Part XV: The Rise of the Republicans
The Election of 1816 was one of the most lopsided blowouts in the history of the United States. The election was between the Federalist Party and the Republican Party. The Federalist candidate was Rufus King and, as they attempted to win over those who turned away from the party when Monroe declared himself an independent, a narrative started forming around the leadership of the party compared to their competitors. The Federalists have remained under the increasingly aging leadership that had been in charge since the revolution. On the opposing side was the Republican Party, formerly the Confederationist Party, which seemed to be the antithesis of everything wrong with the Federalist Party. Their leadership was young, inspiring, and dynamic, made up of war heroes and representing the cutting edge of political philosophy globally. They believed in the ideals of liberty and fraternity that were espoused in the European revolutions and wished to radically alter the very structure of American society. The only major break they had with the European powers politically was their neutral opinion on slavery. As students of the French and Irish Revolutions, they were militaristic and patriotic to the core, and their foreign policy represented that. William Henry Harrison, who stood as the Republican candidate for president, gave rousing speeches in opposition to the continued existence of the British and Spanish empires in North America. He preached that these territories should not be conquered by the United States like European imperialists, but made into independent republics that could forge their own path.
When the election finally ended on December 4th, Harrison had won in every single state except for Vermont, which preferred King’s isolationist rhetoric as it continued repairing the damage done during the Great European War. Harrison won more electoral votes than any president elect in United States history up until that point and would not be surpassed by another president elect until the Election of 1860, almost fifty years later. Harrison was the first president who was not a Founding Father. He was the first president to be too young to remember British rule, being born in 1773. His victory represented a new era for the United States. The Founding Era, marked by conflicts between Federalists and Confederationists and figuring out how the United States will run was over. The Republican Era, marked by continent-wide revolution and internal reform had begun.
Harrison said as much in his Inaugural Speech in Philadelphia. He proclaimed: “The United States was the birthplace of revolution and shall once again be its home in the New World. It is our country’s divined purpose to topple the old European empires on the American continent for all of the peoples of America, whether or not they be of European blood. The British and the Spanish have proven that their leaders are turncoats and fools, just like the French monarchy before the Great Revolution brought about much needed change. As has happened in France and Germany and Italy and Ireland, so to will it happen in Canada and New Spain and Brazil.” While independence for all of the Americas was a major focus of his time and effort, he also had a robust domestic policy. After nearly twenty years of work, suffering technological setbacks, lack of funds, and a great deal of other annoyances, Robert Fulton finally revealed his
La Flotte de L'Avenir. This was by far the most modern fleet the world had ever seen. Powered by steam, the ships would never bow to the whims of the wind again. As Fulton faced many technological hurdles to bring his steamships to completion, he busied his men with making intricate carved doors and walls, grand cabins for the officers of the ship, and a drainage system to keep the decks, cabins, and lower levels relatively dry. This fleet was revealed to the world in early 1815 and a handful of the eight hundred ships were toured across the Republican Coalition to represent the grandeur and power of the forward looking French. Harrison was able to visit and tour one of these ships when it was docked in New York City. He was so inspired by the engineering that he made one of his major campaign promises to create a three hundred ship fleet of similar status.
This was part of a larger domestic plan to embrace the emerging industrialization of France. Harrison was unable to get the Confederation Congress to jointly fund industry, although New York and Franklin both broke rank to begin doing so, but the Constitutional Congress did agree to it. Industrialization began with a focus around Philadelphia, Newark, New Haven, Baltimore, Charleston, and Raleigh. While this move garnered very little excitement short term, it would have massively positive effects later on.
Harrison, having emerged from the Confederation Congress, began to privately lobby for new states to join the Confederation over the Constitution. No new states had been added to the Confederation since Vermont over twenty years ago, which had eventually switched to the Constitutional Congress. With this unofficial support, Harrison was able to get the states of Michigan, Arkansas, and Cuba introduced as Confederation states during his first term, with Arkansas joining in 1817 and Cuba and Michigan joining in 1818. This brought much anger to the Constitutional states, due to it having been so long that it seemed like the Confederationists would remain those five states. They also opposed the seeming bias of the presidency but, like the president’s support for the matter, their disgruntlement was also in private.
