The Dead Skunk
- Thread starter Lycaon pictus
- Start date
Yeah, I am sure the safety of the public is your only concern Calhoun.
Well Taylor and Halleck provide still more smoking guns.
I get the feeling the biggest issue here is nit going to be too establish Berrien's guilt, but what they should do. Both in general and under these circumstances.
Well, likely no stopping that now.
XXX
I find myself thinking on Louisiana after the war despite the Troubles looming in the Union. The Republic is not a great power ad has no particular aspiration to be one between two massive polities like the USA and New Spain, but this is an age of nationalism and it will be interesting o see how nationalism takes shape there.
Of course national survival is the obvious primary plank. I think it will be fairly obvious that the USA will not give up after defeat in this war, if they re lucky they get a twenty year reprieve or so again. And with the continued settlement of the West and expansion of American railroads the Americans will be even stringer next time.
So, some likely priorities I thought up for Louisianan nationalism, from least controversial too most:
1. Maintain and expand alliances.
The Republic would not have lasted through this war without outside help. It is vital they remain on good terms and in alliance with Britain whose navy protects their shores and whose colonies can tie down the Americans on other fronts. However Britain's vast empire makes it quite likely they will again be preoccupied in the future and shipping speeds will continue to be outpaced by rail making it harder for Britain to support their colonies and allies against American aggression.
So in addition to Britain the Republic could use more friends. Which could also have the bonus of providing them more legitimacy than being seen as a near protectorate of the Empire.
New Spain seems the obvious choice. It is nearby geographically and despite the land border being a no go aid supplied by ship could come much quicker from Tampico than London. New Spain has common interest with the Republic in countering American expansionism. Berrien's powerplay may have failed but given America's history of conquest and broken treaties I expect many in Mexico City are unconvinced this is the end of trouble on their northern Frontier. if war broke out it would be better for New Spain to be fighting in Mississippi than to be unable to reach the American heartland or worse have the American navy operating out of New Orleans and Fort Keane.
2. A militarized border.
The Republic is not a predator to stalk the games of nations. Its a crawfish confined to its shell. And its enemy thinks once that shell is cracked the meat can simply be sucked up. Its not inaccurate, the Republic even if it repelled an invasion that penetrated deeply could easily be decimated for Pyrrhic victory. So the obvious idea is make that shell too tough to crack, so that he eagle will crack it beak first in the effort.
Forts/fortresses seem the way to go. Counter the numeric advantage of the Americans by multiplying force with defensive works. not just ones meant to take lengthy sieges but ones meant to slow down invaders until aid can arrive.
Expanding the navy while supporting it with coastal forts would be needed too. The Volonte has proven invaluable on the river but technology marches on and the Americans will likely put their own warships on the Mississippi next time. Blue and brown water, the Republic needs to be ready to take the hits that will come.
3. Quality to combat quantity:
As stated the Republic will always be outnumbered by the union for the forseeable future. And its quite possible winning the next war even decisively will not end American Revanchism for good. The Republic needs to prepare for a future in which the next century may hold multiple wars with the colossus to the North that can only be deterred by making the struggle seem to costly for the prize.
The Grand Army needs to truly become something grand, commanding respect in professionalism and on the field with enemies and allies alike. This would also be an investment in ensuring the Republic will not simply become a lacky to their allies.
The simplest step to improve the GA would be to establish a dedicated Academy for training officers, engineers, etc. While there are of course he reputable schools in Britain used so far the students there are sill foreign guests learning abroad. A national institution could focus on the needs of the Republic as well as instilling the pride and tradition to better bind together the GA and raise its quality for the wars too come.
Instructors would intially be mosrtly foreigners I expect but that's unavoidable even if the long term goal would be to fill the faculty with Louisianians with foreign experts being the exception rather than the norm.
Perhpas locate it in Fort Keane. Cheaper land price to build and a bone thrown to the ider parishes boy not having everything important being in Bew Olreans. Locatin it outside the capital might also be een as a way to try and keep the military more apolitical.
Then would be a real big move. Peacetime conscription. Basically for every able bodied white man being required to rport for six mionths of traning followed by a year of service in arms in either the navy or army. With some exclusions likely such as men slated to attend the officer training or a cash buy out for the wealthy. The sheer expense and radicalism would make this very hard to swallow, but supporters would argue they need a population not only ready to be called to action but who will know wt they are doing when the are called.
4. Abolish Slavery:
Slavery is going to be ever more a hindrance to the Republic and I expect the nationalists will be wise to this.
Britain has not only abolished slavery but has effectively embraced the idea of 'people of color' in arms in the Colonial Marines, the native forces in Florida, and the Black Hessians. All of whom have proven effective in serving the Crown. The Republic cannot expect the trend of hostility toward slavery to slow much less stop in the Empire, undermining their most important alliance.
