(The Republican party was disbanded?)
It would seem two great nations fall to Conservatism.
It would seem two great nations fall to Conservatism.
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((Democrats are conservatism yes. And yeah, they were disbanded because there were hardly any players in it, and all they did was keep votes away from the Federalists and Democrats who had almost full players. Now we have a large number of independents.))
((BBB, if we gain enough support, can the GOP make a triumphant return to politics? Since myself, Avindian, Zagoroth, Seek, and Kinguter (Hi!) all seem interested in being members. Just a thought, and I don't want to pull a Southern Nationalist Party on you!))
((Bah, I just want fascism to activate. Assuming we're allowed to do fascism stuff, as long as it remains along reasonable lines.))
((Jamous was the last conservative "New Democrat" President. Since the end of reconstruction the newer "Democratic Party" has been a left wing party more focused towards centralisation, urban and the east coast in opposition to the Federalists' states decentralisation, rural and west coast priorities.))
((Since the Libertarian Party dissolved, it's been really hard to determine right and left wings - because the left-wing of the Libertarians joined up with the various right wings of all the different other major parties at the time.
Economic policy is all over the place in both parties. It's basically a big tent for both major parties, with the individual candidates or voters determining which policies seem to be advocated by the party at any one time. The Republican party, near the end of its life, had gotten a niche of the very pro-laissez-faire politicians - but then their dwindling support caused them to vanish as well. We'll see later whether they manage to sway one of the parties more to this direction, or whether their breakup is more like the Libertarians and both parties get some aspects of their policies.
The Federalists have typically been more pro-war than the other parties, although current nominee Daniel Vallejo isn't because of his military background. The Republicans were fairly isolationist, but the other two parties went back and forth on who was more open to alliances and action in the world and who wasn't.
The Democrats generally focus on urban labor. The party was originally lead by the great industrialists and capitalists of the time (Jamous and Howard particularly were barons of industry, and the elder Ignacio Vallejo owned a lot of property and smaller industries out West), and some elements of that focus are preserved. It also got a lot of the urban Libertarian influence, focusing on factory workers and the like.
The Federalists are more of an agrarian populist party, founded off of the western farmer, when it comes to labor. They're not really more pro-industrialist or pro-labor than the Democrats - but the way they came about their ideals is different because their power base is with the West.
Democrats and Federalists have both supported more centralization than some other parties, but for different reasons and with different exceptions (the main thing for the Federalists was their focus on the FBI, fighting crime, developing undeveloped land, etc.).
))
The Presidential Election of 1885
The National Conventions of 1884 are remembered mostly for one thing; the end of the Whig legacy in American Politics. The Republican Party went into the National Convention of 1884 having lost two presidential elections in a row, and not even to an incumbent. When Henry Jarvis, the man who had effectively kept the Republican Party going for the last 8 years, announced that he would not be running, the first proposals of disbandment came up.
Andrew Garrett was nominated unopposed. Seeing that his party had not managed to muster so much as a single opponent to his nomination, Garrett decided to end things before the party faced another humiliating defeat. He proposed the disbandment of the party already in his acceptance speech. Three ballots later, the Republican Party was no more.
The Federal and Democratic parties were thus the only ones left standing, bringing the United States back to a two-party system for the first time since before the Civil War. The Federal Party finally nominated long-time member and now-Secretary of War Daniel Vallejo, hoping that his credits in the Spanish-American War could stand up against the Democratic candidate; former president Callahan. Yet the National Conventions were, at the time, overshadowed by the drama in the Supreme Court.
1. Daniel Vallejo, a hero of the naval warfare in the Philippines.
The question of what do with the Confederate government had been a central subject of politics at the end of the Civil War, but by the end of Jamous’ second term the conversation had faded into the background as industrialization and the West took over the American mindscape. Thus when James Harrison’s Rough Riders captured the Confederates in Havana in 1880, and shipped them to the Maryland State Penitentiary, the form the trials would take was still undecided. Promises had been made, but the legislation had never truly been considered.
