The Presidents: 1836-1936 - An Interactive US AAR

[robb1993]

((We're assuming, for the moment, that the Senator has been elected as an Independent. My character is 26, hence the birth date; what else would you like to know?))

To the Honorable Congressman from Virginia: Many immigrants are barred from certain areas of employment, are often mistreated by the so-called "upper class" as being unworthy of their time and attention. Most importantly, unless a culture is "acceptable" to the powers-that-be, we cannot vote and make our voices heard. I was born in this great country, and so enjoy the benefits as befit a citizen of these United States, but that is not the case for many who have recently come to these shores. I only ask that, provided they have proven their loyalty, all immigrants will be given a fair opportunity to become citizens.

To Senator Gallatin: I can only respond, hear, hear!

And rightly so. Why should we let the Russian, the Irishman, the Mexican vote... What have they contributed to this country? They are nothing but the free labour in the field and the log carrier in the woods. May I remind Congress many of these 'immigrants' are not so, they inhabited land rightly ours and we had to fight to paint the map blue against these same people who now demand liberties.
No to Russian voting!
No to Russian rights!

As for those who come to our shores, if they want citizenship then they should assimilate to American culture

[robb1993]

YES

Take the fight to Mexico and defend these nations against Mexican tyranny. God gave these lands a mission, a nation spanning from coast to coast. We achieved this dream in Washington and Oregon!
We can achieve it in California, Nevada and Utah!
God Bless America!

[Caezaire]

Mexico Agression: Aye, it is tume to end the bad blood over the liberation of Texas. America needs to show them that our colonists will not be harmed or violated by other nations. However one thing springs to mind. Slavery must not be allowed in the new territories. The expansion of slavery into new territory will prove to our citizens and the world that we have no plans to phase out slavery. Now is the time to proove that we aim for freedom.

[Red Cesar]

No

While we elected this party on the platform of peace and moderation, we are allowing the newly elected hypocritical government to waste the lives of innocent young men, when civilians are not directly in danger!

[WelshDude]

I regret I am few on news south of the border, and must enquire what state their government is in. When I last heard it was a 'democracy', but voting was restrivted to the upper classes.

[BigBadBob]

I regret I am few on news south of the border, and must enquire what state their government is in. When I last heard it was a 'democracy', but voting was restrivted to the upper classes.

Mexico is Santa Anna's personal playground. They say it is a democracy, but he has made himself President-for-life, and thus King, in all but name. Voting is restricted to the upper class, for it is easier to control the nobles of Mexico City with fear, than an entire nation.

PS. This was always going to be a short vote. Polls closed.

President Cameron has the right to do what he feels is best for the United States when it comes to affairs with Mexico.

[King50000]

President Cameron has the right to do what he feels is best for the United States when it comes to affairs with Mexico.

The Military is awaiting your orders President Cemeron. If you order it we will begin our move into Mexican oppressed territory.

[WelshDude]

I wish to inform the Administration that I am willing to help in whatever way I can on the political side of the war.

[Caezaire]

Mr. President, please use whatever forces Montana has to offer. (you could probably pick up 100 soldiers and enough trees to make a bridge)

[robb1993]

The Oregon Millita stands ready to liberate these lands from the bean-eating tyrant Santa Anna

[King50000]

The Oregon Millita stands ready to liberate these lands from the bean-eating tyrant Santa Anna

((bean-eating tyrant? tyrant is enough for this guy XD))

[WelshDude]

I would like to ask how you know whether Santa Anna likes beans or not.

[Mikeboy]

Spies.

[BigBadBob]

The update about Santa Anna and his beans is incoming!

[King50000]

Spies who sell beans

[BigBadBob]

Cameron: Justice on the Border

Cameron’s victory in 1841 can be attributed almost solely to the popular fear of the SNP that the Union party whipped up expertly during campaigning season. Cameron’s campaign managers, who included soon to be former president King, made it seem as though the SNP’s only objective was for the South to rule the North. Understandably, this killed Davis’ chances in the North.
The South on the other hand, was where the SNP gained its votes. Almost every last vote cast in the South went to Davis and Hensdale. Yet despite such impressive numbers, the winner of the election was clear from the start. When the newly elected President Cameron gave his inaugural, few saw past the landslide victory the President had achieved, and noticed that all of the SNP’s political objectives, with the exception of “Southern Autonomy” [1] had been achieved with the passing of the Davis Compromise and Militia Laws [2].

