That's where I would have gone, but I can totally see Fremont worm his way in, so I'm happy to go with it. Perhaps Stanton takes over as Veep once Fremont goes to rule SC.
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True Faith and Allegiance: A Reconstruction Timeline
- Thread starter Jakobus
- Start date
Thanks for the feedback!
I may retcon that if I have time, but i'm glad you're sticking around.
Is Congress in session at this point? If not, then there is no Speaker. OTL it didn't meet until December when the HoR elected Colfax for another term, his old one having ended on March 4.
TTL, of course, Congress would be recalled (by Acting President Foster) a lot earlier, simply to ensure that there was someone eligible to act as POTUS if anything happened to him, and possibly also to add more members to the line of succession, but unless I've overlooked something, that hasn't happened yet.
He can't until the next election. There was no provision for filling vacancies in the Vice-Presidency prior to the 25th Amendment. Pre-1886 the President of the Senate was often called "Acting Vice-President" but that was not a legal term.
Bingo. There's a reason Hamlin is incapacitated, not killed; there's really no constitutional precedent (at this point in time) for what happens in this situation.
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Thanks for the feedback everyone!
Also, some minor retcons: Stanton was the vice-presidential candidate in 1864, not Fremont (credit to @dcharleos). The new Secretary of War is John Creswell. I was originally planning on having Frederick Douglass taking over as Governor of South Carolina in 1866 per an otl suggestion by Virginia physician James Thompson, but I moved that up to 1865. These changes have been added, and the next chapter should be up later today.
I forgot to mention that, but yes, Congress was recalled March 16th after Hamlin was shot. I'll add a note of that.
Also, some minor retcons: Stanton was the vice-presidential candidate in 1864, not Fremont (credit to @dcharleos). The new Secretary of War is John Creswell. I was originally planning on having Frederick Douglass taking over as Governor of South Carolina in 1866 per an otl suggestion by Virginia physician James Thompson, but I moved that up to 1865. These changes have been added, and the next chapter should be up later today.
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VIII: Hard Times Come Again No More
Chapter VIII: Hard Times Come Again No More
“On May 16, Washington City was filled with jubilation. The severity of the President’s condition was still only known to the highest levels of government, and Union troops long afield had returned for the Grand Review of the Armies. The day was balmy and bright, and while some noticed the President’s absence, as General Phillip Sheridan led 70,000 Union troops through the federal capital all thoughts of the tribulations to come quickly faded from the mind. Even as the last of the boys in blue paraded down the street, the enterprising in the capital began jockeying for the patronage that would surely open in the weeks and months following...”
-from "The Regents" by Jon Cheap, published 2016
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“Despite the jubilation that wracked the north after the fall of Richmond and the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia, hostilities were not yet finished. West of the Mississippi, several Confederate armies had not yet surrendered. However, the more insipid threat lay within areas of land thought to be secured.
In the mountains of Tennessee and North Carolina, a contingent of forces of the former Army of Tennessee were ordered by General Hood to disperse into the hills, leading to several violent confrontations with the Unionist communities of the Appalachians. Closer to the capital, many of Mosby’s Rangers remained at large. It is estimated that several hundred Confederates crossed the Rio Grande, and many Confederate leaders including Robert Toombs, Judah P. Benjamin, George Randolph, and John Breckinridge escaped to Cuba or Europe.
For those secessionist civilian and military leaders who were not able to escape, a very different fate waited. As July dragged on, the trials and tribunals began...”
-from “The Dark Side of the Mountain: A History of Asymmetrical Warfare in North America” by Julia Thompson Howe, published 2002
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“When Frederick Douglass arrived in Charleston on the USS Brooklyn on May 23, a new era of American history began. At the time, Douglass was only the second provisional military governor confirmed by Congress, as Andrew Johnson maintained his post in Tennessee. However, he would soon by joined by others; throughout the summer of 1865, Congress would fill these posts with allies of the administration, including Daniel Sickles in North Carolina, Rufus Bullock in Georgia, Harrison Reed in Florida, Austin Blair in Alabama, Adelbert Ames in Mississippi, John P. Hale in Arkansas, and Phillip Sheridan in Texas. Against the urges of many of New Orleans’ city fathers, the Committee of 24 sent General ‘Spoons’ Butler back to the Bayou State, and the governorship of Virginia itself was offered to none other than future president Grant.