The burden of the legal wrangling thus fell to a generation that had fought the war the defendants were charged of causing. The prosecution had all served the Union in one way or another, Attorney General James Carmichael having lost his leg at 2nd Cincinnati and Deputy Attorney General Harry Davison having worked as a doctor in the Richmond-Staunton Campaign. Even the Supreme Court was composed of pro-Union men. Of the eight associate justices, six were northern, and three had been a part of the Army of the Potomac. The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Andrew C. Wilson, had been a member of the Whig Party since its foundation, and had then moved on to the Republicans.
Thus it was only fitting that Adelbert Johnson and the rest of the Confederate Government would be defended by men who had fought for them with guns instead of words 20 years earlier. The only non-veteran on the defence was Samuel Lee Davis, son of General Thomas J. L. Davis. The senior attorney for the defence, Algernon J. De Coureau had fought under the command of Robert E. Lee during the war, and had now organized a large group of the South’s finest lawyers to handle the defence pro bono.
2. Algernon J. De Coureau, the mastermind behind the defence.
De Coureau knew that many, if not most, of the defendants were doomed to death if the trials were treated as simple cases of rebellion, and thus undeniable treason [1]. To combat this, De Coureau decided to bring up the case of whether secession was indeed illegal. Despite numerous renunciations and declarations, secession had not been expressly forbidden by any legislation.
Thus De Coureau had his defence; he intended to make the defendants citizens of a foreign nation, who could not be tried for treason toward the United States [2]. In doing so, De Coureau could also give himself a chance to prosecute Union generals on the basis of the Geneva Convention [3]. De Coureau’s defence caught the prosecution and Supreme Court off-guard. The opening moves of Adelbert Johnson’s trial were thus significantly extended as the conversation branched off into forcing the Supreme Court to rule not only on Johnson’s guilt, but the legality of secession and status of the SRCSA.
It was the two Southern Justices who kept the trial going long enough for Adelbert to finish The Rise and Fall of the SRCSA. During this time, the rest of the Confederate government, numbering 39 people, was kept in custody, Samuel Lee Davis left the defence for his job as minister of the interior, and Chief Justice Wilson died of a heart attack [4]. Wilson was replaced by Holden Williams, cousin of the former president, who proceeded to bully the “Obstinate Duo” back into line.
3. Holden Williams, Chief Justice of the United States (1882-1896).
Secession was ruled an illegal act on August 15th 1882, on the justification of “the states having signed into a binding contract upon their acceptance of statehood. To break such a contract in any situation apart from the dissolution of the Union is both reprehensible and illegal”. Adelbert Johnson was spared the death penalty due to not being a “war-time authority figure among the rebellion”. Instead, Johnson was barred from political office, and sentenced to 10 years of house arrest [5].
Once secession had been ruled illegal, De Coureau’s strategy began to fall apart. One by one, the Supreme Court sentenced members of the Confederate government to imprisonment, barred them from political office, and crushed De Coureau’s hopes of fair trials. When they got to the most high-ranking Confederate officials, De Coureau could hardly get a chance to defend his clients. Confederate Secretary of National Production Cornelius Sulla Morrison III was sentenced to death by hanging. Secretary of State Edouard Saint-Denis was sent to the firing squad, as was Vice-president Donald Anderson.
The final Confederate trial ended on December 4th 1884. Only one man had been acquitted, a low-ranking government official who promised to testify against the others. De Coureau was beaten, as were the South’s hopes of getting the last laugh in court, but it is undeniable that the Lost Cause was propelled into existence by the reminder of the war that the trials brought forth.
[1] – To make things worse, the proposal for a hundred-man jury had been rejected by Callahan as being “cumbersome, inefficient and incapable of coming to an unbiased verdict, if it came to a verdict at all”. The fate of the defendants was completely and utterly in the hands of the Supreme Court, who formed an 8-man jury. The trials would be presided over by the Chief Justice.
[2] – The reason De Coureau was still capable of pulling out this defence was that, at the time of the initial post-war trials in the 1860s, secession had been automatically assumed to be illegal. Since the defence was so often a northern lawyer provided by the federal government, no effort was truly made to defend the accused, and no one had questioned the unwritten agreement.
[3] – The Geneva Convention was signed by the United States on July 15th 1869. In doing so, America had pledged to prosecute its generals in the case of war crimes against foreign citizens or subjects. Generals such as Young and Mandrake were thus saved the trouble of even a cursory mock trial for their actions in the Civil War, as they had legally not committed any crimes against foreign citizens or subjects.
