WI: A Dystopian, Mid/Late 19th Century United States

It's hard to boil this down to any specifics, because it's a varied interest and just a vibe, but something that really fascinates me is the idea of a United States around and after the Civil War period that goes really dystopian, and I think a lot of that has to do with the whole "United States as the Roman Republic" feel you can get some times from contemporary accounts and just from how things were. So there's interesting concepts in my head and interesting things going on and alternate possibilities. You have things like slavery and the possibilities for a slave state in the CSA or slave rebellions. You have a bloody civil war that could go a hundred different ways, and could involve things such as chemical warfare for christ sake. You have states seceding/seceded and many other possible states and regions seceding, and the Republic balkanizing or facing massive sedition. You have the military taking on a great importance, which could go too far and could lead to something like a coup against Lincoln and the government or in the event that Lincoln and the government face assassination and/or marshal law is declared. You have the possibility of assassinations and anti-government, anti-war mobs running wild and rioting. You have suspension of habeas corpus and war powers and the fear that the government is becoming dictatorial or could become a dictatorship. You have the possibility of foreign, European powers involving themselves in the conflict, or funding it which keeps it going. You have the possibility after the war of the Southerners not surrendering peacefully, and guerrillas molesting the Federal forces that occupy the south. And all of this against the backdrop of an America which is industrializing and spreading into the West and fighting Indian tribes and building rail roads.

Like I said, the United States of that period possibly becoming much more like Rome, with civil war and assassinations and bloody violence and political intrigue and the consolidation of powers on top of the OTL Rome-ness of expanding and having Indian natives like the Barbarians (I don't view the Indians as Barbarians, but that is the term Romans used for Natives so no offense intended) and the Railroads like the roads of Rome and the Civil War and all that, really fascinates me.

It doesn't necessarily have to be like that as I said, but the overall idea of a late 19th century America that goes dystopian does fascinate me, so what if a dystopian America and situation for America (or at least its citizens) did come into being? How could such a thing come into being and what possibilities are reasonable?
 
I wouldn't say it's dystopian, but my Communist Confederacy stories cover a USA that becomes far more Roman in charachter as a Republic. Military service is mandatory for all male US citizens, with no exceptions, via a Prusian-esque conscription program, and completion of the initial three year training program at age 21 (when they are drafted at 18) is when they are given citizenship. As a result, thanks to universal conscription, American society is far more close-knit, with racial relations and class relations far closer - on the flip side, women sill can't vote as of 1940, and gender relations are more backwards than OTL. Much the same, industry and business are far less restrained, and the fate if the OTL indians is worse (think graves instead of reservations). Not dystopian or utopian, merely different.

No, going the Roman route won't get you dystopia - for that, look to the 1877 riots and class relations during the Glided Age.
 
No, going the Roman route won't get you dystopia - for that, look to the 1877 riots and class relations during the Glided Age.

I think the Civil war matters gets a political and social dystopian situation, and dystopia on the all the issues of that day. Certainly the Gilded age and the rise of the Capitalist superpower does allow for dystopia on the economic and class level (and the situation of the OTL was pretty damn bad). You could combine the two together, though.
 
The way I did it in AAPA is by making Reconstruction-era violence worse, allowing the military to take more and more control.
 
In my unfinished timeline "Under the Eagle Flag," I was going for a somewhat dystopian United States in the mid-19th century. By the time I had to stop working on it because of Real Life interfering, I was modelling events on the late Roman Republic in an increasingly-conscious way, since I was also trying to learn about that period in Roman history at the time. I was going to include a coup against a US president the military, a civil war between factions in the Union Army, the degeneration of the western territories into warlordism, and other things of that nature. I should revive that timeline someday...
 
In my unfinished timeline "Under the Eagle Flag," I was going for a somewhat dystopian United States in the mid-19th century. By the time I had to stop working on it because of Real Life interfering, I was modelling events on the late Roman Republic in an increasingly-conscious way, since I was also trying to learn about that period in Roman history at the time. I was going to include a coup against a US president the military, a civil war between factions in the Union Army, the degeneration of the western territories into warlordism, and other things of that nature. I should revive that timeline someday...

Indeed you should. How far did it ever manage to get?
 
I got up to 1860, which was the third year of a largely-stalemated Civil War ITTL. The last entry involved the assassination of President Seward by a Southern sympathizer, occuring just a few weeks before the election, and the succession of Vice President David Wilmot to the presidency. He subsequently won the 1860 election, and that's where I stopped.
 
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