What if the Readjusters stayed in power in Virginia?

[Tripsos]

The Readjusters were a center-left populist political party that emerged after the Reconstruction in Virginia, consisting of a coalition of democrats and republicans who represented poor, lower-class whites and freed slaves. They were astonishingly progressive considering the time and place, investing heavily in schools (especially african-american ones), infrastructure, and banning both the whipping post and poll tax. Even more astonishing is that the party included many former Confederates such as William Mahone and Harrison H. Riddleberger (both officers in the Confederate military). The party's main goal was to "readjust" the state's massive debts from the civil war, undermine the unequal power of the planter elite, and promote public education. Because of their repeal of the poll tax, the city of Danville elected a black-majority town council and unprecedented racially-integrated police force. However, They were ultimately ousted by the southern Democrats in the late 1880s, who rolled back most of the Readjuster's reforms and instituted the infamous Jim Crow laws.

So, first of all, how could the Readjusters stay in power? Perhaps they could negotiate a return of Western Virginia to the Commonwealth, on the basis that the Readjusters would appeal to the common, working man of Appalachia, thus securing a much larger share of potential voters to outweigh the reactionaries in Virginia?

Secondly, what would this mean for the future of Virginia, and the South as a whole? With a more progressive state government, could Virginia become more like the cosmopolitan and industrialized states of the North, attracting immigrants to Hampton Roads and Richmond like New York and Philadelphia? Could the success of Virginia lead to other states following it into the "New South", or perhaps cause an even stronger pushback in the rest of Dixie, driving blacks to flee to Virginia to escape escalating persecution, or even cause a second rebellion in the South?

I'm genuinely asking because I'm not really an expert on the Reconstruction era, I just find this small ray of hope in the otherwise dark history of Virginia before the Civil Rights movement incredibly fascinating.

 

[Tripsos]

Thinking more on this, a more industrialized Virginia would likely boost America's military power as a whole, especially the Navy. Just think of what the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard and Naval Station Norfolk would be like with more infrastructure and a larger labor pool thanks to no segregation and increased immigration. This could affect America's foreign policy, not to mention electoral politics. Another unrelated idea I had was if Harry F. Byrd, who in our timeline was a VA Governor who ran the Byrd Organization (a Democrat political machine that controlled Virginia for about 70 years and resisted desegregation), would in this timeline be a gangster who ran a massive criminal enterprise (also called the Byrd Organization, or just "The Organization") to illegally profit off of the state's economic boom. I also felt like Huey Long should definitely play a role eventually, seeing as the Readjusters were right up his alley in their support for the common man, regardless of race. Perhaps as a potential presidential candidate for the party once it expands out of Virginia?

 

[SenatorErnesto]

I have honestly no solid idea how to keep these guys in power.

Possibly a stronger more radical reconstruction, or maybe have Washington just be more invested in keeping this kind of Virginia the dorm instead of a Southern leaning one?

 

[Tripsos]

I have honestly no solid idea how to keep these guys in power.

Possibly a stronger more radical reconstruction, or maybe have Washington just be more invested in keeping this kind of Virginia the dorm instead of a Southern leaning one?

I was thinking about the possibility of an outside power like the Republican party (which ceased to be competitive in Virginia when the Readjusters lost power) or the Federal government itself intervening on their behalf, I just don't know what kind of powers or resources they would actually be able to utilize. How coordinated were the parties on a national level in the 1870s? I was thinking about maybe having William Mahone develop a friendly relationship with President Grant, who might help him by pushing for the reintegration of West Virginia, as well as any other political advantages he might be able to grant them. Mahone wasn't a rich aristocrat like a lot of the Confederate leadership, he was an Irish-American ruffian who ran a tavern and eventually became a railroad engineer. For some reason I imagine him and Ulysses getting along.

 

[VirginiaStronk]

TL;DR: keeping Readjusters around will be difficult because of an extremely fragile coalition and fears of mixed race marriages.