[4] – The deadlock lasted from January 1st 1881, the first day of the trial, until July 3rd 1882, when Wilson had his heart attack.
[5] – Johnson’s sentence was not only the first, but one of the longest cases of house arrest in Western history.
The Candidates/Tickets of 1885
The Election manifesto of the Federal Party
Presidential Candidate: Daniel Vallejo
Vice-Presidential Candidate: Oliver Glynn
The Election manifesto of the Federal Party
Presidential Candidate: Daniel Vallejo
Vice-Presidential Candidate: Oliver Glynn
"My Fellow Americans, it is up to us now to further the causes and values that our predecessors handed down to us - to establish a just and lasting peace, to ensure the fair and equal usage of the democratic process, and to further prosperity and innovation among ourselves and our brothers around the world. To a world that is torn apart by the ills of tyranny we will provide an example of simple republican freedom and prosperity."
The Common Sense Planks of the Federal Platform
America will have honest and open negotiations with the peoples of the world.
- We will work together with the Commonwealth to pursue our common goals out of a spirit of mutual values and understanding.
- We will seek to form a Commonwealth Court to help formalize the processes of fair and open international arbitration as an alternative to war and petty intrigues, especially necessary for fragile democracies in developing regions like South America.
- We shall provide support for the fledgling militaries and governments of our new fellow nations in the Commonwealth, particularly the Philippines (which, due to its distance from us may be wrongfully thought of as an easy target for an imperialistic government or a cunning dictator). We shall seek out trade and naval base agreements with these nations.
- We shall support the integration of other free and democratic peoples into the Commonwealth and our other forums for trade and negotiation among equals.
America shall further her industrial progress with free and vibrant trade.
-We shall support the free enterprise of industry across our great land with only the necessary regulations and interventions as needed for the public good.
- Free Trade is an admirable goal - American industry can compete with the best that the rest of the world has to offer - and tariffs and quotas will be reduced slowly and with careful caution to this aim. Programs will be set up to support industries to alleviate any temporary growing pains associated with these changes. We will work together trade agreements with the Americas in particular, which can use our resources, and with the markets in Asia as well.
- We will maintain and improve on infrastructure where needed to promote industrial growth and the economic well-being of our workers.
- We will provide ways for labor and capital to negotiate without coercion, a place to come to fair and equitable agreements.
- We will ensure that working conditions are safe and sanitary, to improve the working conditions and productivity of the American worker.
America shall deter aggression against her liberties or the liberties of her allies by having a strong and ready military.
- We will expand the navy and expeditionary forces to be ready to respond to aggression and fight at the doorstep of our enemies rather than on our own soil when possible.
- Our greatest focus shall be to keep our military up to date with the changing technological and methodological progress in the arts of war, so that we may never appear weak and provoke attack.
- We shall support our friends - the democratic peoples of the world - against unlawful overthrow by tyrants with diplomatic and material support when it is needed.
- We shall position our expeditionary forces at the ready to deter invasion or surprise attack against us or our allies.
Peace shall reign over a truly free people.
- We shall continue to develop excellent methods of learning to continue to educate the American people.
- We shall develop the FBI to focus on the issues which local police are unable to deal with efficiently, adapting each regional command to the particular needs of its region (whether it be organized crime, anarchist plots, or other forms of criminal activity), and shall provide support for overextended local police forces in parts of the West where the spread of populations has outpaced the development of the law.
Election Manifesto of the Democratic Party
Presidential Candidate: Eamon Callahan
Vice-presidential Candidate: Jimmy Nightmore
Presidential Candidate: Eamon Callahan
Vice-presidential Candidate: Jimmy Nightmore
International Policy
• Oppose peacetime military presence in allied nations
• Supports a commonwealth that honors national sovereignty and cooperation over supreme authority
• Negotiate the entry of the French Republic in the Commonwealth
• Supply money and arms to democratic governments under attack by non-democratic governments.
• Supply military support for democratic governments under attack by internal forces.
