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This Mighty Scourge of War: A Reconstruction-Era Quest

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Chapter 17: Reaction, Reform, and Revolution
  • Threadmarks
    • [X] Allow a managed breakup of the National Union Party.

    November 12, 1868

    The 1868 elections were defined almost wholly by a battle for the legacy of the late and bitterly lamented Abraham Lincoln.

    The first sign of this appeared almost immediately after the National Union Party formally dissolved, when neither of the two successor parties that emerged from the coalition proved willing to let the other claim the Republican name unchallenged (with no one daring to take up the banner of the Democratic Party again after the White Camelia Conspiracy). Taking their names from the factions of the party that had coexisted within the National Union, the Liberal Republican Party and the Radical Republican Party squared off in the first ordinary elections since the end of the Civil War.

    True to his word, President Sumner declined to seek re-election, and Senator Foster and Speaker Colfax chose to remain in their respective houses of Congress, so both parties promptly went about shoring up their claim to that legacy with their nominees; three of the four men on the main Presidential tickets had served in Lincoln's cabinet. The Radicals nominated Lincoln's first VP Hannibal Hamlin for President and his former Secretary of War Edwin Stanton for Vice President. Meanwhile, the Liberals put up former Treasury Secretary (and current Chief Justice) Salmon P. Chase to head their ticket, and added some of the National Union's gloss by renominating Winfield Scott Hancock to the Vice Presidency. Only with such measures, both sides determined, could they tap into the vast reserves of credibility and goodwill the martyred leaders of abolition had earned with the whole nation and with its newly emancipated Black community in particular.

    The actual nominees differed mainly on Reconstruction—with Chase and Hancock desiring a lighter hand on the South lest the process turn into an endless quagmire, while Hamlin and Stanton remained determined to stay the course—but as the new parties formed, more differences of opinion began to appear. The RRP by and large maintained party discipline around a standard Republican orthodoxy of protectionism, gold-backed currency, foreign interventionism, and patronage, and few of them deviated from this platform (the left wing of the party, led by Thaddeus Stevens and Benjamin Wade, contemplated breaking away to run their own ticket, but determined that "the time was not yet ripe"). The LRP, meanwhile, became a broad-based coalition of all those opposed to that orthodoxy, granting it more flexibility in choosing its stances but also less unity as a party.

    The election itself was slow and often haphazard, with the lingering devastation from the Bloody Winter and the violent suppression campaign that followed it making it difficult to count votes. But over time, the fruits of each side's approach began to be seen. The current political climate favored the Radicals, who swept Hamlin into the Presidency and secured comfortable congressional majorities, but the Liberals were able to lay the groundwork for a competitive party in future elections—particularly in the Appalachian and Texan regions that were home to white Southern Unionists and in New York. Key to this strategy was their use of fusion balloting, which allowed them to form alliances with various nascent "Greenback Parties" or Grange-based farmers' associations in some states.

    The Deep South, however, was another matter. White Southerners, still resentful of their defeat in the Civil War and the campaign against the KKK, simply refused outright to back any party claiming to be Lincoln's successor. In a few places they ran independent white supremacist candidates (who were almost universally denied ballot access by Reconstruction authorities), but for the most part they simply boycotted the elections altogether. This meant that the election results from those states were determined almost entirely by the Black vote, which broke heavily for the Radicals. This had the happy effect of handing political power in the region entirely to those most invested in completing Reconstruction—most prominently Senators Hiram Revels and Blanche Bruce of Mississippi, the first two government officials of color in America's history—but it was also an ominous sign that while military resistance to Reconstruction had ended, civil resistance would be far harder to overcome.

    Meanwhile, as the Sumner administration drew to a close, the rest of the world's affairs marched on. The unrest in Britain finally reached a breaking point, as the military was left paralyzed by its ongoing engagement in Ireland and the sharp class divisions between its wealthy officer corps and its generally impoverished rank and file. Workers' militias had begun to form in major cities as demonstrations turned increasingly violent over the past year, and an order directly from Queen Victoria for them to disperse only worsened matters, as rumors flew that the Lords would call upon French or Prussian soldiers to help them crush the protests. Finally, under the leadership of trade unionist and International Workingmen's Association President George Odger, the militias marched on Parliament. Amidst a confused and scattered military response in which large parts of the "thin red line" ignored their officers' orders to suppress the rebels or even joined them outright, the revolutionaries occupied Whitehall, arresting most of the House of Lords as the royal family fled to Balmoral.

    It was from there, as the year 1868 drew to a close, that the Commonwealth of Britain was proclaimed.

    The effect of this proclamation was in truth more symbolic than material, since Odger and his allies' control over not just most of Britain but even their own movement was tenuous at best and nonexistent at worst. Fighting was still ongoing in Ireland despite the loss of central leadership, especially in the North, and though they lacked the armed strength with which to trigger a civil war, much of rural Britain was still under the control of landlords and aristocrats. And the socialists, despite being at the forefront of the march on Parliament, were only a minority in a movement consisting mainly of land reformers, neo-Chartists, and other types of radical liberals.

