority of the House and Senate to be enacted. This was decried by Clay and the anti-expansionists, but the Democrats forged ahead. However, the joint resolution plan, by involving the House of Representatives in the process, ran into a snag – northerners, both Democrat and Whig, wanted a guarantee that at least part of the proposed new territory would be a free state. Southerners refused to allow the entirety of California to prohibit slavery, so Representative David Wilmot, a Democrat, proposed a compromise: the Republic of California would be split in two, half free and half slave.
The original treaty admitted California as a state, without being a territory first. Southerners and Whigs both objected to this, as neither wanted the other side to get a whole state. To settle this matter, Henry Clay negotiated an amendment to the Wilmot proviso admitted both haves as territories, with statehood to be decided later. Congress narrowly approved the joint resolution on September 18th, 1850. President Buchanan signed it the next day. Walker, Ide, and Fremont fell out over the proposed treaty revisions, as Ide wanted immediate statehood and Walker wanted California admitted as one slave state. The debate turned sour, and Walker attempted to arrest Fremont and Ide. His coup plot was defeated after a brief shootout, and Fremont and Ide disarmed Walker’s men and imprisoned them. Ide reluctantly agreed to support the treaty, and the two signed it in late September. California was divided into the free territory of Shasta and the slave territory of Colorado (today Auraria).
Mexico protested, naturally. Buchanan obtained from Congress $10 million to purchase the territory. During the hostile negotiations, Buchanan also agreed to assume most of Mexico’s debts to Britain. As Mexico had been in talks with Britain over selling California in exchange for debt forgiveness, the Mexican government reluctantly assented to the loss of northern California. It was, however, the final straw for President Herrera – after two treaties in which he ceded Mexican territory without a shot fired, he was deposed by the army [6]. General Santa Anna returned to power, determined to resist any further American attempts to expand at Mexico’s expense. Fortunately f0r Mexico, the United States was done with continental expansion. As Congressman Abraham Lincoln would later joke, “California left us with indigestion.”
…With the annexation of California, President Buchanan burned much of his goodwill with Congress. The 1850 elections, held immediately after the battle over the treaty, resulted in a hung Congress – anti-slavery Whigs unseated dozens of northern Democrats and ‘Cotton Whigs’, while Democrats emerged as the dominant party in the south. Holding the balance of seats and preventing either of the two major parties from forming a majority was the American Party. Founded on anti-immigration, the American Party gained seven seats in 1850, mostly southern Whigs who switched parties as sectional tensions intensified.
Buchanan expanded the United States’ borders to its current extent, but he left Congress in shambles in the process. A tense coalition of an increasingly divided Whig Party and the nascent American Party formed the majority in the House, but the annexation of California had set America’s antebellum political realignment in full swing.”
-UNEASY SILENCE: AMERICA IN THE ANTEBELLUM by John Erwin, published 2021
[1] OTL, he managed to escape in 1846. Here, he isn't so lucky.
[2] OTL, Cavaignac voted against an expedition to crush the Roman Republic. TTL, he refuses to intervene, although Naples invades to restore the temporal authority of the Pope.
[3] Similarly to the OTL Third Republic.
[4] A similar incident occurred OTL in 1846, when Ide’s men were drunk, and a misunderstanding resulted in Vallejo’s arrest despite his surrender.
[5] John Tyler used this tactic OTL in 1844/1845 when the Senate rejected his Texas annexation treaty.
[6] OTL, Herrera was deposed for even entertaining the notion of peaceful negotiations during the beginning of the Mexican-American War, so it’s kind of a miracle he held on even after the Texas border settlement.
“James Buchanan was inaugurated on Tuesday, March 4th, 1849. In his lengthy address, he referred to the “question of expansion” and pledged to maintain sectional balance in the western territories. He pledged not to run for a second term, saying “having determined not to become a candidate for reelection, I shall have no motive to administer the Government in any fashion other than to fairly and faithfully serve my country.” Buchanan also expressed his hope that “we shall not face great tests of our great Union’s durability,” but promised that “should a sectional crisis arise, we shall meet it head on and settle it in a calm and amicable manner.”
