Vice-President Benjamin Franklin Butler in 1864. President in 1865?

Now, in regard to John Breckenridge:

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HOLY SHIT! He proposed the Panama Canal to Lincoln in February of 1865!

Apparently, one of Lincoln's major concerns was that a Race War was going to break out in the South, White Guerillas against Black Guerrillas (most whom would be veterans), and wished to avoid it. Butler's proposal was in essence for the grand majority of the negro veterans to be set to work digging out the Canal, along with establishing infrastructure for settlement, and farms. The project would remain under the control of the Army, and so the African Americans would still be paid having remained in the service. Only once the Canal was finished would any Women or Children be delivered, given the threat of disease to the children in general, and again, it being a military operation until completion.

Lincoln asked Butler to confere this idea to SOS Seward to determine how such a proposal would effect international relations, and after a number of days Butler was able to set a meeting with Seward, which was to take place after dinner. However, a scant hour before they were to meet, Seward had his accident in which he was thrown off his horse, and the discussion never happened.

I love learning these little tidbits! :D
 
Alright, finally got to his purely Reconstruction positions, though more than a few make me want to rub salt in my eyes.

I'll try tallying them altogether when I can. Being called away.

Only person discussing the topic anymore though, it seems. :/
 
In the briefest form I can possibly write in the order I found them:

  • Butler wanted to subjugate the South, rather than pursue a policy of reconciliation. In a way they were in line with the views that Andrew Johnson had publicly expressed before being thrust into the Presidency, but in other ways they were far more radical.
    • The Identity of the States was to be completely and totally destroyed, the aim being the destruction of Confederate State Governments in combination with the Confederate Federal Government. This included various boundary reformations, combinations with other states, effective measures to wipe states like Virginia off the map as recognizable entities.
      • The states were to be divided into a number of military territories ("their status being reverted"), and would remain territories until such a time till "the lost cause and the lost Confederacy is utterly obliterated and forgotten.
        • Virginia would become the Potomac Territory
        • North Carolina would become the Cape Fear Territory (these are his suggested names, at any rate)
        • South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida would become the Jackson Territory
        • Louisiana would become the Jefferson Territory
        • Texas would become the Houston Territory
        • Arkansas would become the Lincoln Territory
        • Alabama and Mississippi would become some unnamed territory, or attached in some manner to the other aforementioned territories (they weren't mentioned).
      • "By their proceeding the people of these states had forfeited all honorable mention, and when they should be fit to return to the Union - which they would have been at an early day - they should come back with the names and boundaries given, and that would have blotted out forever all brotherhood of Confederation against the United States."
      • The Territories would only be admitted as states once the Freedmen population in the Territory learned how to be proper citizens, once the Whites were Loyal, once there was no risk of Race War or Dissension between the Whites and Blacks.
        • This proposal faced some opposition among Republicans, given they wished to bring in the Southern States in a hope of bolstering their numbers with the new "Negro Vote".
    • Butler wished to retain the military at its present size, in order to ensure stable military government's throughout the South. Those in the service would be adequately rewarded, as detailed further down.
    • Butler was in favor of voting rights for the Freedmen, but only at such a time where they were educated "to know what their position as citizens was". In effect it would remain a state issue for quite some time.
    • Anyone who had taken any part in the rebellion on the part of the Confederacy would have their property, principally real estate, confiscated in its entirety.
      • The land would then be divided among those soldiers in the Army, who served in the occupation of the South for at least a period of five years.
    • Any who desired to leave the these Military Territories could do so if they wished, but their Estate would be subject to forfeit, and subjected to the division as outlined above.
    • The situation with Jefferson Davis is interesting, given his initial treatment would be far more hospitable (Butler saw no reason as to why he was in chains, given there was no need), but at the same time, he would be subjected to a trial.
      • A military commission (given Virginia was under martial law, or in this case a Military Territory, it was out of Civil hands), composed of around five, seven, or nine Major Generals would help the President form a case against Davis.
        • The charges as Butler laid them out were:
          • Committing Treason in carrying out war against the United States in the district of Virginia
          • Reviewing of Troops in Arms against the United States
          • Giving the Troops in Arms Orders in Person as the Commander against the United States
          • Severance of his Oath, from his tenure as Secretary of War, in which he pledged true faith and allegiance to the United States
      • Davis would be provided a Defense/Consultation, but it was not expected by Butler to be all that effective in making a case.
      • At this point, the Commission and the President would move the case to the Supreme Court, taking it out of the Executive's hands, while letting Davis be handled by the highest Judicial authority in the country
  • Butler was very much for Greenback Currency, in the sense that they should be accepted along with both Silver and Gold as legal tender.
    • This indirectly lead to a major fight with Congressmen who were bondholders, and expected to be paid in pure specie (silver and gold), at the expense of pensions and other debts. However, to many Congressmen were invested in such a scheme for any movement to arise against it.
    • This lead to another fight latter on, in which the Banks were to receive their payments purely in silver and gold, tripling what they would have obtained otherwise. Nothing came from his opposition here either.
    • All the same, he doesn't shut up about Finance throughout the book once the Civil War has passed. Ever. :p
  • Below is Butler's desired system regarding finance is thus:
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  • Butler was very much against Monopolies and Trusteeships, which follows with his general "For the People" attitude.
  • Butler, once the Klan became a serious problem, proposed a number of laws that would have exacted serious punishment, and in some cases execution, in the hopes that this would dissuade the grand majority of Klan members from continuing the violence.
    • This oddly enough met opposition from Republican lawmakers, who modified it in such a way that it was useless.
  • Butler HATED the British for their efforts in supporting the Confederates, even if it was not the responsibility of its government. In regards to the Alabama Claims, the only compensation he argued that would be sufficient to cover the nation's grievances would be the cessation of the entirety of Canada to the United States. He was furious at the settlement as it was finally agreed to.
  • Is very much a Political Reformer and against Corruption, mentioned before regarding his "Man of the People" stances.
  • Was supportive of the Jackson Doctrine in regards to tariffs, raising national revenue while also protecting American jobs.


