The Class of 1824: Ten Years Later
John Coffee Hancock turned 10 on January 11, and is the top student in his year at Norristown Academy. His fatherâs a schoolteacher, so his family didnât do as well as most during the good time, but havenât been hurt so much by the bad times either.
âKeep your men in good order and your supply lines open, and there is no disaster that cannot be put right.â â
Gen. Hancock
Denton Johnson Brooks turned 10 on February 15. Heâs a decent student, but canât stop getting in fights.
âFor more than two years, every time I sat down to wine and pizza with my friends, I heard them say, âItâs dreadful, somebody ought to do something, somebody should do something.â Well, now somebody has.â â
Denton Brooks
Elizabeth Miller turned 10 on March 27. She has two older brothers, a younger half-sister and a younger half-brother, and her once-thriving family is, like a lot of families in Charleston these days, struggling with debt.
âI have seen two wars, and between them the Troubles. When actuaries tally up the number of human lives lost to violence, they find all the years of the Troubles scarcely add up to one battle, but mark meâthe Troubles were the worst. The wars were titanic monsters whose roar could be heard long in advance of their approach. The Troubles were a small but deadly serpent that might strike from anywhere.â â
Elizabeth Miller
Francisco AgustĂn de BorbĂłn y Iturbide turned 10 on April 9. Heâs an okay student, but (like both his paternal grandfathers) an excellent horseman. He treats his younger brothers and sisters well. The plan is that he will learn to be a soldier, be promoted to general andâwhen his father diesâbecome the strong right hand of whichever younger brother of the Miraculous Princess is sent to New Spain to become the new Prince-Viceroy.
âWe will hold the MisiĂłn de Ălamo against Hell itself if necessary.â â
Francisco AgustĂn de BorbĂłn y Iturbide
Charles Brady turned 10 on May 1. With the economy the way it is, his fatherâs had to go into the timber industry in the mountains around Lake Georgeâthe railroads always need more woodâand to bring Charlieâs older brother and himself along. Charlie likes the woods. Heâs growing up on folktales from Ireland and elsewhere, and wants to hear whatever tales come from the Adirondacks. But thereâs hardly anybody left in the Adirondacks who isnât cutting trees, so Charlieâs having to make them up himself.
âSeven men stood on the height overlooking the Klondike. They gazed upon a vista of hills like a crowd of balding men, naked crowns of rock and heatherish tundra rising above sparse forests of spruce and fir. They heard the cries of ravens, but saw no other living creature than themselves in any directionâŚâ â
The beginning of The Wendigo
by Charles Brady
Edward Allingham turned 10 on June 20. His mother died in childbirth this year, and the baby died a few days later. Edward and two younger siblings, Charlotte and John, remain.
Edward is a devout Anglican from a long line of such, and his elders are still talking about the Tithe War and how the government will rue the day it let those âgrubby Papistsâ win. He himself canât help wondering why the Church of Ireland has to keep hitting up the supposedly poor, second-class Catholics for money.
âDo as you will with me. I will not oppose these people in arms again until their concerns have been addressed.â â
Gen. Allingham
Solomon Parsons Morton turned 10 on July 24. His family moved to Springfield, Vermont a couple of years ago. Heâs an okay student, but a leader among his peers.
âCan I continue pressing the attack? Only until I die, sir. I offer no guarantees for my performance afterward.â â
Col. Morton
Josephus Starke turned 10 September 21. In the hills of northern Alabama, itâs becoming harder and more dangerous for the sheriffs to enforce eviction notices. Too bad for the Starke family that theyâre at the opposite end of the state. Plantation owners can organize to resist evictions, but they donât try to protect little farms like the Starke placeâ theyâre thinking that when times get better, one of them can buy the land from the bank cheap. Which is how the Starkes wound up in North Carolina working for the railroad from Salem to Charlotte. Josephus canât wait until heâs old enough to help his family earn some money. Thatâs the height of his ambition⌠at the moment.