The terms of the Wade-Davis Act were clear: prior to readmission to the Union, 51% of the white male citizens of the state would need to take the so-called ‘Ironclad Oath’. Even as he disembarked, Douglass was stewing over a more radical notion: over half of South Carolina’s 700,000 residents were recently emancipated, and suffrage and patronage promised a more lasting form of freedom. These were not new thoughts; Douglass had recently proclaimed at an abolitionist meeting that ‘Slavery is not abolished until the Black man has the ballot’, but these sentiments would only gain steam in some circles as the realities of Reconstruction became increasingly clear...”
-from "The Palmetto Czar" by Hugh Thorton, published 2021
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I, (name), do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I have never voluntarily borne arms against the United States since I have been a citizen thereof; that I have voluntarily given no aid, countenance, counsel, or encouragement to persons engaged in armed hostility thereto; that I have neither sought nor accepted nor attempted to exercise the functions of any office whatever, under any authority or pretended authority in hostility to the United States; that I have not yielded a voluntary support to any pretended government, authority, power or constitution within the United States, hostile or inimical thereto. And I do further swear (or affirm) that, to the best of my knowledge and ability, I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States, against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion, and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter, so help me God.
-Ironclad Oath
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“Emancipate, Enfranchise, Educate, and give the blessings of the gospel to every American citizen”
-Henry Highland Garnet in address to Congress
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NEW YORK TRIBUNE: JUNE 12, 2019
(EMANCIPATION) - For the past 6 days, protesters have rocked downtown Emancipation, leading to several violent clashes with police. The protests, sparked by the city council’s refusal to seat three elected members who belong to the radical Dixie Labor Front (DLF), have resulted in several million dollars in property damage and two hospitalizations.
For many protesters, this affront is only the latest in a long series of grievances stretching back to before Operation Canton. One marcher, Harlan Roberts, told us that his decision to protest comes from a place of disenfranchisement: “First the company, now the government”. Roberts, like many in the streets, was laid off last year when Standard Steel closed its Emancipation plant.
The City Council has not indicated that their decision is up for review, citing several troubling statements made by DLF leadership, including a past party secretary who called for a “Second November 10th". The City Council is justified in their decision, given the precedent established in the Tower Act, but several sitting state representatives and Congressmen have called for the invocation of the Guarantee Clause.
Governor Patrick Ambrose has deployed both the Alabama National Guard and the Alabama State Police to Emancipation and late last evening asked President Scapelli to place Jefferson County under martial law. The Executive Offices have not responded as of publication, but the last few days have seen an increase in troop presence at Fort Kennedy...
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The Constitutional provision includes "inability" and provides that the officer concerned (in this case Foster) "shall so act until the disability be removed or a President shall be elected."
The only question would be whether the POTUS was in fact incapacitated. This was the problem in the Wilson case half a century later. Wilson insisted that he *was* still capable of performing his duties, and there was no legal mechanism for this point to be tested. But AIUI this is not your TTL situation. Unless I have misunderstood, Hamlin is incapacitated beyond any doubt, so Foster's right to act is not in dispute, He is of course perfectly entitled to take advice from that Council of 24, but it is only advice.
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I’d just like to say thanks for the feedback you’ve provided throughout the writing process. It’s forced me to reevaluate some peripheral details and made the narrative better.
To your point here, the Committee of 24 absolutely operates in the gray area. Hamlin is incapacitated to some extent but still conscious, and at the moment it is politically advantageous to continue as if he is not incapacitated (hence why all actions undertaken by the Committee so far have been done using Hamlin’s name).
However, this is really not a hill I’m willing to die on, as this was a last minute idea. I could be talked into changing it, since who is President is largely incidental so long as it is not Johnson, but at this point, I’m pretty busy compiling the postwar materials.
On a related note, we have two more chapters taking us to the end of 1865, then I’m going to change the format up a bit to cover more ground. These first ten chapters exist primarily to plant the seeds for the real reason I wanted to make a reconstruction timeline, which is playing with the ways a longer-lasting reconstruction could break the political system in some fun ways. I think I have some unique stuff on the docket, and I’m excited to share it!