Their best hope is that they somehow make separate but equal civil services work, which… I wouldn’t bet on. After that, hang on long enough to become affiliated with Rs at a national level, and eventually we get the Virginian Republican/Readjuster Party.



According to the book Jumpin’ Jim Crow: Southern Politics from the Civil War to Civil Rights, the second was a huge problem for them: one of the big issues uniting the coalition was ballot access, which both port western whites and poor blacks wanted. However, Conservatives pushed the narrative that by giving them the ability to vote, they’d eventually gain marital rights, and that wasn’t well liked by white Virginians, many of whom were (shocking, I know) racist. Of course, they would deny this to the press to keep whites on their side, but this pushed away blacks. Black Readjusters (failingly) attempted to revoke this law, which prompted scorn from whites. While the white Readjusters were pro-segregation, for political reasons they made an exception for patronage. This sort of thing terrified whites, because they feared it would lead to the end of segregation, which would lead to ‘colored supremacy.’

Essentially, the Democratic message was if you give them political power, they’ll get social sexual power, if they get that they will get ‘colored supremacy.’ They’d go on about mixed school boards leading to mixed schools, which would lead to the ever feared miscegenation.

Additionally, according to wiki, a race riot accused shortly before voting, and Grover Cleveland gave patronage to the proto-Democratic Conservative Party. As for a disparate coalition, it’s important to note that in the POTUS elections, Readjusters did horribly, as black members voted for Rs and white members voted for Ds.



Now, how can we keep them in power? For one, stopping Cleveland and preventing the riot would help. Ultimately, however, they would need to keep segregation of the political system. While a horrid, disgusting system, not doing it would scare sexually insecure white southerners into voting for Democrats. However, they must also counteract this somehow to keep the African Americans in their coalition. I’m not sure how they would go about doing this, but they did create some HBCUs (VSU, just out of Petersburg.) I’d imagine if they invested heavily in African American schools, and did constitutional finagling, they could create enough majority black areas a de facto black separate but equal service would be created. Of course, could such a thing even be equal? Or even politically feasible? I doubt it. But assuming that happens, and they stick around for a while, perhaps down the line national Republicans and them strike a deal where they give them patronage in exchange for endorsing Republican candidates, and eventually white Readjusters become partisan enough that they vote for Rs nationally as well (at least long enough for immigrants to come to Richmond, Petersburg [the city where the Readjuster machine was based would be wanked here], Hampton, and possibly a western city). That way, you’d keep African American voters invested (since the alternative is losing all that they’d gained, with SC and LA as examples), and white voters fears scuttled. This would not be a very pleasant place for African Americans, albeit somewhat improved over OTL. A decent amount will make it to Congress, and a stunted but extant middle class would exist. West Virginia being added would help, but it could also lead to an empowered white wing that would ignore African Americans enough to turndown turnout to Democratic resurgence level, which could kill it, but I’d hope that wouldn’t not happen.

 

[thekingsguard]

There are a few things that would help - as others have pointed out, keeping Grover Cleveland and other Dems from giving patronage and support to the Conservative wing of the Democratic party will at the least delay the takeover.

One big one: Economics. It's social change 101 that any changes are easier to swallow for Joe Public if the economy is really good. There's a reason why the Civil Rights movement overlapped with the biggest economic boom time of the past century. One of the things that eventually bled support from the Readjusters in OTL - as well as denying them a natural base of support - was that the Virginia economy was pretty stagnant post-war, especially given so much money of the local would-be industrialists went towards rebuilding Richmond instead of setting up factories... there were plans pre-Civil War by several well-to-do Richmonders to set up steel production plants in the Virginia panhandle that would have rivaled those of Pittsburgh, that went up in smoke after Jeff Davis burned down Richmond.

It's one of the great what-ifs of Virginian history - that would have gone a long way towards seeing Virginia become more akin to Maryland instead of the solid south, with the OTL modern Bos-Wash perhaps instead of going all the way to Richmond and Hampton Roads/Norfolk/Virginia Beach.