It also would be problematic when trying to form an alliance with New Spain, or any of the other independent nations in the region against the Union.
Internally it is also trouble one need only look to the chaos in Brazil caused in no small part by the slavery issue, and soon enough the Troubles will come to Dixie.
The struggle for national survival will be trying enough without slavery undermining their alliances and simultaneously setting the stage for internal revolt. To face the new era they may reason a new approach to race relations will be needed to allow the Republic to survive and thrive.
Easier said than done of course.
Whew! Felt good to get that out of my head and typed out.
And aside from principals and such there would be the question of how to pay for any of this. Assuming any of this even shows up in a nationalist movement.
Anything that torpedoes Calhouns chance to be president, is not welcome.
Hell, Calhoun is responsible for a Tertium Quids, this pretty much humiliates him...
Lycaon pictus
Donor
Without giving anything away, some of these things have already begun. (Okay, I'll give something away—Wellington, the man who gave Portugal the Lines of Torres Vedras, has been putting his own stamp the approach along the Mississippi since the beginning of '38.)
And if they're anything like the Lines, the Americans are in for a rough, rough time indeed. When Ney throws up his hands and thinks it's hopeless, you know they're damn good defences alright. I do have to wonder what Wellington's reputation will be like in the Americas if the front goes well for him. Twice fought for Louisiana's independence and gave the Americans a thrashing over it. Is there a statue of him in New Orleans already at all?
Prior to this war I expect Wellington is respected but not particularly beloved by Louisianans. His victories in New England were certainly vital to securing independence but Keane was the man on site in the Republic and defied his orders to protect them. Keane was the hero of the last war for the Republic and got a city named for him, but if Wellington pulls this off I do expect you will see him second only to Keane as a foreign hero to the nation and likely getting a staue or a square in New Orleans named after him.
For the USA Wellington is likely seen as a major villain or worthy foe with the humiliating defeats he has handed them so far.
Can't really say for Canada, probably varies a lot depending on whose side in the near civil war there you are on.
I could se the Latin American republics dislking him as his victories being seen as a colonial overlord bullying their former subject.
Would you accept guest posts dealing with subjects and people who are historical but haven’t caught your chronicles interest?
Augustin-Jean Fresnel - Wikipedia
Robert Stirling - Wikipedia
Charles Xavier Thomas - Wikipedia
Thomas Johann Seebeck - Wikipedia
Nicolas Léonard Sadi Carnot - Wikipedia
Lycaon pictus
Donor
Those sound interesting. You can PM them to me.Augustin-Jean Fresnel - Wikipedia
en.m.wikipedia.org
Robert Stirling - Wikipedia
Charles Xavier Thomas - Wikipedia
Thomas Johann Seebeck - Wikipedia
Nicolas Léonard Sadi Carnot - Wikipedia
Confusion time: I didn’t write anything yet! I wanted to see if there was a possibility of guest posting before putting the metaphorical pen to paper 😳
Winter's Chill (5)
Lycaon pictus
Donor
HALLECK: I did not see it as mutiny. Rather, we were the ones in obedience to the law, and to General Scott. If anyone was the mutineer, it was General Harney himself.
BRIGGS[1]: By extension, would that not make the President himself a mutineer?
HALLECK: I would say… that is a question for a lawyer to answer, rather than a soldier.
By this point, Webster already had enough information to confirm that Berrien had overstepped his authority as president. However, as Pope pointed out August 8, the text of the President’s order raised further questions:
We know from Mr. Berrien’s own address to Congress that he knew the names of the men leading this expedition, and something of their family situations. So much he might have learned from rumor.
What he could never have learned from mere rumor is the precise number of men in the expedition. When we read the accounts of these rumors in newspapers and correspondence, they estimate the size of the force at three, four, five, six hundred men. All of these estimates are based on observations from the outside, made by witnesses, some more accurate than others.
And yet here it is in his own hand: “By now a volunteer military force of 581 men…” Not 580 or 582, but 581. Who could possibly have known such a thing? Only Messrs. Lamar and Quitman themselves, who would have made a point of accounting for their own force in its entirety.
I never thought I would find myself in agreement with my colleague, Mr. Sumner, but here we are. It is indeed very plain that when Mr. Berrien spoke to us all on the sixteenth of April, he knew far more than he was telling. And if this is so, then his premature dispatch of orders to Generals Taylor and Harney was no momentary lapse of judgment, but a premeditated act carried out as part of a conspiracy. We might choose to reprimand or censure a mere bungler, but for a conspirator, only impeachment will do.
The time has come to question the filibusterers.
Many of the surviving filibusterers were willing to face jail time rather than testify, and of those who were willing to appear before Congress, few had anything to report other than vague verbal assurances from Lamar and Quitman that Berrien was on their side. In a court of law, this would have been dismissed as hearsay.