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That's exactly the right attitude, Jakobus. It's how you learn and grow as a writer and creator. More should have this attitude rather that fight and die on some puissant mole hill, IMO.
Oh trust me, I need to grow too; there are definitely mole hills I would die on lol.
IX: Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory
Chapter IX: Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory
“...the increasing devaluation of greenbacks was related to the fact that nearly a third of the currency in circulation was counterfeit, a new Secret Service Division of the Treasury Department was erected on July 5, 1865. Greenbacks remained controversial among many lawmakers in Washington City, and monetary policy would continue to drive partisanship for the next few decades...”
-from “Greenback Nation” by Dr. Jackson Cabell, published 1988
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“On September 21, the Indian Council convened in Fort Smith Arkansas. Commissioner for Indian Affairs Dennis Cooley laid out a series of provisions for Reconstruction for those tribes that had signed treaties with the Confederate States, including total emancipation for those tribes who still held slaves in bondage.
The Council in Fort Smith set dates for new treaties to be signed between the United States government and the tribes in early 1866, but also furthered preexisting resentments among the tribes who had taken up arms against the federal government, especially those who had lost reservation lands to tribes being moved south from Kansas...”
-from “Redlands: A History of Indian Territory and Sequoyah” by John Calvin Walker, published 2011
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"The summer hit the District of Columbia hot and heavy; sweat dripped from lawmaker’s bodies like a torrential rain out of the Old Testament. As often happened, as the mosquitos moved into the city, the politicians moved out, leading one journalist to quip that ‘one blood-sucker had been displaced by another’. However, as the war ended, it quickly became clear that the present state of affairs could not be maintained indefinitely. Either extensive (and expensive) changes would have to be made to the city’s hydrological situation, or, as more radical elements proposed, a new capitol district would have to be designated...”
-from “City on a Hill: A History of the Seats of American Government from 1776 to the Present” by Henry Alban, published 2013
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“The issue of Black suffrage gained steam as the year dragged on, with Provisional Governor Douglass speaking to an abolitionist group in Charleston in October and stressing the importance of the ballot. With the beginning of autumn came the formation of the Freedmen’s Ballot League, a lobbying group explicitly calling for suffrage for Black men north and south of the Mason-Dixon. The group was bolstered by Congress’s the ratification of the 14th amendment three years later, and the 15th amendment in 1869.
Some of the most radical reformers did not stop at the color of a citizen’s skin; William Lloyd Garrison and Frederick Douglass at various points also called for suffrage to be extended to women. However, the time of the female suffragettes would have to wait...”
-from “We the People” by Judith Glenstone, published 2002
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" ...and we can now project that the Republican Party will pick up an additional 23 seats, raising its House total to 361 seats and ensuring that the Republicans will flip the house with a respectable majority. We’re going live now to Representative Emily Martin Cailloux in New Orleans, thought by many to be the favorite for Speaker in the coming Congress.
. . .
MARTIN CAILLOUX: My fellow Citizens: the road to today has been a long and rocky one, but at last the forces of hope and Christian decency have once again proven that we are a nation of law, and nation that stands as a light to all others. The dark days of inflation, capitulation, and austerity lay behind us; before us lays a new and glorious morn... "
-CBC Midterm Election Coverage, November 8, 2022.
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X: Reap the Whirlwind
Chapter X: Reap the Whirlwind
“...for weeks, the Capital was consumed by news of the trials of senior Confederate civilian and military leadership. Finally, on October 18th, the verdict for President Davis, Vice President Stephens, the Confederate Cabinet, and senior Confederate military officers was determined. All were found guilty of treason.
Sentencing was less extreme than some called for; the Committee recognized that wholesale execution of the lot was imprudent and unpopular. However, amnesty was unthinkable, and someone would have to stand to pay for the bloodshed of the last four years.
Life sentences were handed down for the bulk of the cases, but the two most senior leaders, the Head of State of the traitors and their commanding general, were sentenced to hang by the neck until dead.
Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis spent their final days in chains in Washington City; Davis at the Arsenal Penitentiary, and Lee at the Old Capitol Prison. Davis wrote to his wife Varina; in his letters, he spoke tenderly of his son Joseph, whose body still lay in Richmond. Lee put his affairs in order, including a general letter calling for reconciliation and nonviolence from his closest former lieutenants.