    Nevertheless, the event naturally sent shockwaves throughout Europe and the rest of the world. As the British revolutionaries had feared, conservatives and monarchists on the continent demanded a new Holy Alliance or even a Coalition War, to invade Britain and depose the Commonwealth. But Otto von Bismarck recognized that to attempt such a thing on the heels of the Franco-Prussian War would strain the military capacity and diplomatic unity of all the involved countries to the breaking point. Instead he embarked on a longer-term strategy, intending to isolate Britain economically and diplomatically until a response could be mustered.

    When Spain overthrew its own Queen Isabella as her moderate-liberal parliamentary government collapsed, Prussia swooped in to offer Prince Leopold von Hohenzollern as a replacement candidate before a republic could be proclaimed. Though this provoked the ire of both the Spanish republican left and the French government (which disliked being encircled by Prussian allies and wished to see a Carlist King of Spain related to their own Bourbon monarch), the Spanish Carlists were narrowly convinced to stand down in favor of Prince Leopold lest Spain join Britain in revolt.

    This was not the only measure Bismarck took. With Spain secured, he convinced the Kaiser to change the standard of Prussian currency to align with that of the Latin Monetary Union, essentially transforming the Union from a vehicle for French investment and influence to a broader European economic institution—from which the Commonwealth, naturally, would be excluded. (Keen-eyed observers pointed out the irony of a reactionary European alliance essentially resurrecting Napoleon I's Continental System to oppose a revolutionary Britain.) Most of the involved nations accepted this with equanimity—even France, which saw an opportunity in gaining a greater economic connection to Prussia and perhaps before long a united Germany. The one exception was Italy, where Garibaldi and Mazzini railed against Italian membership in a "counterrevolutionary conspiracy" and their country's hosting of the exiled Queen Isabella (who had decided not to seek refuge in France due to King Henri's sympathy for her Carlist enemies).

    But the question of most immediate importance for the outgoing American government and the new one that would soon replace it was not in Europe, but right next door. No sooner had Spain fallen into political instability than Cuba had launched an open revolt, declaring independence from its mother country and the abolition of slavery. Like Ireland before it, it received a steady flow of American volunteers eager to fight for republicanism and abolition. Unlike Ireland, however, it was close enough for the United States to do far more than make vague gestures of support. The USA's involvement in Latin America in general and the Caribbean in particular, as well as the aid it had already provided against Spain in the Chincha Islands War, had prepared it well to assist the Cuban rebels if it so chose. But was abolition in the Caribbean worth risking the prospects of Reconstruction at home, or even a potential war with Spain? Such was the last major policy decision of the Sumner administration, one that would decide in many ways the direction of the Hamlin Presidency to come…

    National stability is middling.
    The government's legitimacy is middling.
    The capital is calm.
    The mood of the Liberal Republicans is agitated.
    The mood of the Radical Republicans is content.
    The mood of the minor parties is cautious.
    The international situation is polarizing.
    The status of Reconstruction is progressing on the federal level, but hindered locally by economic recession and racial tensions.
    The intensity of conflict on the frontier is slowly rising.
    Of the assassins of Lincoln and his trusted subordinates, two have been killed in the field, five have been executed, and the last one is in captivity in Britain.

    Allow the Cuban situation to develop as it will.Work with other Latin American nations to assist the Cubans.Offer direct support to Cuba.
    This will avoid any political or diplomatic risks from involvement in the Cuban conflict and will allow an unhindered focus on domestic affairs, including Reconstruction.

    		This will have unpredictable effects on the USA's relations with Latin America. It will most likely be of moderate help to the Cuban rebels. There will be a minor risk of provoking a diplomatic crisis with Spain. This approach may distract the government from domestic affairs.This will be of great help to the Cuban rebels, to the point of making independence and abolition nearly certain. There will be a notable risk of provoking a diplomatic crisis with Spain. This approach will most likely distract the government from domestic affairs.
     
  • Threadmarks
    • [] Work with other Latin American nations to assist the Cubans.
    [X] Offer direct support to Cuba.

    Anything but hands off is fine with me. I take it back. Fuck Spain. Love Cuba. Let's fucking go
     
    Last edited:
    [X] Work with other Latin American nations to assist the Cubans.
     
    I did not expect Britain to actually fumble their way into a Revolution. I did expect Bismarck to swoop in and replace Britain and the late, unlamented relevance of Austria as the diplomatic hegemon of Europe, though, and unfortunately that seems to be going well for him. Best case scenario we avoid World War I, worst case scenario we have a union of the crowned heads of Europe as our new Quest antagonist. I guess both can be true.
     
    While this it's certainly a nice boon to out international situation, Reconstruction is far from over, and I really don't want to let that get out from under us. Better to go with the moderate approach.

    [x] Work with other Latin American nations to assist the Cubans.
     
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