In regards to the revolutions of the American continent, Harrison had quite a plan. He knew that, like in the Irish Revolution, the best the American people could do was serve a supporting role as the locals pave their own path and decide what independence, freedom, and republicanism really meant for them. That did not mean that Harrison could not guide them down this path. There had been several major attempts at sparking a revolution by Creole leaders of the colonies, who opposed Spanish rule. Every one of these attempts was a failure and in almost every case, the defeated revolutionaries fled to the United States. There was quite a community of wealthy failed revolutionaries like Francisco de Miranda, Jose Maria Morelos, Antonio Josede Sucre, Jose de San Martin, and Simon Bolivar growing in New York City. Harrison invited these men and others down to the Presidential Mansion in Philadelphia to discuss how to proceed with each region’s revolution. The result was a thorough plan of action that became known as the Great Continental Mission.
The goal of the mission was simple: revolution and independence. The pathway towards revolution was far more complicated and greatly depended on the region. In Canada, the plan is to agitate in favor of the French-speaking Catholic populace against their British overlords. Many political figures are considered, but it is eventually decided that Louis-Joseph Papineau would be the leader of the revolution there. Papineau had been exiled after attempting to begin a rebellion in protest to George IV’s seizure of the crown, which was seen as an illegal move by many, he was forced to flee to the United States. He harbored a deep seated dislike and distrust of New Yorkers and New Englanders due to the American invasion of British North America when he was young, and the Siege of Montreal in particular. This lead him to chose to move to Philadelphia as opposed to Boston or New York City, where he was close at hand when Harrison and the revolutionaries began to plan the Canadian Revolt.
The next one was the Mexican Revolt. Mexico was the chosen name of those who wished to distinguish their ideal of the country from New Spain. The Mexican people were deeply religious, so the church would have to be involved on a more fundamental level. The Jesuit faction of Catholicism was far more popular in Latin America than it was in Europe, so the revolutionaries came in contact with the Superior General of the Jesuits, currently Tadeusz Brzozowski was residing in Paris once the Concert of Europe, the European answer to the Republican Coalition, decided that the order stood opposed to the continued power of the monarchies.
At its founding in 1811, the Concert only included Britain, Sicily, the Austrian Empire, Prussia, the Russian Empire, Portugal, and Denmark but Norway, Sweden, the Ottoman Empire, Sicily, and Spain joined over the course of the following year. Spain joined after the death of Berthier in 1815 under suspicious circumstances, leaving the young Ferdinand VII surrounded on all sides by reactionary forces. This meant that no neutral power existed in Europe, everybody was either pro-revolutionary or anti-revolutionary. The fear of republican uprisings sponsored by France or the United States lead these kingdoms and empires to become considerably more oppressive, going after any and all groups that could be considered potentially subversive. Merchants who used to be able to freely operate became closely monitored and attached to the government. Religious or political groups that had operated for decades and centuries that did not directly serve the monarch, or in Catholic countries, the Pope, despite his mild support of the republicans, were either banished or forced to disperse. The Jesuits were banished and fled to one of the few places and Europe they could go, France. France welcomed in those who had been forced out of their countries with open arms, planning on using them to subvert and overthrow these empires across Europe. In 1817, their equivalent of the Great Continental Mission was forming, which would come to be called the Great European Mission. The Great European mission would eventually be in favor of Polish, Serbian, Hungarian, Greek, Sardinian, and Catalan independence, which would mark the major wars of Europe during the 1820s.
Brzozowksi and the Jesuits were persuaded to back revolution in Latin America, giving them a base of power in Latin America. With the Pope’s support, the Jesuits began to help support the overthrow of European rule in the Americas. Combined with the alliances made between the revolutionaries and the Creole elite, this formed a strong basis for revolution across all of South America.
In 1818, four simultaneous revolts succeeded at taking over the region they started. They began at Montreal in Canada, Merida in New Spain, Cartagena in New Granada, and Buenos Aires in Rio de la Plata. The leader of the Canadian Revolt was Papineau, the leader of the New Spanish Revolt was initially Barragan, but he was soon superseded by Santa Anna, the leader of the New Granadan Revolt was Domingo Caycedo, and Mariano Moreno in Rio de la Plata. The revolts that were attempted in Peru and Brazil failed. The successful revolts quickly swept across their nations and news spread around the world. The United States had helped spark independence revolts across the continents. Any reaction would have them invoke the American Doctrine. The Spanish were in a particularly terrible situation, bordering Spain, having had close ties with the United States, and having three successful revolts going on in their territories. The revolts would be sporadic and violent and would take over a decade. Whether they were successful at securing these countries independence or not would mark Harrison’s legacy, and the legacy of the Republicans.