Until Every Drop of Blood Is Paid: A More Radical American Civil War
- Thread starter Red_Galiray
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TBF those troops on the border were almost certainly a bluff. Could the US have invaded Mexico literally a few months after the Civil war ending? Theoretically yes but could it politically handle that and dealing with the aftermath of the civil war? That I seriously doubt. Plus I doubt that Lincoln is going to pay that much attention to Mexico unless one of the sides starts doing border raid ala Villa did in the 1910s.
I think it could have. For one Mexican officials along the border allowed southern trade during the war. A Mexican general even bought Confederate artillery. General Two France didn't have large force there and 3 France was losing interest as the Situation grew tense in Europe. 4 a war with the US was not in French interest as it would be for distance reasons alone find it hard to supply a large army in the America's without leaving it's self weak in Europe.
Indeed! I was sad to not be able to add to the very interesting discussion in previous pages. I'll see if I can go back and reply to some comments.
In universe, the main rationale behind the section is allowing the Federal government to trial guerrillas, and to blind the Confiscation Acts and military regimes from legal challenges. But it'll surely come in handy when it's time to enforce civil rights laws against private citizens!
It was amusing to be fair lol. I can imagine some people thinking that Lincoln just callously exploited the assassination attempt and its victims for political purposes.
I thought of it, but there are several reasons why it was preserved:
1. No Republican, as far as I can tell, ever expressed objections to that part of the OTL amendment, and most seemed to agree that it was necessary lest the amendment be interpreted as forbidding prison terms or prison labor. Hale's mentioned bill, for example, explicitly excluded contracts, parent-child relations, and prison labor when it said all claims of personal service would be forbidden.
2. The main issue people take with that part is how Southerners used prison labor to skate around the prohibition of slavery after the war. But the war hasn't ended yet and those problems haven't materialized yet. Republicans would need to predict future problems to leave out that part.
3. It's not going to be as big an issue since, with the other sections of the amendment, Congress can just pass a law regulating prison labor.
4. I actually want Southerners to try and use prison labor to skate around emancipation, because it will show the North that they actually haven't accepted the end of slavery and will spur them on to create civil rights legislation.
I actually decided to make Holt VP based on your suggestion
Just in some areas. As @Workable Goblin says, a lot of the amendment hinges on what rights are recognized "by the Constitution and the laws of Congress". So for some rights a law explicitly granting women a right would be needed - such as suffrage, which, on account of the amendment, could be simply declared a right by Congress and then all states would have to comply. While women can now expect equality in all basic constitutional rights, for several years at least the amendment won't be interpreted as granting full equality in all respects. It does open the door for some interesting scenarios - for example, if a law said "persons" instead of "male citizens", then a woman could sue on the basis of the amendment.
I liked that joke a lot lol.
The territorization program is, for the moment, dead after Lincoln's veto of the Southern Territories Bill, which, as Chapter 44 explains, was meant to do just that. In short, Lincoln can't both maintain that the rebel states never actually left the Union and that secession was illegal and void, but also that they are now territories. So the amendment will need the votes of some reconstructed rebel states. It's unfortunate in some ways, but the other option opens another can of worms.
It never died or was in danger of dying. Baring something extreme, I will finish this timeline. And yeah, with this amendment the rebels now know that their whole world will be destroyed as soon as they lose.
Thanks for catching that, I'll fix it.
Indeed. Depending on the place and constituency, Republicans will be bolder or more coy regarding Black equality, but a Republican victory, especially a large one, will be taken as a direct endorsement of equality before the law and the use of Federal power to enforce it. Which in turn augurs more radical legislation down the line as the shier Republicans lose their timidity, now that they would feel themselves backed by the masses.
I ran out of space! I plan to connect the Convention, the amendment, and Lincoln's reelection campaign with Northern aptitudes towards Black soldiers and Black people in a later update. But it's true that maybe I should add a few lines here...
A 14th amendment is also on the works, but given that citizenship and equality are now part of the 13th, the 14th will focus more on the settlement after the war - meaning, Reconstruction. It's bound to be more controversial, given that almost all Republicans agree on the substance of the 13th amendment, but they haven't reached a consensus on Reconstruction yet.
I had scenes of Spielberg's Lincoln playing in my mind. I imagine a similar political drama. Imagine the celebrations when the amendment passes.
That gives me a good idea for another side-story.
The topics I was considering for the 14th amendment would include repudiating the rebel war debt, prohibiting the participation in politics of the rebel leaders, maybe disfranchisement, securing confiscation and military trials by constitutionally defining rebellion as a crime different from treason, changes in Congressional apportionment, etc. It's still a very rough draft, I'm afraid.
The National Union is by now basically dead as a political party, so there will most likely be several candidates of Democratic origin. All but assuring Lincoln's reelection, as in 1860.
Oh, I think I'll steal your idea in regards to the Irish. A careful argument that emancipation actually benefited White people the most was at the heart of Republican campaign rethoric. so I can see something similar. Especially because Tammany Hall is in taters and New York with its immigrant population is up for grabs .