Thus, an early POD with some massive effects down the road is making the fall of Richmond easier, or at least keep Jefferson Davis from issuing the order to burn the city down to cover his retreat... perhaps when Davis issues the order, the Confederate soldiers utterly refuse to carry them out. You spare Richmond from needing to be rebuilt, and critically, keep Tredegar Ironworks, and it's associated factories and railroads intact.

Thus, post-war, that group of Virginian industrialists like Lewis Ginter, Joseph Anderson and the like instead of rebuilding Richmond from ruins, focus on expanding existing factories and businesses, as well as beautifying the city like many of their northern peers - Tredegar is joined by more steelworks, textile mills, and more, and the OTL Botanical Gardens are joined by a series of museums. More importantly, they remember pre-war plans to start building steel mills in the panhandle, closer to the sources of much of Virginia's coal and iron, and have the money for it - and it turns out, once word gets out, some large investment from several other Northern steel mill owners as well, such as Andrew Carnegie.

Fast forward a decade from the end of the war, and especially by the standards of Reconstruction, Virginia is booming at a shocking pace as industrialization begins to take off. This has a trickle effect in a variety of areas. William and Mary and Virginia Commonwealth University, long declining, are now flush with patrons and revitalize decades earlier, and shockingly, so does the newly founded Virginia Union University. Resort areas like the hot springs of Bath County, Natural Bridge, and even historic Williamsburg get national attention and investment years, in some cases decades in advance, and early favor from Gilden Age icons like JP Morgan and John Rockafellar. By luck, Virginia wine is "discovered" by one such industrialist, resulting in a huge boost in popularity to Virginian wine, and fulfilling Jefferson's long dream that Virginia would become known for its wine grapes as much as it's tobacco. It's even attracted an entirely new breed of carpetbaggers to Virginia - immigrants from Europe seeking factory work, and having some trickle effect - a group of German immigrants found a brewery in Richmond that will explode in popularity in the coming years... it seems Richmond will always be fated to become known for craft brewing. The new immigrants have another effect - serving as newcomers and outsiders to make the poor whites and blacks to realize they may be different, but not as different as these "damned Papists and krauts."

This has earned some protest from some of the old money plantation class, but for most Virginians - especially for the poor whites and black freedman, as well as pretty much the entire western half of the state - the growing Virginia economy is a godsend. Similar to up north, while there is still some dislike aimed towards the black community, the immigrants earn far more loathing from the working class - a common thought among many "less open-minded" Virginians is "At least the n*****s speak English and are baptists like proper Virginians should be". This is perhaps shockingly seen when, rather than Danville's OTL race riots, you see anti-immigrant rallies akin to those in New York or Boston... and there are quite a few black faces among those rallies too.

Feel free to toss in some other things to speed things along - maybe the much-delayed American naval buildup happens years earlier, and with it, the shipyards of Hampton Roads and Norfolk earn federal investment years earlier.

Thus, by the mid-1880s, we have a Virginia where the Readjusters now have a much bigger base of support than the Redeemers, and narrowly manage to hang on... while there are still LOTS of issues to work out, flush with money, the increasingly less poor white base of the party decide not to rock the boat, certainly not for the sake of the old planter class. If it means the n*****s have more money and decent schools too? Well, so be it, better them than the damned Irish.

Thus, we have a Virginia is increasingly having much more in common with other industrializing former slave states of the upper South, like Maryland and Missouri, rather than the Deep South that long ago began the backslide into sharecropping and segregation. When such laws eventually are put in place around the turn of the century, they're more akin to what you see in Missouri, Maryland, Indiana or Pennsylvania - equal access to the ballot box and public schools, but VERY firm Anti-Miscegenation Laws, and lots of unspoken agreements over which parts of town you can live in. There is already a sizable black middle class when it happens too.

