Triumphant: A Davy Crockett Presidency
- Thread starter Odinson
- Start date
Well, Van Buren wasn't Vice President at the time. Instead, he was quickly nominated as Jackson's replacement, meaning that he was not as much of a house hold name. Course, the election wasn't exactly a Crockett landslide either.
Chapter Fifty Nine
A Lookback at Some of America’s Presidents: A Reflection
A Lookback at Some of America’s Presidents: A Reflection
“Tyler and Lee: Mixed Legacies” by Angus Konstam
“Many of America’s presidents have a mixed record, having both positive and negative aspects to their terms. Thomas Jefferson for instance greatly expanded the size of the United States while also being a slave holder. There are two presidents that I would like to examine in detail in this paper, John Tyler (1857-1861) and Robert E. Lee (1865-1870).
John Tyler
Robert E. Lee
Robert E. Lee, like Tyler before him, is a southern born president with a complicated legacy. Like Tyler, a popular myth surrounds Lee is that he was an abolitionist. While Lee may have been uncomfortable with slavery to a degree and had made some comments on the evil of the institution, one should also remember the fact that Lee felt slavery was a greater evil to whites in America as it corrupted the soul while feeling that it “uplifted” African Americans. Additionally, Lee did separate slave families and was not opposed to the use of the whip to discipline the slaves on his plantation. Robert E. Lee freed his slaves in 1865, after the passage of the 13th Amendment, which freed all slaves under the age of eighteen and would free all slaves above that age by August 2nd, 1876. While it did help set an example for those who still owned slaves in the border states, Lee freeing his slaves can also be seen as him recognizing that the southern way of life was coming to an end and that he was only accepting it as opposed to fighting the inevitable. Additionally, though it was passed while he was President of the United States, Lee was not a force behind getting the 13th Amendment passed as the president is not required to sign the amendment in order to get it ratified.
Civil rights was not the main focus of the Lee administration either. Prior to his own presidency, Lee was mostly apolitical. During the war he had no real ambition to become president, and only accepted the nomination after constant pressure by both members of the National Republicans and his officers. In truth, Lee would have been comfortable as a Democrat if not for their association with the treasonous Union of Southern Republics and the invasion of Virginia. However, the author must also give Lee credit when it's due by recognizing his efforts to crush the Christianly Order of Knighthood and restore order and end the racial violence in the south. While by all accounts a white supremacist, Lee did work hard to protect the newly freed African Americans. But the greatest focus of the Lee Presidency was the restoration of the American economy. One of the ways Lee thought he could improve the economy was by cutting back on military spending. President Lee was forced to find a compromise that would allow him to make sure the south would not explode into racial violence while also balancing the budget. His solution was to cut back on the United States Navy as well as reducing the number of soldiers in the former Union of Southern Republics. During Lee’s time in office, the south was mostly peaceful due to the combined efforts of the Freedmen Bureau and the army, but many in the rest of the country began to feel that the continued military occupation was unnecessary and that it was time for it to come to an end. While Virginia had voted National Republican in both of Lee’s presidential elections, the state was electing Democrats who opposed reconstruction, as were the other border states. Once Lee was dead and the National Republican Party began its collapse over party direction, Horatio Seymour was able to win election and end reconstruction, though regional parties would hold sway in some of the southern states for years later. To conclude, Robert E. Lee was a far cry from an abolitionist and was a white supremacist, but this does not erase his legacy as one of America’s most important presidents through his actions during the Civil War and during reconstruction.
Both Tyler and Lee were men of their time, meaning that they are not perfect individuals, nor are they the devil incarnate. They were both complex Americans whose actions have helped shape the nation’s path.”
Yeah... I've been kinda slack when it comes to updating my timelines. Looking to reverse that this month and start posting more often
I'm sure whatever had your priority was more important than this site or getting out updates. As much as I enjoy this TL, it is more important to take care of yourself.
Dear readers.
I don't know when the next update will be coming. I've tried writting the next chapter, but am having trouble approaching it. Additionally, I haven't been in the best mental state for the last few months and I don't see it improving for a bit. I'm not sure when the next update will be. Thanks for being patient.
- Odinson
I don't know when the next update will be coming. I've tried writting the next chapter, but am having trouble approaching it. Additionally, I haven't been in the best mental state for the last few months and I don't see it improving for a bit. I'm not sure when the next update will be. Thanks for being patient.