But on August 23 a powerful Mississippi planter, Joseph Emory Davis, arrived in Washington not only willing, but eager, to testify before the Committee. In politics, Davis was the founder and chairman of the Reform Party in the state of Mississippi, although his own ideas for reforming slavery were entirely at odds with those of the larger party. But his reasons for testifying were more personal—his youngest brother, Jefferson Finis Davis, had joined the filibuster against his advice. Jefferson was then killed at Bayou La Nana, leaving behind a widow and an infant son[2] who were now living at Hurricane Plantation. Davis blamed Lamar and Quitman for “filling young Jeff’s head with nonsense[3]” and had no compunctions about sharing his late brother’s correspondence with the committee.
Most of these letters were with Lamar or Quitman, or with other members of the expedition that Jeff had recruited. Only one was from the President himself. It appeared to be in response to a query Jeff had sent early in 1837, on learning that his wife was pregnant:
I congratulate you most warmly on the happy news of your family. May the Lord bless yourself, your wife, and your baby with felicity and good fortune.
Should you find that your duty to your family keeps you from this great work, do not hesitate to send your regrets and place your men under the command of another. The success of this endeavor will not rest on any one soldier.
As to the precise date of the expedition, I regret that I do not yet know; only that it will most likely take place early next year. The timetable is in the hands of Messrs. L. and Q., as they have the task of assembling the men and materiel and are best acquainted with the progress. They are men of sound planning, and will surely inform you with enough time to arrange your own embarkation and that of your men. In the event that both men should fail to communicate within the next six months, by all means write and inquire of them. For my part, I shall do all that is in my power to rally the nation behind this expedition.
This letter was signed by Berrien, in his handwriting, and sent from the White House itself. More importantly, it was dated March 20, 1837—two weeks to the day after Berrien’s inauguration, about a month before the Congressional declaration of war, and well before anyone in Washington had even heard about the Canadian revolt that was the official casus belli.
At this point Rep. Sumner, the man who had first raised the suspicion that Berrien had foreknowledge of the filibuster on the very day of the President’s speech, spoke again. “For the past six weeks, we here have been searching for evidence of the president’s involvement in this conspiracy, as if seeking a bloody knife that identifies its possessor as a murderer,” he said, thereby introducing the phrase “bloody knife” into American English as a term for an overwhelming piece of circumstantial evidence.[4] He continued:
This letter is the bloody knife we seek. This is the evidence that cannot be denied. There can no longer be any doubt that Berrien was party to this plot from the very beginning of his presidency. Most likely, he began his involvement in it long before he was ever elected president.
Have we not enough evidence? What more do we need? Do you expect him to come before this committee and confess? Gentlemen, I propose that we begin the process of impeachment this very day.
Congress being Congress, the process of impeachment was not begun that day, but rather the next Monday. It began with a plea from Rep. Calhoun to continue no further: “God forbid, gentlemen, that we should look with apathetic eye upon the spectacle of fair Southern ladies found bleeding and dying in the mud—defiled by savage hands! God forbid we say to our Southern constituents that their fears for their own wives and daughters must give way to our great wrath against the President for the premature mailing of a letter!”
Then, for the first time, the nonvoting representative of Kyantine Territory, John Brown, rose to address the House:
Of all the foul crimes committed over the course of this war, Mr. Calhoun and his partisans wish to direct our attention in particular to those committed against several women at Attapulgus, Georgia on July 15 of this year. Those deeds were vile and damnable, and you will never hear me say otherwise.
But as the Lord said unto his disciplines, so do I say to you—“It is impossible but that offences will come: but woe unto him, through whom they come!”[5] And the offenses Mr. Calhoun speaks of came through war. Those women fell victim to abominable trespass and murder at the hands of mercenaries brought to these shores by the British; and we have known since the very war that freed our nation, that it is the British way to hire men of other nations to assist them in their wars on this continent.
And we know the British way with women who fall in the path of their armies. They have never troubled to hide it. “Beauty and booty”—the promise they made to every raiding party in the last war.[6]
Nor is this evil unique to our adversaries. Such crimes were part of the charge they laid against our own soldiers in the Trafalgar trial. This was rank hypocrisy on their part, but was it falsehood? In all the history of this world I have never yet heard of a war that was fought with such gallantry and chivalry that no woman, no innocent was ever harmed. I have never yet heard of an army so right with God that not one soldier in it ever transgressed.
And this should come as no surprise; for we are all fallen men in a fallen world. Therefore we must know that we are sinners in the company of sinners and make our plans accordingly, anticipating the worst of our fellow men rather than the best. And never more so than in time of war, when the violence that would send a man to the gallows in peacetime becomes the order of the day.
I do not deny that war is sometimes necessary and righteous; but it never comes unattended by horror. When the dogs of war run free, you do not know whom they will bite, but you know that they will bite.
