Imperium Offtopicum: The Peshawar Lancers

Roosevelt Resigns!

Theodore Roosevelt has resigned his post as Premier after Congress’s composition failed to change for the new session.

The Premier has been campaigning personally, travelling the nation by train, giving speeches, in an attempt to rally support and influence the Territorial Governments to nominate Congressmen willing to repeal the Silver Standard. Though personally popular, Roosevelt failed to produce support for his policies. Most Territorial leaders were hesitant to follow Roosevelt into a return to partisan politics, and free silver is simply too popular among the farmers, homesteaders and transient workers.

Though Roosevelt’s re-election as Premier was assured, he resigned the post, citing his inability to influence the policy of the body he supposedly led. The Premiership has always been a constitutionally weak office; most of the power usurped by Roosevelt during the Western Civil War has been restored to the Presidency.

Roosevelt has turned his attention to personal challenges, though he says he still views the interests of the nation as his own. He says he is preparing an expedition into the Central Plains, beyond the homestead line. He claims he is eager to return to the life of the frontier that he left after the Fall.

Roosevelt is expected to be succeeded by Charles Wilson Nibley, a prominent LDS church member who has managed several important companies under the Zion's Board of Trade in the past few decades.

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Territorial Reorganization
&
Homestead Policy​

Territorial Reorganization Act

The old borders of the States and Territories of the United States have outlived the era in which they were created; there has been widespread agreement that the old borders no longer matched the state of the nation. To that end, the Congress and Quorum have passed the Territorial Reorganization Act, which redraws the borders of the Territories and establishes the a new system of their administration.

The Colorado, Arizona and Nevada territories are annexed by the Utah territory, as well as half of New Mexico. Their governments have long been either non-existent or de facto arms of the Utahn local administration; this arrangement is now reflected by law.

The other half of New Mexico, as well as the Indian Territory and Louisiana, have been allocated to the government of the old State of Texas, which is now reclassified as the Texas Territory.

California’s borders have been slightly modified; it now consists of the area from around San Francisco Bay southward, to the northern half of Baja California.

Northern Mexico has been admitted as a Territory of equal standing with Utah, Texas, and California, and is titled Sonora-Chihuahua after the largest cities. This Territory has been fully Americanized by the past decades of refugee settlement and homesteading.

Mexico proper has been reorganized into a single territory; it is currently classed as a “probationary territory” until it reaches certain criteria, such as a percentage of the population being competent in English and being non-Catholic. The “Isthmus Territory” which includes the southernmost portion of Mexico, and the Yucatan, has been accorded similar status, though the government there is still being organized and its southern border is awaiting negotiation with the CSA.

The rest of the old United States has been classified as “frontier territory.” Citizens are discouraged from settling this land unless officially sanctioned by the government.

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Homestead Act of 1911

The Homestead Act of 1911 supercedes the old Utahn Homestead Policy. Sonora-Chihuahua is no longer considered a homestead zone, with most of its land having been distributed.

The reaches of the northern Mississippi, Missouri and Ohio Rivers has been designated as the “Old Northwest” frontier territory, and opened to more aggressive homestead settlement. Similarly, a region containing Northern California and Oregon has been organized around the Californio-era fortified “Nortehold.” This new territory, renamed North Hold, has swelled in population from refugees from the San Francisco earthquake; they are encouraged to settle north, into Oregon, using homesteads.

In order to get the economy moving and encourage settlement in these areas, the government is offering not only free land, but free silver, to anyone who moves to the frontier and improves the land. Cash payments will be made on an annual basis to anyone owning property and living on homestead-qualified frontier territory. As usual, potential benefits per family depends on the number of family members.

Homesteading is barred on other frontier territories, which have been currently deemed too dangerous or too far-flung for the government to support resettlement.

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An abandoned prairie homestead, ready to be claimed by pioneers​