You can see this change in turn of the century Virginia nowhere more clearly than with Richmond's newly minted Monument Avenue. Yes, there are still statues of Robert E Lee, JEB Stuart, Stonewall Jackson and Matthew Maury, but there are also statues of the late Governor William Mahone, industrialist Lewis Ginter, Union general George Thomas, black MOH recipient William Carney, newspaper tycoon John Davis, and a shared statue of the Langston Brothers, civil rights pioneer Charles Henry and VSU President and Congressman John Mercer. By 1950, they'll be joined by statues of Booker T. Washington and Maggie Walker, alongside other additions like pioneer Jim Bridger, and WW1 aviator and MOH recipient and polar explorer Richard Byrd. Notably absent: Jefferson Davis - because why would Richmonders ever want a statue of the SOB that wanted to burn the city down?

 

[Derek Jackson]

Could West Virginia staying with it have helped?

 

[Deleted member 109224]

I can't help but think of what was going on right next door in North Carolina. Could the Fusionists have retained power in North Carolina alongside the Readjusters in Virginia?

BosWash as a corridor could perhaps extend all the way to North Carolina!

If Sequoya is admitted as a separate state from Oklahoma as a butterfly of Cleveland being defeated in 1892, might that affect what happened historically to Black Wall Street? Maybe there'd be three relatively-liberal southern states here (Virginia, North Carolina, and Sequoya).

 

[Tripsos]

So, the three ways to keep the Readjusters in power are to re-integrate West Virginia, boost the Virginia economy, and defeat Grover Cleveland (and/or weaken the conservatives). The PoD can be retreating confederate soldiers refusing to burn down Richmond, leading to the economic and social changes listed above (perhaps during a gathering of rich industrialists in Richmond, Mahone and Grant are introduced to each other and the latter helps the reintegration of WV along). I imagine if the Readjusters oversaw such an economic boom, the Fusionists to the south would likely seize upon it as proof their model worked and use it as a campaign strategy (Would you rather be like South Carolina or Virginia?). If Clevelend loses to James G. Blaine (Virginia, West Virginia, and North Carolina would have been able to swing the election), that might play into the early expansion of the U.S. Navy; Blaine was an expansionist who wanted to interfere more in Latin America (he was also an anglophobe, maybe we'll even see a rivalry with Britain over naval supremacy). We might see the Monroe Doctrine several years early in this TL.

Maybe this more cosmopolitan Virginia also makes southern culture more palatable to the rest of the US, improving the North's general view of the South (or at least Southerners in Virginia).

 

[VirginiaStronk]

So, the three ways to keep the Readjusters in power are to re-integrate West Virginia, boost the Virginia economy, and defeat Grover Cleveland (and/or weaken the conservatives). The PoD can be retreating confederate soldiers refusing to burn down Richmond, leading to the economic and social changes listed above (perhaps during a gathering of rich industrialists in Richmond, Mahone and Grant are introduced to each other and the latter helps the reintegration of WV along). I imagine if the Readjusters oversaw such an economic boom, the Fusionists to the south would likely seize upon it as proof their model worked and use it as a campaign strategy (Would you rather be like South Carolina or Virginia?). If Clevelend loses to James G. Blaine (Virginia, West Virginia, and North Carolina would have been able to swing the election), that might play into the early expansion of the U.S. Navy; Blaine was an expansionist who wanted to interfere more in Latin America. We might see the Monroe Doctrine several years early in this TL.

Maybe this more cosmopolitan Virginia also makes southern culture more palatable to the rest of the US, improving the North's general view of the South (or at least Southerners in Virginia).

For the last paragraph, I just wanna say there’s a chance this just speeds up the Northification of Virginia, and we just end up like Maryland as a state that was historically south, but for cultural reasons is no longer a part of it. Although if this becomes a trend with NC, who knows, maybe the South as a whole is fundamentally changed.