âKentucky is mine. Get your own damn state.â â
Josephus Starke
Dheerandra Tagore turned 10 October 13. He already reads and writes six languages. The Company is particularly strong where he is, and his parents are hoping he can get a job serving it. They always need more translators.
âQueen Charlotte freed the slaves, but she did not free us. Very well. Weâll do it ourselves.â â
Dheerandra Tagore
Karl Peter Frederick, son of the Grand Duke of Oldenburg, turned 10 on November 19. Heâs already sharp enough to follow the debates in the newspapers. Two years ago his father granted his people what was more or less a copy of the Hanoverian constitution, and there are no customs barriers between Hanover and Oldenburg. This has actually diminished the calls for unification with Hanoverâitâs easier to leave the status quo in place, and that amounts to practically the same thing. Plus, Oldenburg is a
Grand Duchy. It wouldnât be grand anymore if Grand Duke August became the vassal of King Wilhelm.
The railroad between Hannover and Oldenburg (okay, really the railroad between Hannover and Bremerhaven[1], but it connects Oldenburg) was completed this year, which means Karl can visit Hannover often, and does. Prince Victor Alexander is like the cool older brother he never had.
âBerlin or Hannoverâone of these two must fall. I do not know which one will win, but I know where I will fight.â â
Grand Duke Karl
Nathanael Greene Whitman turned 10 on December 22. Heâs still in school. Heâs a somewhat better-than-average student, but his artistic skills are well in advance of his years.
âWhen I heard the learnâd chemist discourse on the wonders of the argentograph[2], and show the proofs that this mechanical marvel could create more realistic images of the natural world than those of any human hand, I became sick and sad. Then the thought came into my mind that human imagination still must govern the composition of every image, and that this mere machine, like the pen and brush, might itself be made an instrument for the expression of art.â â
Nate Whitman
February 11, 1835
U.S. Capitol
Senate Majority Leaderâand President emeritusâHenry Clay had anticipated that this was going to be a difficult term. He hadnât realized how difficult. The Democratic-Republican majority in the Senate still existed, but had been reduced. His felllow Kentucky senator, Richard Mentor Johnson, had been replaced by Joseph Desha, a Quid and a man he personally detested. That one-eyed grump Governor Harrison of Ohio was still sending him angry missives about the Supreme Court decision last year.
And now thisâthe publication of an open letter, which was the reason he and the two most powerful Dead Roses in the House were meeting in Websterâs office. ââWhereas the peculiar institution of the South is the mainstay of its agriculture and the backbone of the industry that supplies so much of our exportsâŚââ He didnât trouble to read aloud the rest of the justifications.
ââBe it known that if the Democratic-Republican delegation to the United States Congress were to put forward any further proposals having in their effect the diminution of this institution in the states where it is currently lawful, we the signatories would be compelled to resign our membership in said partyâŚââ (The signatories, not the undersigned. Just to make everyoneâs day complete, the letter was a round robin. The signatures were around the edges in an irregular pattern that concealed which of them might have been first to sign it, although Clay would have bet half his railroad shares on Rep. Taney of Maryland.)
âTwenty-five,â said Speaker of the House Webster. Everyone in the office could do the math. If only fourteen of the signatories made good on this threat, the Quids would have a majority and Webster would have to hand over his new position to Calhoun.
âThe Liberationist delegation has informed me,â added Majority Whip John Quincy Adams, âthat if we donât publicly defy this missive at once, they will leave our coalition.â
Clay smiled grimly. âBoth of them?â
âStrictly speaking, there are three. Sumner from Massachusetts, Stevens from Pennsylvania, and⌠someone from Kyantine who I havenât met.[3]â
âFrom Kyantine? Not a Negro, surely?â Even Clay would have found it embarrassing if a Congressional representative were kidnapped by slavers, which was a risk in D.C.
