Wrapped in Flames: The Great American War and Beyond
- Thread starter EnglishCanuck
- Start date
Well not the century but atleast from the last two decades Lincoln could be seen as the ray of light in 1860s and early 1870s time of shitty presidents but from contexts clues of Canucks the new men are gonna steer the nation back from the brink. And maybe buy Alaska the second time around cause the fool Seymour rebuffed them.
From an earlier chapter the Dark horse Is likely joe hooker and ughh Daniel Sickles to complete the triumvirate of bad democrat presidents.
Both have good records untarnished for now but Hancock is a good candidate for vice president. But I kinda like Hancock mostly for his combat ability but I'm still very not happy for his otl not helping of the freedmen and his racist attitude that was common on the democrats so I'm ok if he's tarred and feathered for being a crap politician.
Last edited:
Nah, the next decent president isn't too far away. The string of mediocrity won't be too long, but the 1880s presidents will be somewhere between great and meh.
Hancock is a war hero, with a much more respected war record in WiF, he beat both the British and Confederates in fair fights. However, he's still distancing himself from politics. The Democrats would love if he ran, but Hancock has seen that the party is still a cesspit and so happily staying in military command instead.
There's a ray of hope in the future that's for sure. However, the New Men are less a 'steer the nation from the brink' and more a 'steer it in a new direction' which may have more to do with contemporary Victorian era politics.
Someone has been catching hints I see!
One thing about there being no Reconstruction is the more odious attitudes of the Democrats are less likely to be big public policy problems. There's something like 600,000 freedmen in the US now, but that makes them less a public burden versus just an enormous minority.
Chapter 147: Reconstruction
Chapter 147: Reconstruction
“When Breckinridge was sworn in on February 22nd 1868, with former president Davis in attendance, the crowds cheered for what the sympathetic newspapers termed ‘the triumph of democracy’ in the Confederacy. Placing his hand on the Bible with a Presbyterian Minister in attendance, he vowed he would do all he could to unite the country. It was true, Breckinridge’s victory had been a remarkable feat, especially considering the violence of the election itself. It did however prove, even to outsiders and those who would have rather seen the nation fail, that in the Confederacy the rule of law would be respected. He had won in free and open elections. In the hearts of many Confederates, this was all the proof they needed that this meant they were the true inheritors of the Revolution, with those who had fought in the late war proudly taking the nom de guerre of “Sons of the Second American Revolution,” a term Breckinridge himself would apply generously at his many veterans speeches.
Upon taking office, his most immediate priorities were the establishment of the Supreme Court, attempting to organize the states regarding interstate railroads and commerce, and finally the enforcement of a fugitive slave code between the states. Though not an earnest supporter of the last statement, it was his view that slavery had formed the nation and so the use of it to bind the states together would tie them closer than any railroad. In theory in should have been his easiest program to adopt, but in practice it would end up being the hardest. The states enjoyed the power they had, and so did not easily wish to give up their jurisdiction to any other state.
Though fighting that uphill battle, Breckinridge found it much easier to take advantage of pork barrel politics on military spending. His time in the war had convinced him that the nation needed a new, national, industry. Railroads that could criss cross the nation and send soldiers from one state to another, or send much needed munitions and goods to support those in another part of the country. The lackluster performance of these railroads during the war had taught him that much improvement was necessary[1]. While this was anathema to some, the lure of money would in due course mark his administration out for one of the largest spending budgets prior to the 1890s…” - The Three Good Presidents, Edward Lee, University of Richmond, 1935
Breckinridge's Presidential Portrait
“In the aftermath of the war many farms and plantations (particularly in the border states) were devastated, and many small slave owners and farmers had to sell their few slaves to larger plantations while plantation owners also bought up land from small farmers who were destitute thanks to the war. Widows and orphans were displaced, while disabled veterans often sold in order to provide short term relief for their families. Between 1866 and 1876 it is estimated that almost 20% of all yeomen farmers were forced to sell their land to plantations in order to make ends meet. Something akin to the crisis in Rome as slave labor displaced small farmers began to take place in the Deep South and Tennessee, these former farmers are then displaced to the cities to work in burgeoning industries.
