Essentially impossible so long as the voting system is still FPTP. The best possible scenario under that system would be for very minor parties to manage to persist longer than a single cycle, and even then they wouldn’t accomplish much.
Until Every Drop of Blood Is Paid: A More Radical American Civil War
- Thread starter Red_Galiray
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usertron2020
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Exactly. With a winner-take-all set outcome, where majority rules supreme, and a distinct constitutional (rather than parliamentarian) system, third parties-long term-just have nowhere to go.
Agreed. A factor in the downfall of the Republican Party in the South was the depth of corruption and Black Republicans frustration with that corruption. With a Republican Party split on the issues of civil service reform, tariffs, and more economic matters rather than the issue of Reconstruction itself and there being no legitimate opposition (Democrats and the National Unionists have painted themselves as against the very issue the war is being fought over) are going to look different.
There’ll also be more room for fusionist parties like the Readjusters in Virginia across the South.
I think there’s a real possibility for an interesting development in sociopolitical relations in the South. The big problem will always be with what role do former the fiercest unrepentants play in the Reconstruction period, but to a lesser degree how does Frederick Douglass change from OTL. He is the preeminent Black voice and will be so for some time. Given contentions around the role of women, Harriet Tubman may also play a bigger role than IOTL. There are thousands of working women across the South whose husbands have secured political rights by way of military service. Once the bottle gets uncapped it’ll be hard to cap it back.
Abolishing FPTP is at or near the very top of my wish list for electoral reform, yes, though the method of abolishing it ought to vary from situation to situation.
Plus, there were hell a lot of stuffs regarding Civil Service Reforms could have been done without touching Reconstruction - for example, cleaning up the Department of the Interior, or avoiding OTL ridiculous nepotism under Grant Presidency. Note that the majority of Orville Babcock’s corrupt acts were NOT related to Reconstruction.
Grant totally dragged his feet IOTL.
Grant totally dragged his feet IOTL.
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In terms of something worth exploring ITTL from OTL USA that could better illustrate an alternative and more multi-party system, I would like to bring up Electoral Fusion which was a relatively common practice around the time of the US Civil War and its immediate aftermath into and post-Reconstruction and, especially in the context of the South ITTL, would present a very interesting alternate take after the white supremacists of the Southern Democrats largely crushed it and helped create federal laws and institutional inertia that prevented multi-party endorsements from ever rising again (it must also be said that Northern Republicans also hated the practice given it allowed a challenge to their power, so that would also have to be dealt with).
For those unfamiliar, fusion politics is basically just the practice where local branches of different parties would band together in a coalition and run or endorse joint candidates to avoid vote-splitting against a shared political foe. Nothing especially ground-breaking, but it was growing very strong with the rise of the Populist Party in American politics post Reconstruction, and more importantly it saw regional variations. In the West, the Populist parties tended to create Fusionist platforms with the Democratic Party, but in the post-Reconstruction South, the Fusionist movement was a mix of the Populists and the Republican parties as a way for poor or progressive Southern Whites to collaborate with Black Republicans without either side compromising the other against the stranglehold the planter class had and wanted to maintain over government via the southern Democratic Party. Remnants of it exist in New York's local political scene (see the Working Families Party or the Conservative Party of NY) and in things like Minnesota's Democratic Party officially being the Democratic Farmer Labor Party (as the FL party basically was so dominant over the local Democratic Party it was in fusion with that it basically just absorbed them), but the two dominant parties largely worked to make it as illegal as possible so as to consolidate their control of election funds and attention.
As stated, IOTL the practice mostly died, with a particularly notable example being the crushing of North Carolina's Fusionist coalition that wanted to stop a lot of Jim Crow laws meant to limit access to voting for both black and poor white voters.
One option for TTL could be where the seemingly dominating Republican party starts to factionalize and different sides end up creating Fusionist tickets with minor parties that form out of different interest groups on the regional, racial, socio-economic, or religious level, allowing those groups to gradually grow stronger until one or more of them reach a true status of import and become full-on opposition alternatives to the Republican party.