Therefore, if you would know what hands thrust those women into the path of dishonor and death, look to those who chose to let slip the dogs of war for their own advantage.
Powerful words. The problem was that they applied just as much to Daniel Webster, and to the majority of the House and Senate, as to John M. Berrien and John C. Calhoun. Without their approval there would have been no war. Only the Liberation Party, to which Brown belonged, had its hands entirely clean.
And yet it was not Webster or Seward who chose to take umbrage. It was Rep. Francis H. Cone, a Tertium Quid from Georgia who had been scheduled to speak after Brown. After Brown uttered the word “advantage,” he noticed that Cone was charging him, cane in hand.
Cone tried to strike him with the cane, but Brown knocked it out of his hand. Cone then drew a knife and slashed at Brown[7], leaving a distinctive scar running down the side of his head. Brown gripped Cone’s arm and drove the knife into the wood of the podium. At this point the sergeant-at-arms intervened…
Charles Cerniglia, The Road to the Troubles: The American South, 1800-1840
[1] Rep. George N. Briggs (DR-Mass.)
[2] IOTL Jefferson Davis married in 1835, but his first wife died of malaria soon after.
[3] If the older Davis brother sounds kind of paternal, you have to remember that Jefferson was 23 years younger than him.
[4] The OTL term would be “smoking gun.”
[5] Luke 17:1, KJV
[6] Brown is exaggerating. It wasn’t every raiding party.
[7] IOTL, Cone tried to stab Alexander H. Stephens to death in a fight over the Clayton Compromise. At the time, in addition to being about twice Stephens’ size, he was an associate justice of the Georgia Supreme Court. Preston Brooks wasn’t that much of a statistical outlier—there were a lot of fairly well-off white men in the South who learned early on to get very violent very fast, as a way of keeping slaves in line, and everybody else. You can read all about it in Northup’s Twelve Years a Slave.
Last edited:
Well, there you have it. The impeachment proceedings have begun.
The war will go on for now, the Republic is too much a sore spot for the brakes to be pumped, even with the architect of the war on trial. Though it makes peace after it fails more likely.
Well done John Brown. Well said too. And let America note it was Cone that drew first blood in the chambers of congress.
Still there's a bloody knife besides the ones belonging to Berrien or Cone. That belonging to Mr. Davis as far as the Quids will be concerned. A son of the South stabbed Berrien in the back all but sealing his fate, a Reform Party member. it can't just be dismissed as northerners conspiring against the South now. There will be accusations of betrayal aimed at Davis and the Reform PArty both; even if Davis is a oddball in the party. And in turn there will be peopel in the South inside and outside the Reform Party that will rally to defend Davis' actions as right and proper.
Looks like we won't have to wait until the end of the war. The Troubles kicked off early in Georgia with the antiCherokee campaign, looks like the rest of the union is about to start in with a double scoop for the South.
The war will go on for now, the Republic is too much a sore spot for the brakes to be pumped, even with the architect of the war on trial. Though it makes peace after it fails more likely.
Well done John Brown. Well said too. And let America note it was Cone that drew first blood in the chambers of congress.
Still there's a bloody knife besides the ones belonging to Berrien or Cone. That belonging to Mr. Davis as far as the Quids will be concerned. A son of the South stabbed Berrien in the back all but sealing his fate, a Reform Party member. it can't just be dismissed as northerners conspiring against the South now. There will be accusations of betrayal aimed at Davis and the Reform PArty both; even if Davis is a oddball in the party. And in turn there will be peopel in the South inside and outside the Reform Party that will rally to defend Davis' actions as right and proper.
Looks like we won't have to wait until the end of the war. The Troubles kicked off early in Georgia with the antiCherokee campaign, looks like the rest of the union is about to start in with a double scoop for the South.
We know the Troubles aren't a full blown civil war but methinks there will be rather a lot of political assassination involved.
Well, the political situation in Washington is getting... tense. I wonder if this'll create anything like a stab in the back myth, with Berrien retaining a following among the TQ voters as being a man who tried to keep up the slave trade in the face of foreign pressure and internal dissent. If he does or not, it's going to be an ugly, ugly impact with how the divisions in US society are coming through now.
I'd say the stabbed in the back idea has been thoroughly seeded. The South started this war from not trusting the north getting power over them with free soil expansion destined to reduce their power. The North has made no secret of heir contempt for Berrien's Southern policy in this war. And now the radical abolitionists are coming into play.
So for your choice of stabbed in the Back myths:
1. The North stabbed the South in the back, abandoning the Texans out of petty spite; and not caring a whit for how the South suffers so long as they could expand northward. We must act, for its clear so long as their precious freelands thriove they care not if all the South is set aflame.