 

[Tripsos]

I'm in the process of outlining a Timeline, but I probably won't have anything substantial anytime soon. I also need to do some more research on the period so I can get a better idea of what's happening and where it will go, translating the more abstract ideas into concrete events. I'm thinking about having it begin with the (aborted) burning of Richmond, briefly addressing the Reconstruction, then following the rise of the Readjusters and the industrialization of Virginia from 1877 to 1900 and beyond (I think once Blaine gets elected president things are going to get really interesting).

 

[Deleted member 109224]

I'm in the process of outlining a Timeline, but I probably won't have anything substantial anytime soon. I also need to do some more research on the period so I can get a better idea of what's happening and where it will go, translating the more abstract ideas into concrete events. I'm thinking about having it begin with the (aborted) burning of Richmond, briefly addressing the Reconstruction, then following the rise of the Readjusters and the industrialization of Virginia from 1877 to 1900 and beyond (I think once Blaine gets elected president things are going to get really interesting).

Might it include the survival of the Fusionists in North Carolina as well?


Also James Blaine as President? That sounds like a good outcome for the Korean and Malagasy.

 

[Tripsos]

Might it include the survival of the Fusionists in North Carolina as well?


Also James Blaine as President? That sounds like a good outcome for the Korean and Malagasy.

Yes, I'm thinking in this TL that the fusionists emerge slightly earlier (in 1892 rather than 1894), with the Farmer's Alliance, Populists, and Republicans being more willing to work together due to the success of such a coalition in Virginia.

On an unrelated note, I was wondering if there was a way for a Virginia with Richmond intact could somehow affect the Panic of 1873 in a way that would be to the Readjuster's advantage, like allowing them to come to power earlier and bring them closer to some of their future goals, like reintegrating West Virginia and improving the economy of Virginia. Perhaps a stronger economic base in Richmond allows them to weather the depression much better than the rest of the south, causing less of an exodus from the Republicans to the Democrats?

 

[Born in the USSA]

If United Virginia ends up relatively better off economically than its neighbors as a result of the Readjusters, I could see a pre Civil War trope of the "border states" survive for much longer, rather than be replaced in the popular imagination by the concept of the "solid south". If as was posited earlier Virginia, some sort of Longist (or Long-esque) Louisiana and Sequoyah all end up more liberal than the southern mean (though still otherwise more southern than Yankee culturally) then they could be seen as forming a definite middle region at least in a culture war context. I know it would be a heavy lift but I'm honestly a sucker for three-party America TLs and if the Readjusters have a program that creates a "separate but equal" system that's genuinely well intentioned it would open up fertile ground for an American third position. For God's sake the impact of such a system on the insular territories alone would be a huge shock to the political balance of power.

 

[Born in the USSA]

This just occurred to me: if they do spin off to form their own middle way, they could give a nod to their roots and call themselves the National Union Party. Union for Virginia! Union for the Nation! (Obviously "Union for the races!" was excluded from the party motto, too much fodder for the miscegenators and the Redeemers both!)

 

[Anarch King of Dipsodes]

Perhaps they could negotiate a return of Western Virginia to the Commonwealth,

Not gonna happen.

In the first place, West Virginians had been fighting for years to get out from under the domination of the Tidewater; there was nothing to make them want to give that up.

In the second place, such a merger would be against the career interests of just about every major politico in West Virginia. It would abolish all of West Virginia's statewide offices, including two Senate seats. The men holding or seeking those offices would resist tooth and nail.

 

[Tripsos]

Not gonna happen.

In the first place, West Virginians had been fighting for years to get out from under the domination of the Tidewater; there was nothing to make them want to give that up.

In the second place, such a merger would be against the career interests of just about every major politico in West Virginia. It would abolish all of West Virginia's statewide offices, including two Senate seats. The men holding or seeking those offices would resist tooth and nail.