FPTP would still probably see national politics consolidate around two large parties (maybe two-and-a-half in the UK style) but electoral fusion politics lasting longer would allow for the proliferation of smaller regional parties that get a strong seat at the table instead of the OTL wings of the dominant two parties only in a way that is more based in existing US historical systems rather than a parliamentary or instant run-off style somehow taking hold.
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Please like the update and share any thoughts you might have!
This is the penultimate update - the next one is the final full update, and after that we just have an epilogue to make the transition to Reconstruction. As I have said previously, I will most likely create a new thread for Part II of the TL. Now, I suppose we're just all itching to get this over with and finally, finally deliver on a better Reconstruction as promised. I know I am. This update thus may strike some as superfluous, and the number of likes is certainly lower. We all knew Lincoln was winning anyway, and in a certain sense we've already passed the timeline's climax with the coup and the marches that seal the fate of the Confederacy. But I have come to pride myself on the level of detail I include, so a not-detailed account of the election wouldn't have sit right with me. Moreover, consider the first half talking about the Black community from the focus of purely social history something of a rehearsal for the second part. That is, the great majority of Reconstruction updates will be like that, far more political and social, given that, you know, the war is over.
Orphan children will simply be commonplace, part of the massive generational trauma this US faces. But, as a silver lining, by the 1870's the great majority of Black people were living in nuclear families with a mother and a father, so with time things will estabilize. Until then the children will have heroes like Union soldiers to look up to! And yes, those guidelines are meant to be applied only to Bureau teachers.
This is the penultimate update - the next one is the final full update, and after that we just have an epilogue to make the transition to Reconstruction. As I have said previously, I will most likely create a new thread for Part II of the TL. Now, I suppose we're just all itching to get this over with and finally, finally deliver on a better Reconstruction as promised. I know I am. This update thus may strike some as superfluous, and the number of likes is certainly lower. We all knew Lincoln was winning anyway, and in a certain sense we've already passed the timeline's climax with the coup and the marches that seal the fate of the Confederacy. But I have come to pride myself on the level of detail I include, so a not-detailed account of the election wouldn't have sit right with me. Moreover, consider the first half talking about the Black community from the focus of purely social history something of a rehearsal for the second part. That is, the great majority of Reconstruction updates will be like that, far more political and social, given that, you know, the war is over.
Oh, I love that show.
I'm pretty sure I wrote somewhere that his family never talked to him again. So, yeah...
From my point of view Lincoln is already greater than Washington.
Thanks! And yes, this basically is setting up the foundations for Reconstruction!
It's been Toombover for a long while, they just refuse to recognize it.
That was in the original draft but I decided what the hell Lincoln deserves it.
They did manage to create fusion tickets in many places, similarly to the fusion tickets between Douglas, Breckinridge and Bell in the 1860 election, but overall remained divided mostly because of left-over bitterness over the failed Second Chicago Convention, Johnson's stubbornness, and Tilden's belief that allying with Johnson would destroy his support with moderate Republicans (something he ended up doing himself anyway). And yes, although Tilden has suffered a blow he will remain a political player. Johnson on the other hand will probably retreat to Tennessee and try to obtain a Senate seat or something as "vindication" - he did this IOTL, to an almost pathological level. The Union League will be important indeed for Reconstruction. A sad consequence of this more radical war is a legitimization of political violence. It's all fine and good when the "good guys" use it against enslavers and terrorists, but it can have bad consequences when the "bad guys" are labor organizers.
Thanks! I do believe a lot of TLs tend to forget the social side of history, especially when it comes to Black communities, so I've tried to do them justice here.
I mean... yeah, basically that.
Thanks! Pendleton post-war career is kinda weird. He truly became something of a proto-populist by championing what he called the "Ohio Idea" of paying bonds in greenbacks, to the point that he was apparently willing to accept Black suffrage, which scared Eastern financiers like Tilden and led to his defeat in the 1868 DNC. Later he became a successful advocate of civil service reform. He was also married to the daughter of Francis Scott Key (the author of the Star Spangled Banner) and is portrayed in Stephen Spielberg's Lincoln as the chief opponent of the 13th amendment.
