The Presidents: Redux

[volksmarschall]

This is going on permanent hold too, mainly because I have little interest in the AAR and do not like how the construction of the AAR was going (or intended to go), being an entire GC narrative akin to the first Presidents over in Vicky. Not that I found it too repetitive, I didn't like the pace of the AAR, 8 pages in, but not even 6 years from the game's perspective. After I deal with a better structure to the work, I might continue this.

Excelsior!

 

[GreatUberGeek]

Awwww...this is a great AAR and I can't wait for the suitably epic conclusion. Though I think you should end with the end of Civil war.

 

[99KingHigh]

Volksmarschall - his interest in his own AAR's sways like Woodrow Wilson on intervention.

 

[Jape]

Volksmarschall - his interest in his own AAR's sways like Woodrow Wilson on intervention.

...and Burned.

This really sucks but I'm confident you'll come back ala the original Presidents. Hope my questioning didn't put you off. That and as a man who hasn't completed an AAR in a decade, I understand more than most would

 

[volksmarschall]

...and Burned.

This really sucks but I'm confident you'll come back ala the original Presidents. Hope my questioning didn't put you off. That and as a man who hasn't completed an AAR in a decade, I understand more than most would

Potentially very unlikely for a myriad of reason!

And no, I had decided I wanted to 'cut off' or 'end' the AAR with the Civil for many a reasons as well a while back, not the least I find this redundant and unnecessary, especially since you and rorlegion already have American AARs going.


Valete!

 

[BBBD316]

Well I shall miss the delving into the changes in American politics and religion, but have enjoyed the ride so far and I am sure you will explain the tensions of the CW with great aplomb.

 

[Forster]

Sad, so sad. I found this to be a very interesting. Hope you'll return at a later time.

 

[volksmarschall]

Sad, so sad. I found this to be a very interesting. Hope you'll return at a later time.

Probably not, even if you all have an interest -- I otherwise don't and don't care to continue this. More a result of a rush of poor planning on my part. Plus, I'm altogether too busy with an ongoing 3 year project that I'm finally about to finish.

 

[99KingHigh]

Probably not, even if you all have an interest -- I otherwise don't and don't care to continue this. More a result of a rush of poor planning on my part. Plus, I'm altogether too busy with an ongoing 3 year project that I'm finally about to finish.

Killer of dreams.

 

[volksmarschall]

Killer of dreams.

...And Destroyer of Hopes!

 

[DensleyBlair]

I come to catch up only to read that this won't be continuing! How's that for unreasonable?

As someone who has had many a project quashed by poor planning and blasted conniving time constraints, I can fully understand why you probably aren't all to enthusiastic about the prospect of writing another generation's worth of history.

For what it's worth, this was very enjoyable.

 

[volksmarschall]

I come to catch up only to read that this won't be continuing! How's that for unreasonable?

As someone who has had many a project quashed by poor planning and blasted conniving time constraints, I can fully understand why you probably aren't all to enthusiastic about the prospect of writing another generation's worth of history.

For what it's worth, this was very enjoyable.

To be fair, I have no plans on continuing this, even if I have all the updates through the 1844 election already written, but I've not decided that it's "Dead." After all, The Presidents Clay to Smith was dead for 2 1/2 years until I came back to the forum this January. I'm just not motivated to see this continue for a myriad of reasons, least among them I get lonely when I don't see a DB comment! And on a scale of 1-10 about my concern or 'love' for this AAR, it's a zero! So much for the IKEA! How's that for being unreasonable!

 

[volksmarschall]

Also I noted a weird sentence "tedious groups like the abolitionists"? Do you mean in the atmosphere of the 1840s they were seen as a minor irritant to the general live and let live policy of the Whigs or something else?

I thought I should appropriately answer your question, yes. The Whigs had a serious hate relationship with the abolitionists, since the Whig platform centered around: modernization, industrialization, and protectionism, and abolitionism was an afterthought. The Whigs actually had a very strong base in the south, and the yeomen west, and always felt that this key voting bloc would be alienated by the ascendancy of abolitionist and anti-slavery politics within the party. As we'll find out, when I get back to constructing the foundational basis for how I primarily want to continue this, you'll see, as what happened with the Whigs historically, they eventually had no choice to embrace, at the very least, the anti-slavery position. This, in part, ruined their political prospects in the Carolinas and border southern states (which were actually very Whig-friendly despite the southern stigma of being the "Solid South" from pre-Civil War to the 1960s). The concurrent rise of nativism broke their base in the north as well, and the death, almost in rapid succession, of their two figurehead leaders, Sen. Clay and Sen. Webster meant the party was unable to recover, even though the party was still around in 1856 and 1860, last merging with the Constitutional Union Party under Sen. Bell to try and be the mediator between the Republican north and Democratic (secessionist) south.