November 10, 1865 dawned cool and wet. In the far south, over Arlington, heavy clouds promised thunder. Davis was marched out into the yard of the Penitentiary and hung without ceremony. His last words, “Not mine, O Lord, but thine”, were drowned out in the cold November rain.
That same day, Lee was marched to gallows erected in the view of the Old Capitol Dome where Congress at that moment was recessed until December. Lee offered no words before his body dropped through the trapdoor and the rope snapped taut.
The night before his death, Lee requested that his body be buried on the grounds of his home in Arlington. His final request was not fulfilled; both Davis and Lee would be interred in the Arsenal Penitentiary storeroom. Lee would not return to Arlington for another 129 years...”
-from “The Regents” by Jon Cheap, published 2016
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On December 18th, Secretary of State William Seward, noting that the required three quarters of the states had ratified it, declared that the 13th amendment was legally and fully a part of the Constitution of the United States.
Slavery in America had come to an end.
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He is coming like the glory of the morning on the wave,
He is Wisdom to the mighty, He is Succour to the brave,
So the world shall be His footstool, and the soul of Time His slave,
Our God is marching on...
On December 18th, Secretary of State William Seward, noting that the required three quarters of the states had ratified it, declared that the 13th amendment was legally and fully a part of the Constitution of the United States.
Slavery in America had come to an end.
________________________________________________
He is coming like the glory of the morning on the wave,
He is Wisdom to the mighty, He is Succour to the brave,
So the world shall be His footstool, and the soul of Time His slave,
Our God is marching on...
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Also that it took so long for his body to return to Arlington. I'd have thought pretty soon, once the shock of the New York fire (in which Lee had played no part) had had a few years to fade. [1]
Half a century down the line, expect a dozen Stone Mountains rather than one.
[1] Incidentally, how on earth did the incendiaries contrive to get caught? In the madhouse of a blazing city, with thousands of people fleeing out of town, it would be ridiculously easy for them to mingle with the crowds and escape.
Feelings are high, but they aren’t necessarily that high.
There are going to some ongoing roadblocks to moving Lee’s bones.
Incidentally, you’re pretty much dead on about the Fire. However, the historiography ITTL is skewed in places (much like ours is). Pundits and pop historians like James Toole push the idea that the Confederate Army of Manhattan operated under the orders of Lee and Davis, but that might not necessarily be true.
To your other point, much like OTL, most of the arsonists actually did escape the city and make it back to Canada.
I really like this but I gotta say I strongly oppose the idea of moving the Capitol. Maybe if it was a lot later when the further west was a lot more heavily populated but right now a East coast location makes sense. Besides the no longer important closeness to the South DC has or is near the Railroads that connect the OTL Midwest and North East and is effectively between both.
I would suggest major projects to make DC more livable.
Though maybe a Summer Capitol might make some sense. Hell why not locate it in Springfield as a memorial to Lincoln.
I would suggest major projects to make DC more livable.
Though maybe a Summer Capitol might make some sense. Hell why not locate it in Springfield as a memorial to Lincoln.
Also, I love the snippets from TTL's modern media. I'd like to know what the networks are like, unless that's headed into spoiler territory.
Don't worry, moving the capitol is quite a bit in the future. I was visiting the city that will become the future capitol while I was planning out the timeline initially, so that's the main reason this is here, but everything is subject to change. Right now I'm just planting seeds; DC will continue to be the capitol for another decade at least, largely for the reasons you listed. I'm glad you like it!
Thanks, I'm glad you like them! They're honestly my favorite things to write, and I was heavily inspired by similar segments in The American System. I do have the networks planned out, and I'll probably drop a wikibox on the big four in the next week or so.
Right now, I'm working on a map of the US in 1866, and going forward each year will probably be one or two chapters.
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This is outstanding, I've been fascinated by the possibilities of Reconstruction for many years, as the record of my previous posts would show 
I'm very interested in Douglass in South Carolina. I'm struggling to assemble a portrait of the modern political system from the hints thus far (that's a good thing, it means I can't stop reading lol)
I'm very interested in Douglass in South Carolina. I'm struggling to assemble a portrait of the modern political system from the hints thus far (that's a good thing, it means I can't stop reading lol)