The Second Revolution is just picking up steam! And yes, for the freedmen education became a great priority. After all, the enslavers had done their very best to keep them from learning how to read and write, so doing so was for them one of the chief blessings of freedom. Made them feel like they were truly free.
It is harder to make peace than to make war, after all. The Reconstruction Era will be full of struggle for sure, but also hope as Americans Black and White fight to create a better nation. Now, you raise a very interesting point given that the structures of the Black community I mentioned often helped to organize them as laborers as well. Racism, as you note, played a part for the Labor unions that were created in the South during the wave of populism discriminated against Black workers, weakening themselves in the face of the planters' continued power. Now that the planter class is going to be swept away from the earth, we may see greater interracial cooperation.
In his last moments Toombs asks his manservant to kill him, too lazy to commit suicide.
Huh, I guess this Johnson would be right, in that I, the author, am indeed out to get him. It's certainly funny read that way.
Thanks!
I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that a Black woman indeed compared her expected subordination to slavery. But, indeed, Black women also played a very important part in Reconstruction as we'll see soon! As for that, the OTL Freedman's Bureau once fired a teacher for using that word, so I decided that transforming that into more general guidelines would be a nice way to show the changes here. Yes, Lincoln has gone woke. Next update is finally the end of the war! As mentioned before, I have taken pride in the level of detail I offer so I wanted to delve into the election too, even if we all knew Lincoln was winning.
Thank you very much! I detest Andrew Johnson so having him be humiliated was satisfying to write.
Hurrah!
Oh, if only I could draw...
God Bless!
We won't see this kind of sweep until alt-Jeb comes into the picture! And yes, it is indeed hard to envision, but the Reconstruction era Black community had a level of mutual support and organization that's simply impressive. If it was at the end overcome by White violence it was certainly not their fault.
Some paragraphs towards the end describing the reasons of soldiers to vote for Lincoln are meant to show that they have, indeed, become radicalized and now conceive of the war as one of liberation, and of themselves as Liberators.
Next time we'll see some proposed amendments to hopefully spark some discussion!
I have something planned for that
Lincoln's sweep is in some senses the most impressive yet, because Washington and Monroe simply had no opposition.
Orphan children will simply be commonplace, part of the massive generational trauma this US faces. But, as a silver lining, by the 1870's the great majority of Black people were living in nuclear families with a mother and a father, so with time things will estabilize. Until then the children will have heroes like Union soldiers to look up to! And yes, those guidelines are meant to be applied only to Bureau teachers.
Hurrah!
To be clear, the term that was considered educated and was preferred by most Black leaders was "colored," though you're right that Negro was not seen as a slur but a normal term.
Lincoln's character ensures that he won't countenance either dictatorship or perpetuity in power, but he'll probably remain a very important force in politics, the likes of which we haven't seen in American political history. Like, former Presidents like Jackson, Reagan or Obama have been influential, but I see something like Latin America where they basically become the Party and control its destiny for years to come. Lincoln will in this regard be completely able to influence nominations and future Republican administrations. And yes, this Revolution, like all Revolutions, opens new and worrying possibilities regarding the future, especially once the enemies of the government start being labor unions instead of slavers. Finally, you're right that an element of self-interest will probably motivate Republicans to embrace universal Black suffrage.
Lincoln did express a desire to reform the civil service after the war, so we may be getting that.
Lincoln and Liberty intensifies!
My favorite version of the song.
Yeah, we'll likely never see such a blowout ever again. Lincoln's already towering presence in the American consciousness will be even greater ITTL.
Mary Todd's mental health is bound to be much better given that Willie never died and Lincoln is not going to die either. May not be one of the most well-loved First Ladies, but surely will get a better reputation than her unreserved one as "that crazy woman that made Lincoln miserable."Lincoln was quite adamant about wanting a quiet peaceful resting place for his grave, which he got. IDK if that will be possible in an ATL where he lives to a ripe old age. The Lincoln Memorial may still be built, but probably something more like unto a standing (with him buried there) as that enjoyed in the USSR by Lenin's Tomb.