2. The South cares not for America, only the South. They'd sooner ignore the conquest of Canada that was laid bare for, us to throw away men and treasure in steamy swamps and pick fights with other nations. Wgile we fought to liberate our brethren North of the border they engaged in banditry on a grand scale in Florida! The were a stone about our neck in war dragging us down in spite of our victories, and what's worse in peace they are unrepentant.
3. America's ideals are withering, and the rot comes from within. If this is truly to become a godly and and just nation we must cut out the canver that ha been poisoning ir since before the Revolution, slsery must be purged or they will cintinue to drag America down in all ways. The late war fought for slavery shed the blood of Americans even men who never owned or wanted to own a slave, and more will come until e end this madness once and forever!
4. The abolitionist is a menace, an ingrate who cares not for the boons slaver and the slave owner have brought t this country. So long as we clasp this viper to the bosom of the nation we shall not cease to falter, as in the late war where every effort of the South to further its rightful interests was greeted with scorn.
5. The planters are to blame, for too long they have held down the Whitemen of the South as second class citizens. The Founders were great men, but their heirs have proven both in politics and war to be unworthy of the mantles of their forefathers. How many good ol' boys died in vain for the pride and incompetence of officers whose commissions were bought and paid for? For politicians who would expose our women and children to danger by sending their protectors to foreign fields to fight fool wars while the savages and foreign dogs were at our doorstep? The South must become a a country for all good White Christians, not just the blue bloods if it is to have new golden age.
6. The rabble turns on their betters. Claiming to be good sons of the South while attacking those who have provided the rthem woth leadership aptronage and protection since before the Revolution. Their ignorant ambition makes them no better than Yankees, and all the more dangerois for being in our midst ready to betray even rheir bloodlin to further their desire to overthrow the atural order that lets' the South prosper.
XXX
Kind of puts you in mind of that WWI poster, "Who killed the peace of Europe," don't it?
A very good run down of all the outcomes that could come from the myths that might arise that could lead straight to the troubles ahead. Which makes me rather concerned about the fact that there's going to be another war in the future and what form the US will take when it's all said and done.
Thank you.
Another group I failed to consier would be Austin and his followers in Astoria. The British invasion during the war and the Trubles after will likely kick his paranoia that America is doomed into higher gear. He might even conspire for an Astorian secession in a mad attempt to preserve "white civilization" in North America.
Winter's Chill (6)
Lycaon pictus
Donor
The speech Daniel Webster delivered August 28 before the impeachment vote could not have been called partisan. He made no mention of the Democratic-Republicans or the Tertium Quids, North or South, but confined himself to the subject of freedom, the rule of law, and the preservation thereof:
When the vote came, it was 174 to 65. The Tertium Quids were, in fact, the largest single party in the House, with 95 voting members to the Dead Roses’ 91, the Populists’ 38, the Reformists’ 16 and the Liberationists’ two—but they stood alone and divided in the face of three united parties. Both sides were missing one vote; the government of Massachusetts deemed it unnecessary to appoint a replacement for Adams less than four months before the election, and Cone was in a D.C. jail.[1]
In one sense, this was a victory—impeachment in the House required only a simple majority, but if a two-thirds majority had been needed, Webster had more than that. But in another sense, more than a two-thirds majority of the Tertium Quid delegation had voted against impeachment…
August 28, 1838
Oval Office, White House
Sen. Thomas Lindall Winthrop remained seated, and let Clay do all the talking. After the walk down Pennsylvania Avenue and up the stairs, his aching joints felt every one of their seventy-eight years. He was president pro tempore of the Senate. This was a title that had never mattered before in all American history—which he well knew, as he’d personally lived through all of it thus far—and might never matter again. But it mattered today.
“It comes to this, Mr. President,” said Clay. “You have no support in any party but your own, and that party has eighteen senators. If even two of them vote to convict… do you really want to be dragged out of this office kicking and screaming? A resignation would allow you to leave with some measure of dignity.”
“Do you think two of them would cast those votes?”
“Of ninety-one Tertium Quids in the House, twenty-six voted to impeach you,” said Clay. “The equivalent vote in the Senate delegation would be five votes at least.”
“That was the vote to impeach. Not to convict. Having the House announce to the world, in no uncertain terms, that they no longer trust me—as a man of honor, that does pain me deeply.”
“Do you deny that you deserve it?”
“I suppose I should have expected, as the first Tertium Quid president, that your party would seize upon the first error I made. But… if there were nothing else at stake, I think I would resign. But I have a war to win, and the man I chose as my possible replacement is no longer with us. Instead…”
Clay turned and gestured towards him. Time to take part in this conversation.
“Instead you have me.”
“Senator Winthrop. Of Massachusetts.”
“Yes. And I will give you my word—if you resign your office, then as Acting President I will leave all of your appointments in their current positions. Including your Attorney General[2], your Secretary of Domestic Affairs[3], and your postmaster[4].”
“Whereas if I don’t…”
“Then, should I become Acting President, I will do exactly as I see fit.”