Domestic Policy
• Concentrate FBI presence to regional offices rather than states. Focus efforts on counter-intelligence, criminal intelligence gathering and organizing interstate police cooperation
• Create a National Police College to train FBI and state police in common practice
• Push for constitutional reform – Proportional Elections for House of Reps
• Improve ports, beginning with the Pacific coast
• Protect the unions' right to assembly
• Fund trade schools in poorer areas to encourage the promotion of unskilled factory labor into educated workers
Economic Policy
• Subsidies the production of strategic goods only
• Maximum tariff of 1% on imports
• Increase the minimum wage and lower unemployment benefits
• Utilize a progressive tax rate (3% higher on Upper Class and 3% lower on working class)
• Bar government intervention in legal union negotiations that do not involve government employees
Military Policy
• Reform the Army Officer Corps with a General Staff system modeled on the successful Anglo-German Army
• Reform the Marine Expeditionary Forces with emphasis on divisions of combined advanced infantry, artillery and engineers
• Reform the Regular Army into divisions with emphasis on divisions of combined cavalry, artillery and engineers
• Completely replace obsolete units and ships over time
• Expand military only once modernization is complete
Minimal Interventionism
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Exceptional Situation(s):
Perhaps not my best work. If somebody wants to point out blatant errors in the trials, then please, go ahead.
On a happier note: Election time!
I cast my vote for Vallejo and the Federal Party. While I hoped Glynn to win the primaries, Vallejo is a fine candidate and will do the country great service.
I must put forward my vote for Vallejo, as the treacherous French must not be allowed into the Commonwealth, especially when the British would never agree to their admitance.
It is a shame that the former rebels were sentenced to death by this sham of a trial. Whether or not they were citizens of a foreign nation, the people of the South did not deserve the punishment given to them by Mandrake.
It is a shame that the former rebels were sentenced to death by this sham of a trial. Whether or not they were citizens of a foreign nation, the people of the South did not deserve the punishment given to them by Mandrake.
As much as it still pains me to vote for a hawkish candidate, I vote for David Vallejo since his economic policy is by far better than the other candidate!
((I've never been an American secretary... only a Texan one... hint, hint wink wink to the laissez-faire guys... Not to buy the vote, since I'm old and don't care about life in general anymore, just want to be more useful on a national level. And besides, I'm not voting for any government regulated or run economic policy))
((I've never been an American secretary... only a Texan one... hint, hint wink wink to the laissez-faire guys... Not to buy the vote, since I'm old and don't care about life in general anymore, just want to be more useful on a national level. And besides, I'm not voting for any government regulated or run economic policy))
(I cant even remember the name of the Federale character I created was, and unfortunately never updated my sig after Benjamin Bachmann)... (He was a senator from Texas, pro Laissez Faire, Pro-War, Federale, whatever)
It is disappointing to re-enter politics with the demise of the Republican Party. It is dangerous, in fact, to only have two choices of parties to vote for. I cast my vote for Vallejo for his freer economic policies.
However, I will mull over how best to bring back the Liberal ideals that once made this nation great, into politics again. Does anyone else desire to bring back Liberal ideals to politics?
It is disappointing to re-enter politics with the demise of the Republican Party. It is dangerous, in fact, to only have two choices of parties to vote for. I cast my vote for Vallejo for his freer economic policies.
However, I will mull over how best to bring back the Liberal ideals that once made this nation great, into politics again. Does anyone else desire to bring back Liberal ideals to politics?
((Pretty sure Bachmann would either be dead or seriously old at this point.))
Also, I vote Vallejo.
Also, I vote Vallejo.
((Again, BBB possible Republican return?
And my character is older than dirt... like mid-80's. Grandson coming in the next decade...))
And my character is older than dirt... like mid-80's. Grandson coming in the next decade...))
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(Bachmann is gone, I meant I never got around to changing my sig even when I made a new character, who I forgot.)
(If not a Republican return, than a close consortium of candidates who all believe in the Republican party ideals, and who can vote together and back similar reforms?)
(If not a Republican return, than a close consortium of candidates who all believe in the Republican party ideals, and who can vote together and back similar reforms?)
I Abstain from this election in protest of the Kangaroo Courts forced upon my Countrymen by the leaders of this country.