I wonder what Mary Todd Lincoln's status will be in the history books ITTL? The same? With excoriation to start, with later rehabilitation once forensic historians figured out her problems were caused by undiagnosed brain cancer?
Can anyone imagine in TTL some crook doing to Lincoln what was done IOTL to Grant?
Thank you very much!
They're named in chapter 51. Aside from Joseph Holt for Lincoln, we have former General William Franklin for Johnson, former General Francis Preston Blair Jr. for Tilden, and Horatio Seymour for Pendleton.
That, gentle reader, is because I had no idea he even existed! God, I'm just finding out about this. Let's just say he did make it here.
Eh, VPs are always rather unimportant.
Lincoln is being protected by a special unit of the ITTL National Guard, which is a national gendarmerie force instead of OTL's State milita. I don't think I will have other assassination attempts on Lincoln's life, however. And this winter will see the greatest tragedies of the war.
Thanks, I'm glad someone notices. In many ways this only seems like a massive blowout compared with OTL, but optics are very important in politics. The different campaign, the centrality of the 13th amendment to the Republican platform, and the ultimate gains will mean that everyone will interpret this as an endorsement of the radical program. A victory by the skin of their teeth would make Republicans retreat to the center - this will result in them pushing forward, and that's very important. We must strike while the iron is hot, for retreat now could be fatal.
Some people have mentioned that, nationally, the Republican Party could become more like Mexico's PRI, but ultimately I don't think the Republicans can survive their internal divisions and will collapse eventually, and we shall get a new two-party system. Until then, they will still get opposition, just local instead of national. The advantageous result is that with this the old Democratic party has been swept away, meaning that conservatives will have no option but to ally with more moderate Republicans instead of becoming complete reactionaries, which should temper their excesses.
Exactly.
Yes, it at the very least results in the successor parties being ones that accept the new status quo, unlike the Democrats who never quite did.
We probably won't see that going away anywhere soon, sadly.
Populism and the division over the labor question will probably eventually result in a pro-business "True Republican" Party and a pro-labor "Labor Republican" Party that allies with Populists.
We certainly need better reform. The association many Northerners made between Reconstruction and Corruption contributed to its collapse.
Great to see someone bring this up, because fusion is indeed going to be very important for the politics of the Reconstruction era, mostly in the South and nationwide when the tide of populism hits.
Np! Can't wait for the grand finale and the epilogue of the first part! will definitely follow the new thread!
Always! And i really hope Napoleon III can maintain the French Empire!Thank you
Just one more score, gentlemen, just one more big score and we can go home
only thing I have to say is that you’ve set the standard with this timeline 👏
let’s finish the temple of freedom!
let’s finish the temple of freedom!
people should know when they’re conquered
Somewhere in this world Parson Brownlow is dying laughing
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After a 5 years journey, it’s time for one chapter to end and for the next to begin. Frankly, I can't wait to see the evolution of politics in this different USA.
Wow, I never knew how strange Pendleton's post-war career was. All I remembered the Ohio idea and that in older AH, Pendleton is the guy who gives the Confederacy independence in a Lincoln loses TL.
Considering the monetary policy side of things, the early days of a new party could be quite strange. While it is well-known that the farmers wanted inflation and many financiers wanted deflation, businessmen were actually quite mixed: some (like iron) wanted inflation while others did not. Adding up civil service reform and labor rights, I imagine that the new party will need a while to coalesce into a proper party before they can win an election.
Maybe such a pro-business party could be called the “Liberal Party” if it ends up being the splinter from the “offficial” Republican Party, especially as that would be an allusion to the (OTL) Liberal Republicans and all that.
I hope you'll make a post-script mentioning this alternate, (I assume) progressive Jeb Bush winning in TTL 21st century. But I feel like that will be come much later, and I can't wait to see what happens in between them.
The tragic Southern Winter of 1864-1865, I'll assume. The planters sit all warm and full inside their cozy homes, while the common folk lay outside, in the cold and starving.