Whig opposition to westward expansion and the Mexican War was primarily rooted in the fear that "Manifest Destiny" was a jingoistic and patriotic concept for the expansion of slavery into the new territories, which it was anyways. This also hurt the party's PR when they ran Gen. Scott in 1852, since the largely anti-war Whigs had now nominated a war hero and fronted themselves as a pro-expansion party to counter the perception that they were an "anti-American" party for having opposed the war in the first place.

 

[volksmarschall]

The White Presidency

THE WHITE PRESIDENCY
No compromises! No union with slaveholders!
-William Lloyd Garrison, American abolitionist and pamphleteer.

The Great Betrayal​

The impending crisis of slavery was looming over the White Presidency with the prospective admission of Wisconsin and Minnesota as free states, which would shift the balance of power in favor of the free states over the slave states. This, to die hard segregationists and pro-slavery politicians in the Democratic Party in the South was unacceptable. In the meantime, the push for popular sovereignty to confront this looming crisis seemed only to be adding logs to a dangerous fire that was nearing the tipping point.

What made this crisis brew worse than it may have otherwise been was the fear of Whigs from southern states, who were generally defenders of slavery (i.e., they didn’t actively seek to abolish slavery) but weren’t as enthusiastic about expanding slavery into the western territories. However, many Whigs from the slave states realized that, with the anger at the Tariff of 1841 which they universally supported, and now the dangerous line they were treading over the admission of two additional free states to tilt the balance of power in favor of abolitionist politics (which was somewhat inaccurate since the majority of Whigs in the north, frankly, weren’t concerned with the issue outside of a small band of anti-slavery Whigs from states like Massachusetts and New York – the aforementioned “Conscience Whigs”).

However, the mere entertainment of overturning the Missouri Compromise had stirred the hornet’s nest in the north with militant abolitionists and anti-slavery Whig politicians staking their ground and essentially saying “hands off” of Wisconsin and Minnesota. In Duluth Minnesota, on January 19, 1842, one of the worst outbreaks of civil strife and chaos erupted in Antebellum American history when hardcore abolitionists and pro-slavery activists who had migrated up north in anticipation of voting through popular sovereignty exchanged in a bloody hour long battle called by the media, “The Devil’s Little War.” When it was discovered by abolitionists in the town that pro-slavery activists had mobilized at a local saloon, 9 abolitionists led by John Teague assaulted the pro-slavery activists. 5 men were killed during the struggle between local law enforcement disarmed both sides, only after both sides had expended all of their munitions.

New York Governor William Seward, a Conscience Whig, a week and a half later gave a speech in Albany calling upon President White to use his executive authority to prevent further civil strife in the Old Northwest Territories or face a serious political challenge (presumably by Seward himself, who was elected by a jubilant crowd of Whigs in the 1838 gubernatorial election and was considered by many, with his New York connections – especially in uptown Manhattan, as a new star in the Whig Party and a fresh face compared to the usual suspects: Clay, Webster, and White himself). Governor Seward maneuvered himself as another new leader of the Conscience Whigs, although stopped short of an outright endorsement of the abolition of slavery, rather embracing containment policies towards slavery.

A depiction of the conflict in northwestern territories between pro-slavery (popular sovereignty) supporters and abolitionists, known as "The Devil's Little War" (fought Minnesota and Wisconsin in particular, the centers of some of some of the violence). Right, Governor William Seward, the Whig governor of New York and a leader of the Conscience Whigs.​

In Washington, Leverett Saltonstall, in a highly publicized speech in the House of Representatives, publically repudiated the pro-slavery politics of the Democratic Party and attacked Senator Robert J. Walker of Mississippi, who, days earlier, had condemned the abolitionists for stoking the flames of violence and hatred (after all, they fired the first shots). Saltonstall cast the fight against slavery in moral terms, and was highly critical of the social contract and its racist roots[1]:

It is utterly appalling that, men of this government, in their inhumanity and disgust, would defend a practice and institution so heinous that, if the role was reversed onto them, would be begging and pleading for the abolitionist cause to succeed. Mr. Walker should be ashamed of himself for claiming the abolitionists are in the wrong, when the weight of God and Europe is so clearly behind the freedom of the slave. This covenant of states and persons must extend to the black man. There is no other alternative, or this eternal union shall be split asunder. To quote my friend William Lloyd Garrison, 'No compromises! No union with slaveholders!."' This is the enduring question of our time, and Almighty God shall strike down with a furious vengeance those who stand in the pathway of righteousness and justice.