Aside from his statements on expansion, Buchanan called for a “small reduction” in the tariff, an expansion of the navy, and a strict interpretation of the constitution. He concluded by praising the acquisition of new territories for “extending equal and just laws, civil and religious liberty, to our new lands.” Buchanan was criticized by anti-slavery figures for not taking a strong stance on slavery and for seeming to endorse further territorial expansion.”
-From IN THE SHADOW OF JACKSON by Michelle Watts, published 2012
Presidential Cabinet of James Buchanan:
Vice President: William O. Butler
Secretary of State: William L. Marcy
Secretary of the Treasury: James K. Polk
Secretary of War: Franklin Pierce
Attorney General: Robert J. Walker
Postmaster General: George Bancroft
Secretary of the Navy: Solomon W. Downs
“Henry Clay was just the second former President to return to Congress, and the first to be elected to the Senate. There was some debate in the Democratic-controlled chamber over how, if at all, a former President should be honored. As most Senators, regardless of party, had worked with Clay both during his previous terms in the Senate and during his Presidency, it was quickly decided that the position of Deputy President Pro Tempore would be created and awarded to any former President who was elected to the Senate. Clay was honored by the gesture, regardless of its ceremonial nature.
Clay was never content to retire, and the rise of sectional tensions during his second term convinced him that he had to stay in Washington. He was concerned that the Whig Party, intended to unite the country behind its economic program, would become “suborned to sectional demands and the ultraism of abolition” as Whigs such as William Seward and Charles Sumner became more prominent. His concerns would prove well founded, as the increasing sectional polarization left men like Clay increasingly out in the cold…”
-From THE CLAY ERA: TRANSFORMING A NATION by Edmund Sellers, published 2017
“The constitution of the Second Republic mandated a President directly elected by universal manhood suffrage. Guided by the failures of the First Republic’s collective executive system, the 1848 National Constituent Assembly decided in favor of a single executive, the President.
The Bonapartists might have staged a comeback in the 1848 elections, but Prince Louis-Napoleon had been died in 1845 of the flu while imprisoned for an attempted coup three years prior [1]. In any case, General Louis-Eugene Cavaignac amassed a strong coalition of the middle-class, fearful of socialist agitation, and the apolitical rural populace, to whom name recognition was the strongest factor. Cavaignac was nominated by the center-right Moderate Republican party to run against Alexandre Ledru-Rollin, the leader of the Democratic Socialists, and Nicolas Changarnier, the Monarchists’ candidate. In the election, held on December 10th, 1848, Cavaignac won in a landslide, with over 80% of the vote. Ledru-Rollin, the second-place candidate, won just 16%, largely from urban workers.
As President, Cavaignac defended universal manhood suffrage from an 1850 attempt to restrict the franchise and refused to suppress the revolutionary Roman Republic in central Italy [2]. The early days of the Second Republic were unstable, but between Cavaignac’s middle-of-the-road leadership and disputes within the monarchist camp, no better option presented itself and France gradually came to accept to the Republic [3].”
-From THE GRAND CONSENSUS: EUROPE 1815-1898 by Rebecca Gardner, published 2001
“William Walker had become enamored with the concept of Manifest Destiny during his time as editor of the New Orleans Crescent, and in 1849, with the inauguration of the expansionist Buchanan, hatched a plan to further enlarge the United States. The Mexican province of Alta California had a sizeable population of American settlers, and Walker organized a group of armed men to seize control of San Francisco and declare an independent republic that would then be annexed by the United States. Walker set out with 45 men to conquer Alta California. He arrived covertly in San Francisco and allied with a group of American immigrants who were unhappy with the Mexican government’s refusal to allow Americans to rent land. Led by William Ide, these Americans joined forces with Walker and John C. Fremont, an American army captain camped at Sutter’s Fort. While Walker wanted to introduce slavery to California, he came to an understanding with his co-conspirators that the issue would be settled later, once independence was achieved.