- Odinson
Chapter Sixty
1915-1916: The Great War and the American/Texan Election of 1916
By 1916, the hope of a quick war had vanished. In its place was reluctant acknowledgement that the war would be a grueling slog. Congress Poland had come under occupation of the Central Powers, much like Belgium on the western front. The War touched both the Old World and the New, dragging in powers from Asia, Europe, and the Americas. Additionally, the colonial holdings of the Great Powers in Asia and Africa would also bear the burden of the conflict. In North America, the United States and Texas watched wearily from the sidelines. Of the North American republics, Baja and Mexico had already joined the war on the side of the Entente. Baja joined the war for prestige reasons by gaining German colonies in the Pacific, and Mexico to keep Central America in its imperialist orbit after Germany had encouraged and facilitated an armed uprising in Guatemala against Mexican rule, the other nations south of it choosing to take up arms in an attempt to throw off foreign influence.
In Europe, the western front had become a sea of mud, pocketed by craters and trenches. Over 90% of Belgium was under German occupation, and the population was starving. The Entente’s leadership continued to enforce a blockade of the Central Powers, hoping to starve them into submission, and Belgium received little aid from the outside world. Germany was not purposely starving the small nation, but the civilians were a secondary concern to feeding the army. The early stages of the war saw Germany commit atrocities against the civilian population in Belgium, which fueled anti-German sentiment in the small nation. By late 1915, civil servants had taken over the occupation and , while remaining committed to executing saboteurs, were more even handed than the officers who instigated random shootings of civilians. After the loss of most of the country to the Germans, the Belgian government fled to Le Havre, a port city in northern France to continue the war effort, led by Prime Minister Charles Marie Pierre Albert, 1st Count de Broqueville. King Albert I of Belgium remained to command the army, serving alongside his troops, earning him the nickname of the Soldier King. King Albert I died in the trenches of Yser from illness in mid 1916, causing the ascension of the notorious Leopold III. Though only 15 at the time, Leopold was enrolled in the army and served as a private. With the death of his father, Leopold was hastily elevated to the throne to maintain moral for the army. Facing the might of the German army, and the recent loss of his father, Leopold III made the controversial decision to officially surrender his army to the German Empire.
Map of Belgium during the Great War
Leopold III hoped that with his surrender, the Germans would cease their occupation and allow Belgium to exit the war. Germany accepted his surrender, and placed him under house arrest. While small parts of the army surrendered alongside him, due to him being the commander in chief of the military, the vast majority remained committed to the fight and the Belgian government publicly declared that the king did not have the right to surrender the nation. In his effort to spare the nation more bloodshed, he instead laid the groundwork for the bloody civil war that followed the Great War’s coattails.
On the Eastern Front, Germany had subdued Congress Poland and had taken the city of Warsaw, the capital of the sub-kingdom. Baron Thomas of House Sherman and the rest of his family in Poland were placed under house arrest and detained. The Eastern Front remained fluid as its vastness did not favor trenches stretching from horizon to horizon. In 1916, Romania entered the war on the allied side, and fought alongside the Russians. With Poland subdued, the Central Powers planned on resurrecting an independent Polish state that would serve as a puppet of Germany. Germany and Austria Hungary’s plans initially saw Poland as a bargaining chip against the Russians in a peace treaty, but military failures on the western front and against Italy forced the military leadership, which was increasingly eclipsing the civilian command in the Habsburg Empire and the Second Reich, to reconsider this stance. But one major issue was who would lead the new hypothetical Polish state. As a royal family of barons had already been in Poland, and more importantly, earned the loyalty and respect of significant amounts of the population, the Central Powers couldn’t afford to be vague on who the new royal of Poland would be. Granting Baron Thomas the title of king was out of the question as he would more likely fight for the Russians, similar arguments being made for his sisters. With increasing pressures mounting, Kaiser Whilhelm II and Emperor Franz Josef issued the Act of 5th November in 1916, which announced the future creation of an independent Polish state to be created out of Congress Poland, and also announced Field Marshal Leopold Maximilian Joseph Maria Arnulf, Prinz von Bayern would take the throne as King Leopold I of Poland. With the promise of an independent Poland, Germany and Austria-Hungary hoped that a Polish army could be raised to alleviate the manpower issues plaguing them. This effort was met with protests in Warsaw by the Polish residents. The effort was not notably popular as Field Marshal Prince Leopold of Bavaria was seen as a usurper of the Shermans and because many saw it as unfair to fight for the Germans when there wasn’t even a civilian government to run the country.