Despite his clout and standing as a leader among the Conscience Whigs, Saltonstall would lose his reelection campaign to a “Cotton Whig”, Abbot Lawrence, a former Massachusetts congressman who had close ties to the textile industry which was frightened by the rhetoric of Mr. Saltonstall and the possible ramifications they would experience, especially after coming out of the Panic of 1837 as one of the great losers as President Johnson refused to bail industry out. In addition, pro-slavery advocates and "Cotton Whigs" in the north condemned the ironic secessionist rhetoric in Saltonstall's speech. However, this incident seemed to motivate White to abandon his anti-federalism and take a stand on the issue, well knowing he was going to be seen as a great traitor either to the abolitionist or pro-slavery causes.

White’s Decision​

When President White had written to Leverett Saltonstall questioning what to do over the rising popularity of Democrats and Southern Whigs to overturn the Missouri Compromise and replace it with the doctrine of popular sovereignty, Saltonstall replied, “By God, stop the expansion of slavery at all costs. It threatens to leave an eternal stain on the Union and will tear this country asunder.”

An image of the White House in the late 1830s or 1840s, it was the location of an intensifying debate about slavery. During Hugh Lawson White's presidency, Representative Saltonstall is said to have visited the President's residence even more than some of White's cabinet members. This was likely a propagated by pro-slavery Democrats who were critical of the Conscience Whigs and tried to paint White as being sympathetic to the abolitionist cause, which is sketchy at best.​

President White convened with his Cabinet and Vice President on March 19, 1842 to discuss the merits of backing either the abolitionists or the popular sovereigntists. Attorney General Lemuel Arnold and Treasury Secretary Thomas Ewing were the strongest supporters of keeping the Missouri Compromise in place. Ewing argued that they would not be siding with the abolitionists, but would be defending the current status-quo as Minnesota and Wisconsin, based on the dictates of the treaty, would have entered the Union as free states anyway. Vice President Badger, from North Carolina, a very strong slave state, was very aware that this decision might cost the Whigs their elections in 1842, and possibly the Presidential election in 1844 as pro-slavery forces in the south would reject the Whigs en masse, argued that backing popular sovereignty wasn’t the way to go, but instead, argued that the former New Mexico Territory should be separated from Texas and admitted as a slave state as compensation for the admissions of Wisconsin and Minnesota as free states.

White however, balked. Among the domestic policy initiatives of the Whig Party and President White that had yet to be accomplished a year into their presidency was the creation of a new national bank. The last President of the Second National Bank, Nicholas Biddle, had been writing President White to establish a new national bank as soon as possible. White, ever the pragmatist, realized that taking this future position on slavery would further alienate the Democrats and scare southern Whigs into certainly rejecting the national bank out of political self-survival as opposition to the bank was such an important political calling card for Southern Democrats and populists.

Nevertheless, White enacted an executive decision re-iterating the commitment to the Missouri Compromise and that, when Minnesota and Wisconsin would apply for statehood, they would enter as free states. Although the slavery issue was hardly settled, newspapers in the north, largely supportive of the Whigs, made sure to promote the fact that White had simply came out in support of the old Missouri Compromise and nothing more, and that it was the pro-slavery forces that wanted to enact radical political change, not White and the Whig Party (who were also running from the abolitionists and trying to present themselves as defenders of the status-quo and the pro-slavery and abolitionist forces as radical groups that would be fine with seeing social chaos in the streets for the passion of their cause). At the same time, White moved to create the Third National Bank of the United States.


[1]It is widely held in academic philosophy, to some degree, that the liberal concept of the "social contract" has significant racialist prejudices. One can read Dr. Charles W. Mills, The Racial Contract (1997) for a fuller academic discourse on its racist roots. Chief Justice Roger B. Taney, in the Dred Scott decision reiterated the point that Africans were not belonging to the social contract in his defense of the Court verdict, which Mills analyzes in depth in his large essay/book.

 

[DensleyBlair]

In the UK it was tariffs, here it's abolitionism; there's always an issue ready to tear a party in two. I'm hoping that the abolitionists can find themselves in a good position quite soon, though considering that we're only in 1842 I'm not entirely convinced that that's a reasonable hope.

Looking forward to watching the issue develop in any case.

 

[Enewald]

No, please, not another National Bank!