1. Results for the 1841 election.

Cameron’s first act in office was to oversee the reinstitution of slavery in Texas. The unintended consequence of this act was the mass migration of anti-slavery Texans and soon-to-be enslaved blacks. They moved both north and west, bringing American ideals further into Mexican territory as they did. The Mexican government, which had in all respects become Santa Anna’s servant, responded with harsh measures, such as barring of borders and confiscation of immigrant property.
President Cameron was outraged. He demanded that Santa Anna put a stop to such measures. When no answer was given, Cameron asked the Senate for permission to act as he deemed fit when it came to Mexico. The Senate, equally outraged as it was, approved the Presidential Prerogative for Mexico. The immediate result was a strengthening of border control by Mexico. This served only to further incense the president, who authorized a small scale raid into Mexican territory.
The raiding force, commanded by Nicolas Khur [3], completely destroyed a Mexican garrison town, and returned any property found there to Americans. Khur and his men returned to Fort Houston on February 12th 1842, and were greeted as heroes by the crowd of people outside Austin. Santa Anna responded by raiding American settlements in Colorado, which Cameron sent Khur to protect. For all intents and purposes, the United States was at war with Mexico.
This is not to say that the question of slavery fully retreated. The first true test of Cameron’s presidency was after all the way he handled the situation of the Amistad. The British government insisted that Cameron intervene in the legal proceedings, which had been going on for months. Eventually, the president did intervene, showing that he was still essentially anti-slavery by placing the notoriously abolitionist judge Andrew Semmings in charge of the case.
It was to Cameron’s credit that he managed to turn the nation’s attention away from this, and to the question of Mexico. The president is seen as the single most important figure in the birth of the idea of Manifest Destiny. It would become one of his best weapons as the situation on the border escalated.

2. John F. Cameron, 9th President of the United States.

Cameron’s foreign priorities as Santa Anna stepped up his campaign in Colorado were the relations with Britain. Cameron knew that the British disapproved of American support of the Texan rebels, and also that if the British supported the Mexicans, any war between the United States and Santa Anna would not end in the Republic’s favor. With this in mind, Cameron endeared himself to the Baron Ashburton, who had become the British Ambassador to Washington, while simultaneously making sure that Mexico would refuse British help by instituting a smear campaign against the United Kingdom.
Coupled with the alliance Cameron signed with the UPCA, the president turned Mexico into a pariah on the North American continent. When Santa Anna’s raids continued even after international recognition of Colorado as American territory, the process was complete. All Cameron needed was one final provocation with which to justify a full-scale war.
Cameron was given permission to raise a full 36 brigade army to place on the Mexican border as early as November 2nd 1842, but Santa Anna would go no further than continue to give Khur’s forces minor skirmishes in Colorado. While Santa Anna continued to run amok on the border, slavery reared its head for one last time before tensions with Mexico boiled over. In June 1843, the famed abolitionist John Brown was hanged in Virginia after attempting to raid a military armory. Brown had hoped he would succeed and gain the same reputation among abolitionists as General Khur enjoyed with the nation as a whole, but the attempt failed, and most abolitionists were quick to denounce John Brown.
On December 25th 1843, Santa Anna finally made the mistake Cameron had been waiting for. He attacked Colorado’s capital of Denver, and set fire to it. Khur’s troops caught Santa Anna at the border on January 6th, having chased him all over Colorado territory. Experience had taught Santa Anna that American troops would stop at the border, having been given orders to not violate Mexican territory so that the United States could claim the moral high ground. This time Khur did not stop, as earlier that day President Cameron had formally declared war on Mexico.
While Khur’s forces engaged the Mexican raiding force, the entire United States Army was crossing the border in at Cave Junction in Oregon, Grand Junction in Colorado, and Devine and Odessa in Texas. On Mexico’s Southern border, a Central American invasion force was also on the move, with the objective of securing the Yucatan. The Mexican-American War had begun.

3. Nicolas Khur, General of the Army [4] in 1844.

The first battle of the war was fought at Eureka, where Joshua Young’s 1st Corps, composed of 24,000 purely Northern soldiers faced 15,000 Mexicans on January 19th. The battle began with Young’s infantry moving forward on the battlefield under heavy fire, with as much artillery support as 1st Corps could muster. The Mexicans, under Vicente Salas, had the high ground, but were much less capable than the Americans.
US troops lost at least 1,000 dead advancing to firing range, after which the Northerner successfully flanked the Mexicans on the right. The effect was electric, with the Mexican line caving in and descending into a chaotic rout as the 3rd Boston Rifles began firing on them from behind. Young ordered his cavalry to finish off the Mexican force, and they managed to kill another 2,000 Mexicans, bringing the estimated total to 7,700 Mexican dead, in return for 2,572 Americans.
The battle of Eureka elevated Young to the status of a national hero. He undoubtedly had talent in the battlefield, but that talent would largely go to waste for the remainder of the year. For Santa Anna focused on holding the territories south of Nevada instead of trying to challenge Young’s force.