In North America, both Texas and the United States were preparing for presidential elections. In Texas, Charles Goodnight’s term was nearing its end. Goodnight had followed a path of neutrality concerning the Great War, and hoped that his successors would follow suit. The Nationalist Party of Texas, which was dominant in the more rural west and south, treaded the right side of the political pool in social attitudes, often expressing Christian and traditional values, as well as labor rights. However, as many of its party heads came from the west, it was a much more immigrant friendly party than the more nativist Farmers’ Alliance. Since the foundation of the republic, Texas did not allow consecutive terms for its presidents. Charles Goodnight planned on retiring from national politics to return to his ranch when his term was over. But as president, Goodnight still had a significant amount of sway in the party. Goodnight’s Secretary of State, Oscar Branch Colquitt, sought the nomination. While the pair had gotten along well enough in the beginning, Secretary Colquitt had become openly sympathetic to the German cause by 1916. Many German Texans had been sympathetic to the fatherland, but as German atrocities mounted in Belgium, many turned away, though still favored neutrality. With the divide widening between Goodnight and Colquitt, the President of Texas used his influence to dash his chances at the convention. In response, Oscar Colquitt threatened to resign from his post if Goodnight didn’t stop trying to turn away delegates from him. Unfortunately for Colquitt, Goodnight had no qualms of letting go of him, finding his foreign policy stances not to be compatible with the rest of the administration, and allowed Assistant Secretary of State James E. Yantis to take over Colquitt’s duties after calling for his resignation.
Oscar Colquitt, c. 1913
Colquitt’s public feud with the popular Goodnight hurt his standing at the convention in Warsaw, Texas. With Colquitt floundering within days of his resignation, Justice Thomas Benton Greenwood sought to capitalize on it and had his delegates campaign as the rational choice to lead Texas to navigate the diplomatic web. However, Greenwood was uninspiring. One unpledged delegate remarked that “Judge Greenwood is so flat, a sand dune has more personality.” With two politically vulnerable candidates, the delegates from Coahuila took the initiative and nominated Governor Venustiano Carranza. Unlike Greenwood, Carranza was charismatic, and unlike Colquitt, was not openly accused of wanting to join the war effort. Governor Carranza was informed by phone call of his nomination after he was drafted, and joined by train to join the convention in person. By the time he arrived there, he had already captured the nomination. Greenwood later accepted his nomination as the running mate.
Justice Thomas B. Greenwood
Governor Venustiano Carranza
The Farmers’ Alliance met in Galveston a month later in July to nominate their own candidates. Elder statesman George Ruby, a former Vice President of the republic, served as the convention chairman. Congressman James Harvey Davis sought the nomination once again, having lost in 1913 to Nationalist Charles Goodnight. Like Goodnight, Davis favored neutrality, as did many of the Farmers. Representative Pat Morris Neff opened the convention with his speech to nominate him. Representative Neff was a protege of Davis, having served under him as a clerk in the 1890s during Davis’s short tenure as a county judge. Davis’s charisma and drive allowed him to easily capture the nomination again, referred to as a “raging cyclone of fury.” With Davis confirmed as the nominee, it came time to choose the running mate. Senator Rube Foster, a child during the Great Slave Revolt and the son of a slave, had become the successor to the legacy of George Ruby as the most noteworthy congressman of African decent in Texas. As an important senator, he was reluctant to give up his position and possibly lose the election, and instead used his pull to get a political ally, Representative Robert Llyod Smith, to win the nomination as the running mate. Smith, Foster’s elder by nearly twenty years, had spent much of his career as a public servant working as a coordinator for the early Co-Ops during the first Hogg Presidency, as well as working to distribute food and clothing to workers in the aftermath of the revolt. With the ticket prepared, the two parties prepared to duke it out for electoral victory in September.
Representative James Davis, c. 1914
Representative Smith, c. 1897
1916 marked the first Texan election cycle since the 1880s that the Freedom Party did not bother to put up their own candidate. What had once been a formidable political faction, the Freedom Party had been steadily bleeding members to both the Nationalists and the Farmers’ Alliance. Old members still continued to carry membership cards in both the Nationalists and the Farmers’ Alliance out of nostalgia, but the party had faded to irrelevance as it had no definitive platform anymore. 1913 was the last gasp of the party. It disbanded shortly after the FA convention, having gone the way of the National Republicans in the United States.