True, but in a lot of cases this would probably just lead to the law being changed. An interesting OTL example was the case Baehr v. Miike in Hawaii in the 1990s, where (to rather oversimplify the legal case) Hawaiian courts found that the law outlawing gay marriage violated the Hawaiian state constitution. If you recall, the first state to establish gay marriage was Massachusetts, in 2004, not Hawaii in 1996, so you can probably guess what happened: there was a prompt amendment to the Hawaiian constitution that explicitly permitted the state to ban gay marriage (it did not actually ban gay marriage itself, so in 2013 the state was able to legalize gay marriage without a constitutional amendment). Moreover, this decision prompted a rash of other state bans on gay marriage and the infamous Defense of Marriage Act on the federal level.
So that's the most likely response to a woman trying to use the 13th Amendment to assert equal rights, at least until feminism becomes a thing. Rather than just accept equality of the sexes, the laws will be changed to explicitly bar women from having equal rights wherever legislators or (male) voters feel that they oughtn't have equal rights. It could be compared to how there was (very) limited women's suffrage in some states immediately after independence, which was later stripped away as the ideal of universal (white male) suffrage (ironically) became popular.
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What does it mean to "finish" this timeline? The end of the war? ~1880? The end of reconstruction?
I hope the Confederate generals, politicians, and officials are all never allowed to vote or hold office again
Please god yes. This is like... if I could change just one thing about Reconstruction, it would be this.
That's true. I have to admit that I only mentioned that because it's how female suffrage was legalized in my country, Ecuador - a woman realized the constitution granted the vote to people, not to men, so she voted, and then sued when the vote was rejected. The Court could only decide that she was right, and instead of reforming it to be just male suffrage they decided to retain universal suffrage, which has remained in the law decades and several constitutions later. But that happened in the 1920's, when the cause of female suffrage was well advanced. If something similar was attempted in the 1860's, the inevitable result would be just the kind of reforms you say. This, in turn, would precipitate the break between the feminist movement and abolitionism, sadly leading to many erstwhile female abolitionists becoming deeply racist reactionaries. Most notably of them is, of course, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who opposed the 15th amendment granting color-blind suffrage but not female suffrage because it would meant that “Patrick and Sambo and Hans and Ung Tung,, who do not know the difference between a Monarchy and a Republic, who never read the Declaration of Independence . . . making laws for Lydia Maria Child, Lucretia Mott, or Fanny Kemble.”
Another interesting point that was raised in this thread previously, is that female suffrage could obtain a boom in the South as merely a way to obtain more White Southern voters, given the way the war disproportionately affected White Males. But with the amendment female suffrage in the South would mean Black women voting too.
This is something I've discussed previously. I see this as merely part 1 of a two-part TL. The whole TL would be Until Every Drop of Blood Is Paid, this being Part 1: The Southern Rebellion, to be followed by Part 2: Reconstruction, the Second American Revolution. Part 2 is probably going to be on its own thread and start after a hiatus, with chapters starting from number 1, but it would be a complete continuation that really wouldn't make much sense without reading the first part. Together, they would form the complete TL and cover until 1877 or 1881. It depends, but I will complete the TL by finishing Reconstruction. After that, I do envision further TLs, similarly divided into parts and that would be direct continuations. But that's to be determined.
I planned that for the alternate 14th amendment. But I think a kind of pardon system would still be in place. Maybe requiring Congressional approval and a fail-safe in case of further disloyalty (which would include terrorism). Why? Both because I believe most Americans would be deeply uncomfortable with permanent disfranchisement without a possibility of pardon, it going against their ethos. But also because there are some Confederates who could become allies of the Republicans - such as Mahone or Longstreet. Recanting Confederates should be welcomed back, if only because self-interest could then induce others into becoming Republicans, lending strength to Reconstruction. Nonetheless, this would mean that to obtain a pardon they would have to become Republicans and earnestly support Black equality and rights. Out of honor and personal opinions, the great majority will never do so, and would thus remain completely disenfranchised.
@Red_Galiray apologies for making you repeat yourself! I'm kinda new to the thread! Looking forward to part 2. Thanks for the reply
My great grandma was really excited about being able to vote for the frist time in 1920 (she turned 21 6 weeks or so before the election) but I never asked about her ancestors, primarily becasue I was mostly curious about the time she lived and grew up in, partly becasue she never mentioned any and I onlyi knew that her mom was still alive in the '40s when she moved in with the family. (As itturns out, research at ancestry.com reveals her grandmothers died in 1916 and 1918 and a great grandmother in 1911 with the other unaccounted for because I hit a brick wall as her mom's parents.) They were all in NOrtheast Ohio by the 1850s.
Anyway, the family has always been very tolerant of blacks, even back then. My grandma and her future husband were classmates of Marion Motley, as I've mentioned on another thread, who (with another player) integrated pto football in 1946 with the Browns. Grandma talked about how she'd have hated to be born black, and was always very concerned for the plight of others, and it sounded like that was a family thing. But, there's no evidence any of them were really heavily into the suffrage movement.