âA white man. Iâve heard a little about him, but I canât recall his name. I know itâs something quite forgettableâJohn Smith, John Jones, John White⌠no, not John White, but something of that sort. All I remember about him is that his family settled at a place called Oak Hill[4] and they have a tannery there. I suspect he owes his election to the fact that they thought it best to find a white man for the position and had very few of any merit to choose from. In any event, he does not vote, so we neednât worry about him. For all practical purposes the Liberationists have only two.â
Clay turned to Webster. âWhat say the Populists?â Half the reason Webster had been chosen as Speaker of the House was that he seemed to get along better with the Populists.
âThey leave the matter in our hands.â That was only a little better. Depending on the Populists meant making choices that might make some voters happy in the short term, butâClay greatly fearedâwould harm the nation in the long term.
âYou both know these men better than I do,â said Clay. âHow likely are they to make good on this threat? This fellow from New York, for instanceâŚâ
Adams snorted. âRep. Fillmore is a weathervane with feet. He represents whatever he believes the consensus to be.â
âA weathervane? No sense getting angry at him, then. The problem is which way the wind is blowing.â Clay pointed to another signature. âAnd this oneâs from New Hampshire. Is he serious? Whatâs his nameâFranklin⌠Pence?â
âPierce,â said Webster. âNewly elected. Iâve met him. Young fellowâno more than thirty, and he looks like a schoolboy.â
âAn ambitious young man.â
Webster nodded.
âAnd yet willing to risk his career over this. And what worries me are the other names. These are all our remaining representatives in Missouri, Tennessee, Kentucky, and most of our Maryland and Virginia delegation.â Clay shook his head. âIf they go over to the Quids, who will be the national party then, and who the regional party?â
âI agree,â said Webster. âWe canât risk it. And considerâdid any of us have plans to take action against slavery within the states where it holds sway?â
âUnfortunately, no,â said Adams.
âThen it costs us nothing but a touch of pride to heed this warning. And after all, they arenât asking us to
expand slavery. âIn the states where it is currently lawfulââthose are their exact words.â He pointed at the sentence on the page. âMichigan is already a free state. And when other territories apply for statehood, what will these signatories do? Deny them representation? Force them to accept slavery in order to join? I doubt it. We have suffered a great defeat, this is one of the consequences, and we must needs endure it. But in this matter, Time remains our friend and ally.â
âWhen you say âour,ââ said Clay, âare you speaking of the Dead Rose caucus, or the anti-slavery caucus?â
âI am speaking,â said Webster, not missing a beat, âof those whose loyalty to the party is greater than their loyalty to slavery.â
Clay nodded, keeping his expression neutral. Bringing up future states in this context had brought to mind something he tried not to think about too much. Wisconsing, Ioway, Mennisota, Kaw-Osage⌠none of those would be a problem, come the day. If the Tertium Quids tried to bar them from the union in the name of slavery, the very next election would send them right back to minor-party status where they belonged, and the voters in the new states would be of a mind to hold them there forever.
But what of Kyantine? Could there be a state in this Union where whites were not the majority? All right, there already were such statesâSouth Carolina and, by a narrow margin, Mississippiâbut could there ever be a state where the white man did not
rule? Could Congress be persuaded to accept this?
It seemed unthinkable, yet the Constitution offered no bar. Clay had that text well-nigh committed to memory, and in it the words âwhiteâ and âNegroâ were nowhere to be found. It spoke of âfree Personsâ and âother Personsâ instead, and the blacks of Kyantine were indeed free persons. That America was in all its parts to be ruled exclusively by white men was a tacit agreement, and if something were to contravene that agreementâŚ
A problem for another day, thank God.
[1] The city of Bremen is the third member of the Hannover-Oldenburg group outside the Nordzollverein that everyone always forgets about, including me.
[2] IOTL daguerrotype
[3] Each organized territory sends a nonvoting representative to the House.
[4] IOTL Tulsa. It should be noted that the Brown family lives and works on the other side of the river from Oak Hill proper, which is at the southern end of Kaw-Osage territory.