4. A painting of the battle for Eureka [5].

The first American defeat of the war came near Laredo, on April 17th, when Eugene Wilson’s small 3,000 man recon force from 3rd Corps was attacked by 15,000 men under the command of Santa Anna. Despite the battle being counted as a defeat because Wilson retreated, his brigade of engineers from Harrisburg managed to kill 1,924 Mexicans before the loss of half the brigade forced the retreat. Santa Anna claimed it to be a victory, but it was in fact a humiliation.
The Mexicans retreated from Laredo once news reached Santa Anna of 3rd Corps’, now under the full command of Wilson, advance. The “Napoleon of the West” did not want to risk any defeats, for Laredo was one small victory in a period between January and August 1844 that saw American forces occupy numerous important points on the Mexican border.
Joshua Young also saw action in June. Having occupied Eureka and Sacramento, Young had sufficiently riled Santa Anna for a small force of 9,000 men to be sent against him. Fortunately for Young, Thomas Mejia decided to split his already meager force, and was thus destroyed outright in battles at Eureka and San Francisco. Once again, Young was praised far and wide in the press.
The string of American victories was stopped short in late August, when Santa Anna maneuvered his army to threaten the recently occupied area of Utah. General Eugene Washington’s Army of Observation, being composed mostly of Southerners [6], was sent by Khur to counter and destroy the threat of yet another 15,000 man Mexican force.
The forces met at Flagstaff, where the Mexicans had dug strong defensive positions outside the city. Washington ordered a frontal assault, despite being advised to wait for the arrival of more artillery, and the result would go down as the worst American defeat of the war. In four days of fighting, 9,796 Southerners died assaulting the defenses at Flagstaff. Mexican losses were only at around 2,000 when Washington called the retreat.
The battle has gone down in the history of the army as a warning against frontal assaults, and in the South as a warning against the feeling of military supremacy. The battle also created an essential part of Southern culture, the Charge of the 3rd Alabamian Brigade. The brigade charged the most heavily defended Mexican position at Flagstaff, and took it, but at a horrendous cost of more than a third of its men [7].

5. Alexander Huddle’s painting of the 3rd Alabamian Brigade.

The battle of Flagstaff did not weaken American resolve as Santa Anna had hoped, and Cameron had feared, but instead seemed to strengthen it. The losses of the Army of Observation were made up purely of Southerners who signed up as a result of the post-Flagstaff recruitment surge. This surge gave Cameron the confidence to go further than demand Santa Anna to cease infringing on the rights of Americans in Mexican territory.
On November 27th, Cameron held a speech for the Senate, in which he announced that to deter Mexican aggression, more drastic measures were necessary than monetary and military concessions. He told the senate that the United States was demanding the cession of all Mexican territory north of the Rio Grande in return for peace. The Senate was reportedly ecstatic, a mood which would fizzle down soon, but at the time it seemed assurance that the war was going to go America’s way.

[1] - Thomas Hensdale famously said, while campaigning in Ohio, that the SNP simply wanted the "South to be run like the South, and the North to be run like the North".

[2] – The Militia Laws essentially rendered the militias incapable of rebellion.

[3] – The same Khur who campaigned for the Democrat Presidential nomination in 1836.

[4] – Khur was elevated to the position, which effectively made him commander-in-chief, on January 5th 1844, while pursuing Santa Anna.

[5] – Once more, the battle has been named after the nearest large town. In fact the battle was fought around 3 miles from Eureka.

[6] – There was a general feeling in the armed forces at the time that Southern soldiers were markedly better than Northern soldiers, due to the Southern practice of militias and penchant for hunting.

[7] – Walt Whitman later made a poem about the incident, “The Charge of the Alabamian”, which has become a near mandatory subject of school study in Alabama, and elsewhere in the South.

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Exceptional Situation(s):

Primary time! Announce your candidacies (Whig, Democrat, SNP)!

[King50000]

Fellow Americans and Senators, President Cameron's decree that all Mexican Territory north of the Rio Grande shall be undertaken to the fullest degree by our Armed Forces. The loss of the Army of Observation is a terrible blow, both to the war effort and the South itself, but we shall learn from our mistakes and carry on. General Young and Myself are making great strides across the west and it is only a matter of time before Santa Anna must sue for peace. I shall see to it that that not another American citizen is harmed by the tyranny of Santa Anna. Mexico shall pay for the burning of Denver and the loss of its inhabitants, this I swear to the Union and you, my fellow Americans.
-Letter sent by Nicolas Khur from an undisclosed camp near Durango, Colorado

[Frymonmon]

((Great update like always))

Glad to see my ticket was able to capture most of the South ((Maryland and Delaware.... you suck)), and I can only wonder what this great war we are engulfed in will herald for the ever-lasting question of slavery. I do hope we can make it through.

((I was disappointed you didn't use my "Run the South like the South line" darn.))

[BigBadBob]

((I was disappointed you didn't use my "Run the South like the South line" darn.))

DAMN! I'll try to sneak it in now.

Edit: It is done. the line is now footnote [1].

[King50000]

((we really need to explain the whole bean-eater thing too. an entire update on it should do the trick ))