On April 24th, 1850, Walker, Ide, and Fremont launched their attack. While Ide and a contingent of rebels were able to secure the surrender of Mariano Vallejo and his San Francisco garrison [4], Walker seized the Sonoma Presidio in a bloody battle and Fremont secured most towns in the Sacramento Valley. Within a week, Monterey, San Francisco, Sonoma, San Jose, and Sacramento were under the control of the rebels, who declared the California Republic on May 2nd. Fremont, as an active-duty army captain, had essentially disobeyed his orders to survey Oregon. Despite the threat of a court-martial, he telegrammed word of the victory of the filibusterers to President Buchanan and Secretary of State Marcy. While Commanding General Winfield Scott was furious over Fremont’s conduct, the Administration was ecstatic. Both Buchanan and Marcy were supportive of southern desires for expansion and saw California as the perfect target to appease the south.
Marcy transmitted to Fremont and Walker that the United States recognized the independence of the Californian Republic and would be willing to begin annexation talks. Meanwhile, President Buchanan publicly declared American recognition of California. This infuriated Mexico – they had already acquiesced to the American annexation of Texas, and now they were back for more? Meanwhile, Henry Clay and William Seward led the Whigs in opposing any plans to annex the new nation. “When will it end?” Clay asked in a Senate address. Many abolitionists were asking the same question.”
-From EXPANDING FRONTIERS by John Freeman, published 1989
“The annexation of Texas and Oregon only served to whet the appetite of American expansionists. Now, with coastal California in the hands of filibusterers, the calls for expansion grew louder. With President Buchanan openly supportive of annexing northern California, Senate expansionists began organizing to ratify the treaty of annexation.
…an initial treaty was concluded in June of 1850, annexing the Republic of California from Monterey north and the Colorado River west. It made no mention of slavery, leading free-soil Whigs to question whether William Walker would unilaterally instate slavery and entrench southern dominance in the Senate. When the treaty was put to a vote in the Senate, a majority of Senators approved, but it fell far short of the required two-thirds.
Buchanan and his allies tried a different strategy: submit the treaty as a joint resolution [5], which only needed a simple majority of the House and Senate to be enacted. This was decried by Clay and the anti-expansionists, but the Democrats forged ahead. However, the joint resolution plan, by involving the House of Representatives in the process, ran into a snag – northerners, both Democrat and Whig, wanted a guarantee that at least part of the proposed new territory would be a free state. Southerners refused to allow the entirety of California to prohibit slavery, so Representative David Wilmot, a Democrat, proposed a compromise: the Republic of California would be split in two, half free and half slave.
The original treaty admitted California as a state, without being a territory first. Southerners and Whigs both objected to this, as neither wanted the other side to get a whole state. To settle this matter, Henry Clay negotiated an amendment to the Wilmot proviso admitted both haves as territories, with statehood to be decided later. Congress narrowly approved the joint resolution on September 18th, 1850. President Buchanan signed it the next day. Walker, Ide, and Fremont fell out over the proposed treaty revisions, as Ide wanted immediate statehood and Walker wanted California admitted as one slave state. The debate turned sour, and Walker attempted to arrest Fremont and Ide. His coup plot was defeated after a brief shootout, and Fremont and Ide disarmed Walker’s men and imprisoned them. Ide reluctantly agreed to support the treaty, and the two signed it in late September. California was divided into the free territory of Shasta and the slave territory of Colorado (today Auraria).
Mexico protested, naturally. Buchanan obtained from Congress $10 million to purchase the territory. During the hostile negotiations, Buchanan also agreed to assume most of Mexico’s debts to Britain. As Mexico had been in talks with Britain over selling California in exchange for debt forgiveness, the Mexican government reluctantly assented to the loss of northern California. It was, however, the final straw for President Herrera – after two treaties in which he ceded Mexican territory without a shot fired, he was deposed by the army [6]. General Santa Anna returned to power, determined to resist any further American attempts to expand at Mexico’s expense. Fortunately f0r Mexico, the United States was done with continental expansion. As Congressman Abraham Lincoln would later joke, “California left us with indigestion.”
…With the annexation of California, President Buchanan burned much of his goodwill with Congress. The 1850 elections, held immediately after the battle over the treaty, resulted in a hung Congress – anti-slavery Whigs unseated dozens of northern Democrats and ‘Cotton Whigs’, while Democrats emerged as the dominant party in the south. Holding the balance of seats and preventing either of the two major parties from forming a majority was the American Party. Founded on anti-immigration, the American Party gained seven seats in 1850, mostly southern Whigs who switched parties as sectional tensions intensified.
