Not bad.John C. Breckinridge
1867-1873
![]()
Democratic Party
The election of 1867 was uncontested. The Democratic Party, having reformed itself in the CSA, was the party of nearly every Confederate politician and nominated former American vice president John C. Breckinridge. Just as the South before the war was very much dominated by the Democrats, the South after the war was very much dominated by the Democrats. Less than a month after his inauguration, the first session of the Republican-dominated American Congress began, something that scared many Confederates due to their hard line against their land. Although American President Hendricks remained opposed to this, it was hard to go against a Congress and Senate that was under the total control of the Republican Party. In addition, a series of laws were passed by the US that heightened its tariffs. This led to a vast decline in Confederate exports.
When Radical Republican William Seward won the election of 1868 in a vast landslide once more using the betrayal of the Democrats as their campaign plank, war became inevitable. The only unknown was how it was going to start. The Republicans passed Whiggish laws that further impeded Confederate imports and they also began to build up their military for obvious reasons. However, momentarily, both the CS and US were distracted by the German Unification War and the later French Civil War. When it became apparent the European powers were distracted by the two great events, Breckinridge decided he had an opportunity to begin to create a “Tropical Empire” and expand slave-power influence. He decided to attempt to annex Cuba in the summer of 1870. Using the small Confederate navy, he established a beachhead quite quickly, but was then bogged down by Cuban guerillas and as Spain began to attack Confederate forces on Cuba, Spain quickly regained a lot of territory. The US also used this as an opportunity to strike against the CS and American President Seward called Congress to declare war on it in late 1870. This escalated the Cuban War to a second war between the states
The US was far more powerful than the CS and this was known by virtually. However, Breckinridge was forced to declare war on the US despite the recent death of general-in-chief Robert E. Lee. From the outset, the new American plan of focusing their forces on capturing the Mississippi River was very successful. The great American victories of Shiloh and Vicksburg by General Grant remain battles that are studied to this day by military academies around the world. As for the eastern front, the great American victory of Fredericksburg is extremely famous and Seward’s Fredericksburg Speech remains a model of oratory for many. By the end of 1871, the US had captured Tennessee, northern Texas, and northern Arkansas and put the Confederate capital of Richmond under siege. With Richmond about to be captured, Breckinridge surrendered to the US. Meanwhile, Spain rapidly pushed the Confederates off of Cuba and initiated an invasion of Southern Florida and by the end of 1871 had it under its control. The post-war Treaty of Washington gave Tennessee, northern Texas (annexed as the state of Houston in honour of Sam Houston, a Unionist Texan), northern Arkansas (as the state of Ozark, named after the main mountain range of the state), and much of Virginia (which was annexed into West Virginia, now renamed North Virginia) to the US and Southern Florida to Spain. Post-war, the Great Cuban Purchase made Cuba and Spanish Florida American.
This great defeat effectively reversed the emotions felt following the Confederate War of Independence. The US felt proud of having avenged their defeat in the last war, while the CS mourned their defeat at the hands of the “Damn-Yankees”. The loss of much of the Upper South led to much sorrow and a source of revenue was lost. While the United States saw a lot of unity as a result of the war (that led to the election of 1872 in which every state that could vote in the Union voted for Seward, the largest margin of victory in the Electoral College since George Washington’s unanimous election in 1792), the Confederate States saw a divide grow within the Democratic Party between moderates and extreme Democrats that culminated in moderate Democrats led by former Secretary of State Robert Toombs bolting the party during the Democratic National Convention and forming the National Confederate Party. For the first time in its history a Confederate presidential election would be contested.
I eagerly await to see what else you have in store!