It was this rapid purchase of land and effective annexation of small farms by the larger landholders of the South that began the infamous “combine” system which would become the running agricultural model for generations in the Confederacy. The mass acquisition of land, and often the adoption of polyculture crop yields meant that the owners of such combines could not only feed themselves, sell excess food at a profit, as well as take advantage of the lucrative cotton trade. There has never been any ‘smoking gun’ pointing to the the reason for the beginning of polyculture on the combines rather than the monoculture of the eventually less successful plantations, but the mass acquisition of land in such a short period may have simply been more than most plantation owners were capable of handling and so they simply kept whatever was growing at the time. In the long term however, this would prove to be a winning strategy.
…rather than an increase in the number of slaves, it was a decline in the ranks of the yeoman farmers. Whether from war or poor economic prospects, many farmers were forced to sell their land and any human capital they might own at poor rates, and were often relocated to the growing urban centers like Atlanta, Nashville, Dallas, or Selma. There at least there was the prospect of work and a roof over their families heads, even in small tenements. The lucky farmers were those who were taken on as sharecroppers by the landlords, most of whom had grown rich from the war economy.
This minor industry was a dream of President Breckinridge who had realized during the war that the overreliance on cheap materials imported from Britain meant that when things broke in the Confederacy, there was often no spare parts to be had. His greatest desire was to expand railroad making and other small time manufacturing to the states, something that ran against entrenched economic interests. Breckinridge had also begun reading about the cotton trade abroad, and he had made a sobering realization by 1868, the Confederacy still controlled over 60% of the world’s cotton trade, but that had dropped from the 70% it had enjoyed in 1860! And as yet, no post-war cotton harvest had come close. It was a truth that cotton speculators and traders in Charleston and New Orleans were loathe to acknowledge, but even a later 1877 assessment by DeBow’s Review would note that “Our position as the world’s chief supplier of cotton has fallen from its prominence in barely ten years. What meaning may this have for the economy of Southern farmers and growers? Will our trade evaporate?”
Asking that question years in advance, Breckinridge would embark on a project of building the Confederacy up into, if not a copy of the North, then a robust state with an economy which did not rest solely on the pillar of King Cotton…” - Modernizing a Slave Economy, John Majewski, 2009
----
1] Breckinridge’s front row seat to the inefficiencies of the Southern transportation networks means he is a man with a driving vision to improve the country at the road and rail level. That’s going to be costly, but not really an inherently opposed policy save by some.
Well, if nothing else, Breckinridge will certainly be remembered for his moustache.
Can see why Breckinridge gets a reputation as one of the good Presidents with him recognising some of the pragmatic issues behind the Confederacy, if not the moral ones. A good look into 1867 as the year's rounded up. Certainly a time of change and consolidation in a way, with the hints we've had promising quite a different world, if no less chaotic.
I go away for a two day trip and come back to find 3 updates to Wrapped in Flames? What a pleasant surprise! Did we ever get a list of the members of Breckinridge's cabinet?
Honestly, if I hadn't seen a picture, I'd never have believed it was real. It's like antlers! He gives Ambrose Burnside a run for his money in the facial hair department! I don't think any future president of the CSA will ever top the facial hair of the second...
That is, I think, the best you can hope for. Someone who recognizes the defects of the system, but not the glaring moral faults. Breckinridge is about the best one could hope for in that category.
Oh definitely a world much different than our own! By the time we reach 1900 the world will be very different indeed.
Me gusta diversified Confederate economics because it gives it the potential to not be a crapsack collection of uppity colonies and perhaps eventually find its own reconciliation era after equal rights happens (if it happens...)
Wales is ruled from Berlin, Bavaria from London, Sicily from Stockholm and the entirety of the Balkans as well as the Philippines from Oslo.
Economic growth only at the cost of morality and democratic freedoms!
But don't worry, eventually equal rights will come to the Confederacy... with a vengeance...
While you jest about these latter two, there will be imperial possessions ruled from there south of the equator by 1900...
I presume Antarctic claims or whaling station islands (the equivalent of the Falklands or Kergulean) Also, if anything is ruled from Oslo, that indicates *earlier* Norwegian Independence, which will be interesting.
I've never seen a United Scandanavia where Oslo gets first or even second billing, it is either Copenhagen over Stockholm or vice versa.
you missed out the several colonies of Liechtenstein and the Luxembourger controlled Kurilles. Plus of course the Swiss Antarctic territory. .My all time favourite though is the Vatican's concession of Shanghai, or maybe the Turkish. Province of Patagonia.
Last edited:
I got the impression the Slaver Confederacy would limp along for a while before turning into Jim Crow. Telling us that there will be such a radical change later on is quite the spoiler.