Probably the more radical ones, as you say, could end up like Ms. Stanton. But, I think there will be quite a few who will be excited and hopeful, but who also won't begrudge the black voters because they don't have as much invested. Sometimes, having one's mind so fully on one cause makes one somewhat myopic and unable to see other causes. I mean, Stanton's quote even includes a Hans - a German name of what I presume to here would be typical Anglo-Saxon stock. (Unless she forgot Saxons originally came from Germany.) The abolitions can always say "They're free, we did our job. NOw we demand you respond in kind." I don't know if hers, at least, is racist or just totally anti-immigrant, including Anglo-Saxon ones.
At least going through 1877 would let you include the third straight GOP President, who could then serve 2 terms as well, maybe with a short epilogue with something about his 2nd term or both of them.
Anyway, the family has always been very tolerant of blacks, even back then. My grandma and her future husband were classmates of Marion Motley, as I've mentioned on another thread, who (with another player) integrated pto football in 1946 with the Browns. Grandma talked about how she'd have hated to be born black, and was always very concerned for the plight of others, and it sounded like that was a family thing. But, there's no evidence any of them were really heavily into the suffrage movement.
Probably the more radical ones, as you say, could end up like Ms. Stanton. But, I think there will be quite a few who will be excited and hopeful, but who also won't begrudge the black voters because they don't have as much invested. Sometimes, having one's mind so fully on one cause makes one somewhat myopic and unable to see other causes. I mean, Stanton's quote even includes a Hans - a German name of what I presume to here would be typical Anglo-Saxon stock. (Unless she forgot Saxons originally came from Germany.) The abolitions can always say "They're free, we did our job. NOw we demand you respond in kind." I don't know if hers, at least, is racist or just totally anti-immigrant, including Anglo-Saxon ones.
At least going through 1877 would let you include the third straight GOP President, who could then serve 2 terms as well, maybe with a short epilogue with something about his 2nd term or both of them.
Like 1500 years ago...she would doubtlessly say that they had separated from the German population and become something different and better. Hans is not really an Anglo-Saxon name, even if Saxons were Germanic.
I would also love for there to be a clause in a future constitutional amendment that would allow for the federal government to redraw the lines of states that were in rebellion. This would allow for the creation of super majority black states and pro-Union/Republican white states, while packing the Confederate supporters into only a few. You could also reward loyal border states with territory from rebellious states.
Meeh, I don't see that happening. Gerrymandering on a federal scale? I don't think that's going to fly with enough people to be passed.
I honestly expect *some* of that to happen by self selection. Oddly enough, that would make southern Whites move *somewhat* north, as South Carolina and Mississippi were majority slave in 1860 and Louisiana, Alabama, Georgia and Florida were above 40% slave. Blacks moving south from Tennessee and North Carolina into states which are or were majority black and Whites moving out of those states...
Don't worry at all! I understand, since the thread has been getting more replies than I could have ever imagined. We're at 280 pages of discussion! Of course new readers aren't going to read every single post. In fact, I think we've reached the point where reading just the TL may seem daunting. I definitely have skipped on TLs or fanfics or such things when I've seen they have over 40 chapters.@Red_Galiray apologies for making you repeat yourself! I'm kinda new to the thread! Looking forward to part 2. Thanks for the reply
Stanton's resentment and racism came at least partly from the fact that she felt that Radicals have forgotten the feminists that have helped them so much, leaving them out in the cold when they had the opportunity to help them. But since her aptitude immediately was "White Women deserve better than Black men because these Women are White" reveals that in her heart of hearts she felt that Whites were still superior. It also brings to mind the sad case of the first female US Senator, Rebeca Felton, feminist and suffragist but also raging racist that support lynching. Hopefully, there will be more feminist who hold true to equality - not only of the sexes but of the races.
How the TL overall finishes will depend a lot on real life, I'm afraid.
Eh, I've already dismissed the idea a few times. Not even the most radical Republican ever advocated something similar, and moderates would definitely be horrified. It also flies on the face of their theory of the war - secession can't be both invalid and void but also destroy the states. I was considering a clause allowing the Federal government to redraw, or at least set down terms for drawing, Congressional districts. This would in turn result in gerrymadered Black districts - minority-majority districts several decades earlier. Already some proposed that it would be better if Black people elected their own representatives and White their own as well, instead of competing with each other. This included Alexander Stephens of all people. But I'm still working on how that would function practically.
As already mentioned, after the war I estimate that South Carolina, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Georgia at the very least would become Black Majority states. It is easy to see Whites deciding to leave for other states and Black people moving in.
Very interesting, thanks for sharing.
They have this power under the current constitution, they've just never exercised the ability to draw them themselves. They've set down guidelines before, both in the Voting Rights Act and the 1911 Apportionment Act.