In the United States, the Democrats and the Laborites were preparing for their own conventions. Like his counterpart in Texas, Alton B. Parker had chosen not to get involved in the war, favoring a policy of neutrality. While sympathetic to the Entente, President Parker had no desire to join the war. America’s army was rather small, only consisting of less than a hundred thousand men. During the war against Spain, the United States relied on volunteers to supplement the smaller, professional army. America did possess a more powerful navy, maintaining ten dreadnaughts and twenty destroyers, split between the Pacific Fleet, and the Atlantic Fleet. From a naval perspective, Astoria, Oregon was one of the most important locations in the continental United States as it was the largest American naval base on the west coast.
Prior to the beginning of the Great War, Parker greatly favored Secretary of War Roosevelt as his successor. However, Theodore Roosevelt was extremely pro Entente and openly advocated joining the war, straining relations between the two. While they remained cordial, Roosevelt knew he no longer had the guaranteed backing of his friend and political ally. However, perhaps out of respect for Roosevelt, Alton Parker neglected to endorse another candidate before the May 1916 Democratic National Convention. Before the convention was held, President Parker invited former presidents Walter Earp and Robert Lincoln to the Octagon House to discuss the ongoing hostilities. Earp and Lincoln were the last two former presidents still living, Beaver having died of cancer in 1914, and the caretaker Gorman having died in 1906. Both Lincoln and Earp agreed with Parker that America should avoid joining the war without provocation. After meeting with both elder statesmen, Parker continued to choose not to endorse a candidate. He had hoped that meeting with both of them would allow him to help choose a figure he thought could lead America for the rest of the war, but none jumped to his mind. Roosevelt was very agreeable from a domestic standpoint, but absolutely not from a foreign policy. Likewise, Secretary of State Richard Olney shared very similar foreign policy views on Europe, but was too reactionary for Parker.
At the 1916 Democratic National Convention, multiple candidates were in the running with strong bases of support. Theodore Roosevelt was one of the most prolific candidates, along with Georgia Governor Woodrow Wilson. Secretary of State Olney attended the convention, but publicly announced that he would not seek the nomination, believing himself to be too old. With Olney refusing to run, Joseph G. Cannon, having returned to the House of Representatives after being pressured to resign after the 1912 election by President Parker, was put forward as a candidate by the conservative Old Guard faction of the Democrats.
Cannon had previously served as Speaker of the House and was well known for opposing progressive legislation in addition to being a frequent critic of Alton B. Parker, and vocally opposed US involvement in the Great War. Roosevelt, in his capacity as Secretary of War, had moved forward with military reform to ensure that the small army was armed with modern weapons instead of being armed with lever action rifles, as had been the case during the Spanish American War in many instances, and was one of the main figureheads of the progressive movement. Unlike Cannon, Roosevelt campaigned on joining the war to make the world safe for democracy. Woodrow Wilson shared most of Roosevelt’s progressive ideas, but also favored remaining neutral in the war. While Roosevelt was more friendly to African Americans, holding sway over the Louisiana delegation, Governor Wilson was a firm believer in the supremacy of the white race. Georgia Senator Benjamin Tillman endorsed Wilson for the presidency. In his speech, Senator Tillman stated that it was “high time for a true southerner to take the executive office, and place the controls of the Union in the hands of a capable administrator who refuses to bow down to the influences of a lesser race.” While some viewed Tillman’s speech as harmful to Wilson’s chances, the Georgian nevertheless managed to capture the nomination on the 40th ballot. Wilson was expected to do well in the southern states, aside from the Carolinas and possibly Kentucky and Virginia, meaning that the vice presidential candidate would have to be from a northern state to try and capture their electoral votes. There was significant concern that Roosevelt would try to spit off and run as a third party candidate and split the Democratic vote. With this in mind, the convention selected Roosevelt as the running mate, only for Theodore Roosevelt to decline. With the fate of the election at stake, Wilson privately met with Roosevelt to convince him to change his mind. After a 12 hour conversation, Wilson convinced Roosevelt to agree. In return, Roosevelt would be allowed to choose Wilson’s cabinet picks for the navy and war secretaries.
Senator Tillman and Governor Wilson outside the convention.