As bit of a side note, he was utterly convinced that many votes for him in the 1884 Presidential Election were counted instead for Cleveland, including in such critical states as New York. So, in his view, the Democrats stole that election. Interestingly enough, he believes that the Republicans had stolen the 1876 Election despite being of that party.


Anyway, there you have it.


Good God so much reading............. >,<

 
me too, Ariosto should do a TL it'd rock

As Vultan would tell you, and from my experience over at Atlas, I wouldn't be capable of writing something worthy of this board. :eek:

That and my eyes are bleeding right now from the reading required to do the above post. >.<
 

As Vultan would tell you, and from my experience over at Atlas, I wouldn't be capable of writing something worthy of this board. :eek:

That and my eyes are bleeding right now from the reading required to do the above post. >.<

oh have faith I'm sure you could
 
Someone above claimed Butler was against corruption. Thats "poppycock"! Butler, though never himself convicted of corruption, wallowed in the accusations. They followed him around for almost all of him career. Much of his money was made in Court defending political allies accused of corruption. Butler was a fan of the spoils system and corruption when his allies were in power, and against it when they were out of power. (Standard attitude for the times).

I like Butler, after reading Hans Louis Trefousse's "Butler: The South called Him Beast!". Roaringly good read. He was certainly a supporter of the underdog and it seems a natural move from supporting the working classes of Massachussetts, and his home Lowell in particular (with a surprising number of women workers even before the Civil War) against the Whig upper classes to support for emancipation against the Southern aristocracy.

Part of his charm as well as his biggest flaw was the outrageously partizan way he approached everything in life. He was a marmite character. But having read this biography the only truely "out there" attitude he had for the times was his support for the Greenback cause which was well before its time had come...
 
Someone above claimed Butler was against corruption. Thats "poppycock"! Butler, though never himself convicted of corruption, wallowed in the accusations. They followed him around for almost all of him career. Much of his money was made in Court defending political allies accused of corruption. Butler was a fan of the spoils system and corruption when his allies were in power, and against it when they were out of power. (Standard attitude for the times).

I like Butler, after reading Hans Louis Trefousse's "Butler: The South called Him Beast!". Roaringly good read. He was certainly a supporter of the underdog and it seems a natural move from supporting the working classes of Massachussetts, and his home Lowell in particular (with a surprising number of women workers even before the Civil War) against the Whig upper classes to support for emancipation against the Southern aristocracy.

Part of his charm as well as his biggest flaw was the outrageously partizan way he approached everything in life. He was a marmite character. But having read this biography the only truely "out there" attitude he had for the times was his support for the Greenback cause which was well before its time had come...

Well a lot of this was coming from his Autobiography, so of course his support of corruption would not come up, nor some of his other less visible faults. :p

Though now I need to determine how all this would be applied, at least in a 1865-1869 context. :/
 
Alright, IF (and I mean that in the strongest terms I can lay out) you guys want me to do some sort of timeline regarding a Butler Presidency, I am going to require your help in laying it out, because the American Civil War, the politics of that period, is not exactly my area of expertise.

That, and Vultan has convinced me to dust off the notes of another project that has been on again off again for the last two years, which is much further along, taking place almost exactly a hundred years later. So if I do agree to take this up, it would likely be secondary to that one.
 
can't see any of your images.

Are they Red X's? If so, are you able to copy the link location (right click and copy), and produce an image that way?

Sorry, I posted them from Google Books, using Mozilla Firefox, so I'm not sure how to circumvent the issue other than typing it out (which I could do in the future). :/
 
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