(From the A House Divided Alternate Elections series)
Cabinet
Vice President: Benjamin Gratz Brown (1873-1874), Vacant (1874-1877)
Secretary of State: Cassius M. Clay (1873-1875), Godlove S. Orth (1875-1877)
Secretary of the Treasury: Hugh McCulloch (1873-1874), Lot M. Morrill (1874-1875), George F. Edmunds (1875-1877)
Secretary of War: John F. Farnsworth (1873-1874), John P.C. Shanks (1874-1876), John A. Logan (1876-1877)
Attorney General: Theodore M. Pomeroy (1873), David P. Lowe (1873-1874), George G. Wright (1874-1877)
Postmaster General: John Creswell (1873-1874), James N. Tyner (1874-1875), Alexander Ramsey (1875-1877)
Secretary of the Navy: John S. Harris (1873-1874), Glenni W. Scofield (1874-1875), Aaron A. Sargent (1875-1877)
Secretary of the Interior: Cadwallader C. Washburn (1873), Henry L. Daws (1873-1874), Jackson Orr (1874-1876), William S. Sprague (1876-1877)
Electoral Resistance and Violence
In what has become an increasingly concerning pattern, the results of the 1872 election were met with violence across the South. The Ku Klux Klan has grown increasingly influential and belligerent across the South and inspired a number of paramilitary organizations aimed at terrorizing the free black population and using violence and intimidation to influence the election results. The scale of the violence completely overwhelmed local militias and drew the United States army increasingly thin. The Klan even assassinated a newly elected federal Representative (George L. Smith of Louisiana), demonstrating the new reaches of their power and audacity.
Congress accelerated the Reconstruction of the remaining states of Texas, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Virginia to facilitate the recruitment of local militias. In addition, Fremont ordered the use of Marines and even Navy personnel to keep the peace in coastal cities and fight any threats such as the Klan, over the protests of his Secretary of the Navy (an issue which would sour their relationship and eventually lead to Harris’ resignation). Fremont began to call on Congress to pass new legislation authorizing the use of more military force and the suspension of habeas corpus to eliminate the Klan. However, other issues would soon overtake Reconstruction in the minds of Fremont and Congress.
Corruption Scandals and the Liberal Republican Revolt
Since the end of the Civil War, national newspapers have begun to more heavily scrutinize and criticize the administration. In combinati
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Vice President: Benjamin Gratz Brown
Secretary of State: Cassius M. Clay
Secretary of the Treasury: William P. Fessenden (1869), Hugh McCulloch (1869-1873)
Secretary of War: John B. Henderson (1869-1870), Benjamin Butler (1870-1872), John F. Farnsworth (1872-1873)
Attorney General: Alvin P. Hovey (1869-1870), Frederick T. Frelinghuysen (1870-1871), Theodore M. Pomeroy (1871-1873)
Postmaster General: Henry H. Starkweather (1869), John Creswell (1869-1873)
Secretary of the Navy: John S. Harris
Secretary of the Interior: William Windom (1869-1871), Cadwallader C. Washburn (1871-1873)
McClellan’s Lame Duck Session
Emboldened by the successful election of President Fremont and their gains in Congress, Radical Republicans successfully pushed to remove Vice President George H. Pendleton from office, with several War Democrats crossing the aisle to support the removal. Pendleton, a leading Copperhead, had been implicated in a scheme with McClellan’s former Secretary of State Thomas Seymour to make peace with the Confederacy.
Some months later, outgoing President George B. McClellan rode to Virginia to personally accept the surrender of Robert E. Lee and the last standing Confederate field army. In a formal ceremony Lee’s army relinquished their arms, with McClellan giving a speech honoring the Union war effort that drew on his own (perhaps exaggerated) experience as commanding general. He then led the men in cheering at the defeat of their erstwhile foes. By the time President Fremont took office, the Confederacy had been officially defeated, with 10 states awaiting the conditions of their reentry into the Union, and the former Confederate leadership either imprisoned or cowering in foreign exile.
Reconstruction Phase 1
Fremont and the Radical Republicans immediately set about initiating the process of Reconstruction to restore Confederate states to the Union and rebuild a country ravaged by 8 long years of war. Shortly after the beginning of Fremont’s term, the 13th Amendment was ratified by the states and abolition was enforced throughout the country. As abolition went into effect, racial violence broke out across the nation targeted at newly freed slaves. Civil authorities were overwhelmed, especially in cities where large-scale riots broke out. In response, Congress passed acts to place all unreconstructed states under the control of military governments administered by the federal army.
With the unity achieved by a Republi
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This is the twentieth edition of my hypothetical presidential polling series. Use your alternative goggles to ponder what could have been John C Fremont winning the presidency as the first Republican nominee ever!
- Thomas Jefferson (1796): 3.3
- John Adams (1800): 2.6
- Charles Pinckney (1804): 2.8
- Charles Pinckney (1808): 2.4
- DeWitt Clinton (1812): 3.5
- Rufus King (1816): 3.4
- Andrew Jackson (1824): 1.6
- William Crawford (1824): 2.8
- Henry Clay (1824): 3.4
- John Quincy Adams (1828): 3.4
- Henry Clay (1832): 3.4
- William Wirt (1832): 3.6
- William Henry Harrison (1836): 3.0
- Hugh White (1836): 2.9
- Martin Van Buren (1840): 2.6
- Henry Clay (1844): 3.5
- Lewis Cass (1848): 2.2
- Martin Van Buren (1848): 2.6
- Winfield Scott (1852): 3.1
https://www.reddit.com/r/neoliberal/comments/ehamew/rneoliberal_elects_the_american_presidents_part/
At first glance, the Election of 1856 doesn't appear that close. Buchanan, by all accounts, blew Fremont out of the water. However, a strong showing by the American Party almost jeopardized Buchanan's victory.
In this timeline, Louisiana, Tennessee and Kentucky all flip to the American Party. This doesn't do much for former president Fillmore, but it does rob Buchanan of his electoral victory. As a result, the election goes to the House of Representatives - which, at this point, was controlled by an anti-Democratic coalition between the remnants of the Whigs, some Know-Nothings and the newly formed Republican Party.
We'll say that the House is not having any of Buchanan's shit and, on the way out, awards the presidency to John C. Fremont in mid-February, 1857.
The South makes good on their promise of secession in the event of a Fremont election and, two weeks before Fremont's inauguration, South Carolina secedes from the Union.
How would Fremont handle this? What do the sides look like? Is this Southern Rebellion stronger than in OTL? Does the Confederacy have a better shot at winning the war in this timeline? What happens with the Emancipation Proclamation? Is Jefferson Davis still President of the CSA?
For fun, what if Lincoln was chosen as his running mate in 1856?
Curious: How would the U.S.'s history be altered if Freemont won in 1856? Would we see an earlier Civil War? What would be the status of slavery and the rights of black men?
I'm not sure how he would win, so just decide how for this hypothetical. Maybe he picks up some middle states, Illinois, Pennsylvania, and California.