This was actually something I thought about, and I wondered if they might be able to negotiate some kind of autonomous, parallel adminiatration where WV keeps some of its institutions but still rejoins the Commonwealth. It could easily be dropped altogether, but I'm curious whether having access to greater resources in the form of a wealthy state government and local industrial bases as well as better infrastructure might alter the course of WV's history.

 

[Jonathan Edelstein]

I can't help but think of what was going on right next door in North Carolina. Could the Fusionists have retained power in North Carolina alongside the Readjusters in Virginia?

The North Carolina fusionists came to power after the Virginia Readjusters had already fallen. But even if the North Carolina fusion government had come to power earlier or the Readjusters later, I'm not sure that state-level alliances could have prolonged them. Fusion politics existed in other Upper South states in the 1880s and 1890s too (for instance Arkansas, where the number of black elected officials peaked in the early 1890s), and they weren't able to save each other. No fusion government would have been able to keep the Democrats out of power forever, and once Democrats retook the state house after a period of fusion rule, their first priority was always to disenfranchise black voters.

For fusion politics to survive, there would have to be a structural change that either made the Democrats unviable among white voters in the Upper South, or else some reason for the Democrats to decide against disenfranchising African-Americans (for instance if they saw some possibility of swaying black voters to their side, although in the post-Reconstruction South, that verges on ASB).

 

[Tripsos]

It's been a while since I posted this thread, but I've been doing occasional research and decided to revisit this and hopefully end up writing a TL. So, taking all of the information from this thread and what I learned on my own, this is a rough outline of what might keep the Readjusters in power, and what consequences that might have:

First of all, Lt. General Richard Ewell is ordered by Davis to burn the infrastructure and remaining supplies in Richmond as the Confederate government evacuates. Ewell himself was an interesting character, as he was one of the few Confederate generals who believed that freeing the slaves and drafting them into the army was the only way the Confederacy could win against the Union. So here is the PoD that I propose: General Ewell sees the starving residents of Richmond, remembers President Davis refusing to heed his advice, and now is ordered to leave the city and all of its inhabitants to burn to deprive the Union, whose victory is all but inevitable. So, he says to hell with it and downright refuses, simply leaving with whatever the soldiers can carry.

With Richmond and all of its infrastructure and supplies intact, wealthy industrialists like Ginter and Anderson return to the city and are able to return to pre-war business as usual (with an expanded workforce thanks to an abundance of freed slaves no longer working on plantations). Mahone sets to work linking the AM&O railroad. As a result, investment from both the North and abroad comes more easily, with Richmond and the surrounding areas quickly surpassing their pre-war prosperity. The issue of patronage was brought up as well, and I think an interesting butterfly of this scenario would be for the newly elected President Grant to end up attending a meeting of wealthy Virginian industrialists and striking up a friendship with William Mahone. Despite having fought on opposite sides of the war, I feel as though Grant and Mahone might get along, as Mahone's actions after the war indicate he wanted to help the freed slaves (such as funding schools to prepare teachers to help educate black children and former slaves) much like Grant did. Grant and Mahone's friendship might encourage Grant to pursue Reconstruction even more, especially in Virginia, and prevent the antebellum status quo from erasing the progress (not to mention providing Mahone with direct patronage from the president later on).

I have 3 ideas on how to further bolster Grant's influence as a way of keeping the democrats in check, but they involve a bit of dubious butterflying that borders on wank. First, the Gold Ring and the Black Friday of 1869. Meeting with the industrialists and businessmen in Richmond, they might inform him of the potential repercussions of the gold policy suggested by Gould and Fisk, thus preventing him from suspending gold sales. Second, perhaps the annexation of the Dominican Republic actually goes through (not sure how this would happen, perhaps Sumner sees the relative success of Reconstruction in Virginia and is slightly more inclined to approve of Grant's proposal in the Senate). Third, and probably the least likely, is VP Henry Wilson surviving at least until the end of Grant's second term, perhaps further weakening "slave power" as much as possible.