“With all due respect, Senator… you’re even older than poor David.”
“I dare say I’ll last until March of next year.”
“Ay, there’s the rub. The very moment you sit down behind this desk, Daniel Webster—who’s been preparing to run for president since some time after his birth—begins his campaign, and some Quid must be found to oppose him. The question is, will any Tertium Quid vote for that? Not just to tell me what a disappointment I am, but to replace me in office with one Massachusetts man, and then very likely another one?”
“I thought the Tertium Quids had decided to become the party of the whole country. What happened to that?”
“What happened was that certain Massachusetts politicians made themselves enemies of the entire basis of the Southern economy. Certain politicians in Massachusetts and elsewhere decided that Article IV, Section 2, Clause 3[5] should be allowed to become a dead letter—something I bear in mind every time they speak of our sacred Constitution when opposing my own actions.” Berrien looked at him squarely. “And one Massachusetts politician in particular became a correspondent with the ‘Sword of Nemesis’ himself.”[6]
“What are you…” Winthrop needed a moment to remember what exactly Berrien was talking about. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“When you say ‘correspondent,’” said Clay, “do you mean before or after Byron came to our shores and started making trouble?”
“Does it matter? If you in the Senate wish to replace me with an abolitionist, then go and look for the votes to do so. I won’t do it for you.”
When I say Daggett was racialist, I don’t mean he got nervous when he saw young men of other races congregating outside in numbers greater than two, or that he heard the news of unfortunate events in Guinea[7] or Bantuvia[8] with indifference. He seems to have been one of those people who, as Scattergood said, “make of their lives a long, secret war against another portion of our nation”—in this case, about 2.7 percent of the population of his native Connecticut according to 1830 Census data. As a young man, he published a tract (no copies of which survive to the present day) claiming to be the “confession” of Joseph Mountain, a black man hanged on charges of rape. As a judge, he never missed an opportunity to rule against blacks who were trying to live, work, and educate their children in the state. And, of course, there is the fact that his move to the Tertium Quid party was motivated neither by any financial interest in slavery as an institution nor certainly by any belief in the principles of John Randolph of Roanoke. It was a decision based on pure racial animus.
And yet Daggett was a man who valued the system and made it a point of pride to work within it. What had first brought him to prominence, after all, was his advocacy for a constitution for the state of Connecticut. So if he had lived, Tertium Quids would have had a replacement for Berrien that they could have lived with, and Dead Roses would have had a president who was uninvolved in Berrien’s misdeeds. Better still, he would have been too old to run in 1840, leaving the field open for a contest of Webster versus, most likely, John Tyler. Given a successor of his own party, Berrien might have been persuaded to resign rather than become the first president to face impeachment. The system would have been vindicated, and a good deal of the bitterness that gave rise to the Troubles avoided. The United States would have been a more peaceful nation, for a time. It would not necessarily have been a more just one…
I’ve heard it said that it would have made a difference if Barbour had lived—that the respect the Quids held for him would have prompted them to vote for impeachment, or perhaps that Clay could have replaced Winthrop with him. I wonder, though, how much more difference it would have made than the words of Davy Crockett. Very few of Sen. Crockett’s speeches have ever been recorded. His speech on August 29 is a brief, tragic exception:
It is tragic not because of Crockett’s own frustrated sentiment toward the filibusterers, or his own sorrow at the vote he was about to cast, but because it did not have the intended effect. When the Senate voted, Davy Crockett—the official leader of the Tertium Quid party in that body—was the only TQ senator to vote to convict. The other seventeen senators voted to acquit, and it was enough by one to prevent Berrien’s conviction. Impeachment, in Webster’s words, had been found wanting…
[1] Article 1, Section 6, Clause 1 of the Constitution reads: “They shall in all Cases, except Treason, Felony and Breach of the Peace, be privileged from Arrest during their Attendance at the Session of their respective Houses…” What Cone did was definitely a breach of the peace.
[2] George Poindexter, who has had a number of Democratic-Republicans who worked for Sergeant prosecuted on charges of embezzling government money for campaign purposes. (I should note that they were all guilty as hell. Twenty continuous years in power will do that to a party.)
[3] William Campbell Preston, who has been spending much of his time interfering with the National University’s hiring process in an attempt to make sure they aren’t hiring abolitionists. This was actually less controversial than his refusal to sell the National Road to Erastus Corning at a time when the government is hurting for cash… followed by his attempt to encourage William Aiken and other slaveholders to put together a railroad company he can sell it to.
[4] William T. Barry, who has made himself controversial by trying to close the postal system to major abolitionist publications.
[5] The Fugitive Slave Clause, which New England states in particular are getting very creative about not enforcing.
[6] This happened while Winthrop was raising money for the Greek revolution. IOTL and ITTL he was part of the Philhellene movement, and was quite eloquent about the Greeks. (And about the Turks.)