Buchanan expanded the United States’ borders to its current extent, but he left Congress in shambles in the process. A tense coalition of an increasingly divided Whig Party and the nascent American Party formed the majority in the House, but the annexation of California had set America’s antebellum political realignment in full swing.”
-UNEASY SILENCE: AMERICA IN THE ANTEBELLUM by John Erwin, published 2021
[1] OTL, he managed to escape in 1846. Here, he isn't so lucky.
[2] OTL, Cavaignac voted against an expedition to crush the Roman Republic. TTL, he refuses to intervene, although Naples invades to restore the temporal authority of the Pope.
[3] Similarly to the OTL Third Republic.
[4] A similar incident occurred OTL in 1846, when Ide’s men were drunk, and a misunderstanding resulted in Vallejo’s arrest despite his surrender.
[5] John Tyler used this tactic OTL in 1844/1845 when the Senate rejected his Texas annexation treaty.
[6] OTL, Herrera was deposed for even entertaining the notion of peaceful negotiations during the beginning of the Mexican-American War, so it’s kind of a miracle he held on even after the Texas border settlement.
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Taking Texas and California was no more entitled than what the US did OTL, though. At least Mexico avoids the chaos that a full-on invasion brought.
Texas and now California have opened the can of worms for sure. The march towards civil war has begun.
I was also referring to OTL though
. And yeah they do, but boy, are they gonna be angry when the Gold Rush happens and yup, because that insidious institution and its supporters really aren't gonna go away without violence.Ah, gotcha.I was also referring to OTL though
And the discovery of gold and silver in the new territories will certainly bring a rush of both southerners and northerners. Without popular sovereignty, it won't get bloody like Kansas, but there will be unrest.
So, did the US get much of Nevada, too, then? Or just OTL state down to Monterrey (probably settling at that parallel that goes east to the Colorado River.))
I jsut realized a big debate was over the course the railrod would take - now it's sure to be the NOrthern Route.
Poor Franklin Pierce, I imagine the situation leaves him with egg on his face as Secretary of War with what Fremont did. But now it appears his son will live which is a relief.
Whenever I see temporal authority as in that one footnote I think of time travel stories and how they regulate time travel.
I jsut realized a big debate was over the course the railrod would take - now it's sure to be the NOrthern Route.
Poor Franklin Pierce, I imagine the situation leaves him with egg on his face as Secretary of War with what Fremont did. But now it appears his son will live which is a relief.
Whenever I see temporal authority as in that one footnote I think of time travel stories and how they regulate time travel.
Is this the same Nicholas Biddle who served as the President of the National Bank?
The US indeed got Nevada and a big chunk of OTL Colorado too.So, did the US get much of Nevada, too, then? Or just OTL state down to Monterrey (probably settling at that parallel that goes east to the Colorado River.))
I jsut realized a big debate was over the course the railrod would take - now it's sure to be the NOrthern Route.
Poor Franklin Pierce, I imagine the situation leaves him with egg on his face as Secretary of War with what Fremont did. But now it appears his son will live which is a relief.
Whenever I see temporal authority as in that one footnote I think of time travel stories and how they regulate time travel.
And you can bet that the south will be unhappy about that northern route -- I'll be sure to mention that when the time comes.
Pierce certainly does have a happier personal life without that train accident, although he's definitely hated in the north over the Fremont fiasco.
Here's a map of the new US-Mexico border:
Indeed it is.
Oh, I thought it was all California as OTL, but it's like...1/3 of it.....
I'm expecting this to get ugly soon. Way too much spare land there for the US not to take.
Is the rump Republic of California going to stay independent? They’ve got goldfields in their territory, too! And I’m torn on whether Mexico should keep New Mexico or if California can take it.
And are the Mormons in American territory now?
And are the Mormons in American territory now?
Well people in America may have the appetite for further expansion, but if Congress can't agree on what to do with the new territory, then no annexations can happen.
The entirety of the California Republic was annexed and the US is too paralyzed by sectional issues to try and take any more land from Mexico or anywhere else.
And the Mormons are in America, and I'll go into what happens with them once the tl gets into the mid-1850s.
Glad you like it! And the tensions within the US only build from here on out...
Yes, a straight line west from Monterey to the Colorado River, and then along the Colorado to the pre-existing US border.