The Panic of 1873 is one of the big factors in weakening the Republicans, and allowed the Democrats to take back control of the house. This is probably an event that can't simply be butterflied away, but I do have an idea to weaken the Democrats without just wanking the Republicans to an unbelievable degree. in the 1870s-1890s, there were a series of populist third parties which were never able to achieve national success in OTL: the Greeback Party and the Farmer's Alliance (consisting of the Northern Alliance, Southern Alliance, and Colored Alliance) which would ultimately combine into the People's Party. What I'm imagining is that the Readjusters might act as a sort of wedge in the "solid south", which allows the Populist Party to emerge and siphon enough support from the Democrats to prevent them from being able to seriously challenge the Republicans on the national level, effectively supplanting them in most states outside of the deep south (interestingly enough, this was illustrated in a political cartoon at the time).

Initially the populists might act in conjuction with the Republicans, as seen in the Fusionists of North Carolina and the Readjusters themselves, but eventually they could gain enough power and support to challenge the Republicans directly, creating a new two-party system with the Democrats living on as a sort of radical conservative regional party of the deep south, with most moderate and northern democrats joining either the Populists or Republicans. (The status of immigrants in this situation would be complex, as many like the Irish supported the democrats, yet the Populists would likely be fairly nativist, seeing african americans as closer to white americans than complete foreigners). So, eventually the Readjusters would fall apart, but not by being defeated by the Democrats: they would be split along Republican and Populist lines (although that's much later, possibly into the 1900s).

As a result of the Democrats collapsing, the Republicans are given more or less free reign to enact foreign policy: that being an imperialist one. Much stronger enforcement of the Monroe Doctrine, and a greater influence in European politics. This is exemplified by James G. Blaine, who could very easily have won the presidency against Cleveland with just the of support of the Readjusters and other Populist-Republican coalitions. Blaine advocated for a military and naval buildup, and was a dedicated anglophobe. This would likely lead to the Great Rapprochement never happening, and the birth of rivalry with Great Britain that will have big consequences later on. Perhaps the Venezuela Crisis of 1895 escalates into a sort of small-scale war, in which America proves that it now has a navy capable of matching - or even surpassing - Britain's. There's no large scale troop movements, and the war ends rather quickly, but Great Britain's pride is wounded, leaving them vengeful while the Americans are emboldened.

Back to Virginia, with a large industrial and financial base in Richmond, no Jim Crow laws, and a more progressive Populist-Republican government, the state begins to catch up to and even surpass many northern states in prosperity. Hampton Roads, one of the world's largest natural harbor, begins to industrialize and urbanize far more than OTL, eventually surpassing Richmond itself and competing with New York City. Fort Monroe is repurposed into the Point Comfort Immigration Station, much like Fort Gibson was converted into Ellis Island. Immigrants flood into Virginia and into the rest of south via much more expanded railway networks, further accelerating the collapse of the old order in the south.

Going into the 1900s, you have a far more militarized, industrialized, and imperialistic united states, with a kinda two-party system in the Populists and Republicans, with the Democrats being an extremist party in the deep south (as a reaction to the social progress in the border states, the deep south may end up even more segregated than OTL, but that may just result in a scenario similar to Northern Ireland or Palestine, with the KKK being more like a terrorist organization), and a naval rivalry with Great Britain. Perhaps WWI in this TL sees America actually joining the Central Powers, and all the innumerable consequences that would come with that. As for Virginia, skyscrapers will be going up in Richmond and Norfolk around the same time as they do in Manhattan.

I welcome any thoughts, criticisms, corrections, or suggestions, as I intend to hopefully develop this into a full TL and post it here when I feel I have enough research done to do it right.

 

[Tripsos]

Oh, and I forgot to mention that the Populists more or less replacing the Democrats would likely have repercussions on the general trajectory of American politics, especially since they had connections to the Knights of Labor, the main industrial labor union at the time, and socialists from the Union Labor Party.