[7] Used ITTL as a general term for sub-Saharan West Africa.
[8] A TTL term for the part of Africa covered by the Bantu Expansion.
Merry Christmas!
The life of nations is measured in millennia, the life of institutions in centuries. Our nation is in its infancy, and our institutions are yet young. And as the twig is bent, so the tree inclines. This present age is the time for the inculcation of rules and habits that shall govern the bodies of our government for so long as they exist.
Until today, our nation has not had occasion to test the mechanism of impeachment, by which Congress may enforce the rule of law upon the President of the United States. This mechanism must not be found wanting.
When the vote came, it was 174 to 65. The Tertium Quids were, in fact, the largest single party in the House, with 95 voting members to the Dead Roses’ 91, the Populists’ 38, the Reformists’ 16 and the Liberationists’ two—but they stood alone and divided in the face of three united parties. Both sides were missing one vote; the government of Massachusetts deemed it unnecessary to appoint a replacement for Adams less than four months before the election, and Cone was in a D.C. jail.[1]
In one sense, this was a victory—impeachment in the House required only a simple majority, but if a two-thirds majority had been needed, Webster had more than that. But in another sense, more than a two-thirds majority of the Tertium Quid delegation had voted against impeachment…
Charles Cerniglia, The Road to the Troubles: The American South, 1800-1840
August 28, 1838
Oval Office, White House
Sen. Thomas Lindall Winthrop remained seated, and let Clay do all the talking. After the walk down Pennsylvania Avenue and up the stairs, his aching joints felt every one of their seventy-eight years. He was president pro tempore of the Senate. This was a title that had never mattered before in all American history—which he well knew, as he’d personally lived through all of it thus far—and might never matter again. But it mattered today.
“It comes to this, Mr. President,” said Clay. “You have no support in any party but your own, and that party has eighteen senators. If even two of them vote to convict… do you really want to be dragged out of this office kicking and screaming? A resignation would allow you to leave with some measure of dignity.”
“Do you think two of them would cast those votes?”
“Of ninety-one Tertium Quids in the House, twenty-six voted to impeach you,” said Clay. “The equivalent vote in the Senate delegation would be five votes at least.”
“That was the vote to impeach. Not to convict. Having the House announce to the world, in no uncertain terms, that they no longer trust me—as a man of honor, that does pain me deeply.”
“Do you deny that you deserve it?”
“I suppose I should have expected, as the first Tertium Quid president, that your party would seize upon the first error I made. But… if there were nothing else at stake, I think I would resign. But I have a war to win, and the man I chose as my possible replacement is no longer with us. Instead…”
Clay turned and gestured towards him. Time to take part in this conversation.
“Instead you have me.”
“Senator Winthrop. Of Massachusetts.”
“Yes. And I will give you my word—if you resign your office, then as Acting President I will leave all of your appointments in their current positions. Including your Attorney General[2], your Secretary of Domestic Affairs[3], and your postmaster[4].”
“Whereas if I don’t…”
“Then, should I become Acting President, I will do exactly as I see fit.”
“With all due respect, Senator… you’re even older than poor David.”
“I dare say I’ll last until March of next year.”
“Ay, there’s the rub. The very moment you sit down behind this desk, Daniel Webster—who’s been preparing to run for president since some time after his birth—begins his campaign, and some Quid must be found to oppose him. The question is, will any Tertium Quid vote for that? Not just to tell me what a disappointment I am, but to replace me in office with one Massachusetts man, and then very likely another one?”
“I thought the Tertium Quids had decided to become the party of the whole country. What happened to that?”
“What happened was that certain Massachusetts politicians made themselves enemies of the entire basis of the Southern economy. Certain politicians in Massachusetts and elsewhere decided that Article IV, Section 2, Clause 3[5] should be allowed to become a dead letter—something I bear in mind every time they speak of our sacred Constitution when opposing my own actions.” Berrien looked at him squarely. “And one Massachusetts politician in particular became a correspondent with the ‘Sword of Nemesis’ himself.”[6]
“What are you…” Winthrop needed a moment to remember what exactly Berrien was talking about. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“When you say ‘correspondent,’” said Clay, “do you mean before or after Byron came to our shores and started making trouble?”
“Does it matter? If you in the Senate wish to replace me with an abolitionist, then go and look for the votes to do so. I won’t do it for you.”
When I say Daggett was racialist, I don’t mean he got nervous when he saw young men of other races congregating outside in numbers greater than two, or that he heard the news of unfortunate events in Guinea[7] or Bantuvia[8] with indifference. He seems to have been one of those people who, as Scattergood said, “make of their lives a long, secret war against another portion of our nation”—in this case, about 2.7 percent of the population of his native Connecticut according to 1830 Census data. As a young man, he published a tract (no copies of which survive to the present day) claiming to be the “confession” of Joseph Mountain, a black man hanged on charges of rape. As a judge, he never missed an opportunity to rule against blacks who were trying to live, work, and educate their children in the state. And, of course, there is the fact that his move to the Tertium Quid party was motivated neither by any financial interest in slavery as an institution nor certainly by any belief in the principles of John Randolph of Roanoke. It was a decision based on pure racial animus.