 

[Plushie]

It is great to see that such a finely detailed, historically literate AAR will continue. I don't often visit the fiction section of this forum and I even more seldom post on it, but let me say that your writings have pulled out from me a wonderful reaction

However, one little nit-pick: No free banking system existed in the US in 1837. There really was no single, formal system that replaced the Second Bank of the United States, certainly not any one that Jackson implemented (although, technically, the Independent Treasury System created under van Buren was a 'replacement', in the sense that it took the place of the Second Bank as the Federal government's fiscal agent). There were, instead, the myriad of state banking systems, all based on some form of chartered bank idea. Those who wished to form a bank would go to a state legislature and ask for a charter of incorporation, without which they were not permitted to engage in the business of banking (most states whose economies demanded banking services had outlawed money issue by unincorporated banks and corporations without state permission to do so by the 1810's or so, starting with Massachusetts in the 1780's IIRC), and the legislature would figure out some way of getting its slice (usually by requiring the new bank to buy state bonds or to give the state a loan, or sometimes by having the new bank's directors give loans to individual lawmakers in a somewhat more corrupt bargain), grant the charter, and get on with life. At its most publicly interested, banking at the time was considered a source of state funds and a primary driver of the market for state bonds. In many states this entailed a breathtaking degree of corruption in general, with whole legislatures being bought off, and the overall reform movement surrounding Jackson's Bank War eventually led to general dis-satisfaction with the state of banking in the US.

It was only in the aftermath of the 1837 Panic and Depression that the first (durable) Free Banking law was passed, in New York State, modeled on general incorporation laws that were just starting to find their way into the sphere of commercial corporations after a few decades of success amongst religious and educational institutions. However, this was very much a New York centric movement: While free banking statutes also popped up in Georgia and Michigan, the Michigan experience was short lived (technically first, actually) and both were not widely utilized, with little free banking taking place. Interestingly, some future Canadian provinces also got on board, but free banking laws were just as little used there as they were in Georgia. It was only in the 1850's that free banking laws took off much of anywhere else (with the last state to pass a free banking law being Pennsylvania, in 1860). In the after math of this the Lincoln administration modeled its National Banking System after the free banking systems of the several states, including the general incorporation aspect as well as the all important bond security clause (in every free banking state and in the National Banking laws, the banks were required to back their currency with the bonds of their respective governments, creating a natural market for state and Federal debt).

One of the interesting things to know is that, despite the suppression of state bank notes in the aftermath of the Civil War (via a tax on state issued bank notes, not via statute), free banking laws are still with us. Most of the states which instituted free banking in the antebellum era still have the laws on the books. Banks incorporated under state authority just don't issue their own currency anymore, instead being banks of deposit. It would probably technically be legal for them to start issuing notes again (the tax on state bank notes was done away with in one of the major financial reforms of the last 30 years, forget which), but they would face an immense up-hill battle in the courts and, even if they eventually won, Congress would probably quickly fix the oversight and outlaw their activity anyway.

Phew, ended up being more than a little nit-pick, sorry. Just get a bit over-interested in this subject a bit too easy because so much of what is 'common knowledge' is just plain wrong. There are few specialists in banking in this period and they are rarely consulted or well listened to when the general histories are written. Economic historians are kind of like the social outcasts of both economics and history.

 

[volksmarschall]

@ Plushie: It is 'common knowledge' among historians that when we refer to the 'free banking' system we are, in fact, referring to the myriad of state run banks operating on their own terms and issuing their own currencies without federal oversight or a National Bank despite the fact that they were unable to operate in a truly liberal manner -- at least with regards to expanding their assets and locations and were still hampered and restricted in many ways. I thought I had written that well enough for someone to infer that back when I covered the Panic of 1837...

Although I certainly appreciate some of the more interesting anecdotes in your comment, especially the raising of individual state statutes, more of a 'did you know' fact, but nonetheless something to add to the bag of knowledge now! Of course, as a professional, I'm certainly guilty of sometimes assuming that readers already know what I'm talking about. Frankly, my editors and reviewers whom I've sent papers to have politely responded back to me that I should explain, in more laymen's terms, what I mean when I'm talking about things that, in all honesty, only specialists will know, like when I talk about "Homogeneous Mass Democracy" (not in this AAR, but in a political philosophy paper I've written--and the editor wrote back that I should take the time to explain what I mean rather than just state it and assume that since I know it--the reader will also know what is meant by such phrases or words!

And I don't think economic historians are outcasts in their field. We read many economic historians while I was working as a undergrad in both economics and history, even read a few in philosophy too. And they are required readings in any historiography course, especially in graduate school. They just aren't read by the 'masses.' Frankly, only 'popular' histories are read by the wider population, and I've already, in many cases, have written and lectured on my disdain for popular histories and popular historians. One of my former econ profs had a whole bookshelf of nothing but books written by economic historians, to whom I'm eternally grateful for in his lending me some titles.

It is great to see that such a finely detailed, historically literate AAR will continue...

Well, I'm glad to you that you enjoy the AAR, but I have serious reservations about the last half of your comment...I'm much too busy with more important work, and frankly see this as nothing more than a re-hashing of my earlier Victoria 1 AAR on the same subject matter frankly.

Cheers!

 

[Kurt_Steiner]

Mmmmh... I think that the issue about slavery isn't dead at all...

 

[Nathan Madien]

I really did think this AAR had reached the end of the line and boom! An update! It threw me for a surprise.