The Labor National Convention convened in Chicago, Illinois in early June of 1916. Once again, William Jennings Bryan was a candidate at the convention. Bryan was the nominee in the 1912 election and had lost to Parker by a large margin, but still maintained a strong following in the party as a gifted orator and was still seen as a competent Treasury Secretary during the early 1900s. Bryan strongly opposed entering the war, believing the British blockade to be as bad as the U-Boat campaign conducted by the Germans. Senator Henry Cabot Lodge of Massachusetts opposed Bryan’s nomination at the convention, favoring joining the war, and attacked Parker for being weak and blamed him for a lack of preparedness to defend American interests from Germany. Lodge’s vehemently for joining the war cost him the nomination, feeling that it wouldn’t be politically viable. Former vice president William McKinnley called Lodge “war hungry,” and that while he had supported Earp going to war with Spain in the 1890s, he still approached the subject with hesitancy, ultimately declaring that Ohio’s delegation would go to Bryan. William Jennings Bryan captured the nomination as the Laborite candidate for the second time on the fourth ballot. For the vice presidential candidate, the convention chose Massachusetts Governor Eugene Foss.
William Jennings Bryan
Eugene Foss
By fall, it was nearing time for both Texan and American elections. The Texan election was held in September, and the Nationalist candidate, Venustiano Carranza, won the election. Carranza had the majority of votes from Coahuila guaranteed, and was allowed to focus on securing coastal Texas’s vote to reassure that he would not join the war. James Davis narrowly lost the election, winning forty nine percent of the vote. But the uninspiring Greenwood lost the vice presidential race to Robert Llyod Smith, the Farmers’ Alliance candidate. Two months after the election, Germany and Austria Hungary announced the planned independence of a Polish state, causing Oscar Colquitt to give a speech in the capital city of Waterloo supporting the endeavor and joining the war alongside Germany, much to the ire of President Goodnight and his administration.
In November, Woodrow Wilson and Theodore Roosevelt won the election in the United States of America. While Parker did not endorse a candidate at the convention, he would give his endorsement of Wilson after it. Wilson’s strength lay in his as governor of Georgia where he passed progressive policies. He was popular in the southern states, sharing the contemporary view of many in the south that African Americans were inferior to white Americans, though he did not openly campaign on racial superiority, relying on Benjamin Tillman and other Democrats in the region to stump for him on the promise to keep “the negro in their place.” South Carolina and North Carolina voted for the Bryan/Foss ticket. South Carolina, due to a strong anti redeemer campaign in the 1860s and early 1870s, managed to avoid the fate of the deep south, remaining a bastion of black political power. North Carolina likewise saw continued black political participation, though moderate Democrats still held electoral success in the state, making it more susceptible to swinging between parties. With Roosevelt on the ticket, New York went to Wilson. Most of the plains states went to Bryan and Foss, as well as New England with the exception of New Hampshire. The Wilson/Roosevelt tricket captured the mid Atlantic. When the electoral college convened, the Labor ticket won 128 electoral votes while the Democratic party won 299. While the electoral vote was won with a decisive margin, the popular vote was much closer, Wilson winning little over fifty percent of the popular vote. Democratic victory was in part based on running as a continuation of the Parker Presidency, including neutrality in the Great War.
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Welcome back!
Interesting to hear that Belgium will undergo a civil war post-WWI. Looking forward to seeing how that plays out.
Let's see if anything eventually causes the US and Texas to join the war after all.
Interesting to hear that Belgium will undergo a civil war post-WWI. Looking forward to seeing how that plays out.
Let's see if anything eventually causes the US and Texas to join the war after all.
Honestly, the hardest part of writing this timeline is talking about the Great War. Its hard to find ways to write about it in a way that isn't exactly OTL because for the most part, the battles are the same. The main changes before 1916 are a lack of Belgian relief and a more industrialized Poland. So in future updates on Europe, the main focus will be mainly on Belgium, Poland, and Russia until we get to the post war era.
And its good to be back!
And its good to be back!
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An update long awaited, but a wait thoroughly justified! The next chapter for this TL has been one of the largest anticipations I've ever had for this site, and now vindication has come! I can not tell you how elated I was by seeing that small post in your test thread, as I knew this chapter was near. The wait was certainly worth it, as you have given us quite the hunk of alternate history to enjoy, and it as excellent as always.
I'll certainly try to live up to those expectations! Next update will most likely focus on the Central American Front and Mexico's involvement in the war.