And yet Daggett was a man who valued the system and made it a point of pride to work within it. What had first brought him to prominence, after all, was his advocacy for a constitution for the state of Connecticut. So if he had lived, Tertium Quids would have had a replacement for Berrien that they could have lived with, and Dead Roses would have had a president who was uninvolved in Berrien’s misdeeds. Better still, he would have been too old to run in 1840, leaving the field open for a contest of Webster versus, most likely, John Tyler. Given a successor of his own party, Berrien might have been persuaded to resign rather than become the first president to face impeachment. The system would have been vindicated, and a good deal of the bitterness that gave rise to the Troubles avoided. The United States would have been a more peaceful nation, for a time. It would not necessarily have been a more just one…
I’ve heard it said that it would have made a difference if Barbour had lived—that the respect the Quids held for him would have prompted them to vote for impeachment, or perhaps that Clay could have replaced Winthrop with him. I wonder, though, how much more difference it would have made than the words of Davy Crockett. Very few of Sen. Crockett’s speeches have ever been recorded. His speech on August 29 is a brief, tragic exception:
This is just about the saddest thing I’ve ever had to say.
When I heard tell of Quitman and Lamar and Navarro and the rest, and the courage they had shown in taking on New Spain all by themselves, I was the happiest fool on the Hill. It wasn’t just brag when I said I wished more than anything I could be there with them—that I could put these duties aside, pick up my old musket and go off to stretch this nation’s boundaries out in a whole new direction.
And when the House voted not to send our soldiers to join them—voted to tell those brave boys ‘You thought we would pull your bacon out of the fire? The more fools you!’—why, then, I mourned. I tell you I mourned for those boys and I wept with shame that we had the power to save them and would not do it. But the thing was done. The House had made the decision it had every right to make.
Mr. President, you done wrong. You gave an order that you knew damn well wasn’t yours to give. It ain’t for you to decide who this republic does and does not declare war on. I got no plans to send you to the gallows, but we can’t trust you with the power of that office any more.
It is tragic not because of Crockett’s own frustrated sentiment toward the filibusterers, or his own sorrow at the vote he was about to cast, but because it did not have the intended effect. When the Senate voted, Davy Crockett—the official leader of the Tertium Quid party in that body—was the only TQ senator to vote to convict. The other seventeen senators voted to acquit, and it was enough by one to prevent Berrien’s conviction. Impeachment, in Webster’s words, had been found wanting…
Andrea Fessler, America’s History in Scandals
[1] Article 1, Section 6, Clause 1 of the Constitution reads: “They shall in all Cases, except Treason, Felony and Breach of the Peace, be privileged from Arrest during their Attendance at the Session of their respective Houses…” What Cone did was definitely a breach of the peace.
[2] George Poindexter, who has had a number of Democratic-Republicans who worked for Sergeant prosecuted on charges of embezzling government money for campaign purposes. (I should note that they were all guilty as hell. Twenty continuous years in power will do that to a party.)
[3] William Campbell Preston, who has been spending much of his time interfering with the National University’s hiring process in an attempt to make sure they aren’t hiring abolitionists. This was actually less controversial than his refusal to sell the National Road to Erastus Corning at a time when the government is hurting for cash… followed by his attempt to encourage William Aiken and other slaveholders to put together a railroad company he can sell it to.
[4] William T. Barry, who has made himself controversial by trying to close the postal system to major abolitionist publications.
[5] The Fugitive Slave Clause, which New England states in particular are getting very creative about not enforcing.
[6] This happened while Winthrop was raising money for the Greek revolution. IOTL and ITTL he was part of the Philhellene movement, and was quite eloquent about the Greeks. (And about the Turks.)
[7] Used ITTL as a general term for sub-Saharan West Africa.
[8] A TTL term for the part of Africa covered by the Bantu Expansion.
Merry Christmas!
So Berrien endures because a majority of Quids unlike Crockett will back him to the hilt.
I am guessing Crockett and the other 'convicters' will be leaving the Quids for the Reform Party or the DRP. Leaving a radicalized Quid party following Berrien until he's thrown out and the other parties knowing they cannot trust them.
So what happens to Berren now? What's the law?
I am guessing Crockett and the other 'convicters' will be leaving the Quids for the Reform Party or the DRP. Leaving a radicalized Quid party following Berrien until he's thrown out and the other parties knowing they cannot trust them.
So what happens to Berren now? What's the law?