- Pronouns
- He/Him
The Land of Traitors, Rattlesnakes, and Alligators
"Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery—the greatest material interest of the world."
Presidents of the Confederate States of America
1861 - 1868: Jefferson Davis (Non-Partisan)
1861 (with Alexander Stephens) def. unopposed
1868 - 1874: P. G. T. Beauregard (Democratic)
1867 (with James Seddon) def. John Pool (Opposition), Williamson Cobb (Unionist)
1874 - 1880: Fitzhugh Lee (Democratic)
1873 (with Albert G. Brown) def. Patrick Cleburne (Opposition)
1880 - 1882: James Longstreet (Democratic)
1879 (with Lucius Lamar II) def. William Mahone (Opposition)
1881 - 1882: War of the Mexican Intervention: C.S.A., French Republic, United Kingdom restore government of Empire of Mexico, defeat U.S.A.
1882: Hampton Coup
1882 - 1885: DISPUTED; The Slavers' War / Third American Revolution / War of the Manumission
1882 - 1884: James Longstreet† (Democratic / National Unity, backed by Opposition, Loyalist Army)
1884 - 1885: Lucius Lamar II (Democratic / National Unity)
1882 - 1885: Wade Hampton III ("Fire-Eater" then Constitutionalist, backed by Anti-Administration Democratic)
1883 - 0000: Cuban Revolution; José Antonio Maceo y Grajales (Asociacion Independentista) declared President of Cuba by revolutionaries, recognised by United States
1885 - 1886: Lucius Lamar II (Democratic / National Unity)
1886 - 0000: John S. Marmaduke (Democratic)
1885: Absolom West (Anti-Monopoly / Corn-Coal-Cotton League / Farmers' Alliance / Opposition fusion ticket) plurality over John S. Marmaduke (Democratic), Lucius Lamar II (National Unity), States Rights Gist (Nullification)
1886 contingent election (with Lucius M. Walker) def. Absolom West (Opposition), Lucius Lamar II (National Unity)
When the British and French agreed to back the Confederates against the Americans in the rapidly-escalating dispute over the Mexican situation, they were exceedingly clear on their conditions: manumit your slaves within a year of the end of the war. Facing a large and angry United States, President Longstreet, a strategic realist if not necessarily a political one, agreed. And after ten short months, it was all over. The South stood triumphant for the second time in twenty years, and the broad sunlit uplands of an era of good feelings lay ahead.
Except for the Manumission Amendment.
Getting all fourteen states to agree on anything was like herding cats at the best of times. Getting all fourteen to agree to amend out of existence the peculiar institution that was the cornerstone of their young nation's existence posed, to put it mildly, an uphill struggle. That hill got a lot steeper when Wade Hampton convinced Stonewall Jackson to stand with him and resist what he and most other traditionalist Confederates considered treason. The Army of Kentucky received orders to march on Richmond, the state militias began to fragment between those loyal to the president and those 'faithful to the Constitution', and slave uprisings began sparking off across the South.
Where the Confederacy had won each of its wars against the Union in a year, the war against itself would take three; a mestizo revolution in Cuba dislodged most of the Confederates (from both sides) from what was meant to be the first piece of a Caribbean empire, President Longstreet would be slain by an unemployed overseer from rural Virginia, and even after the last Constitutionalist holdouts surrendered in fall 1885 bushwhackers would continue to strike from the hills and swamps.
Not that Longstreet's successor Lamar would need to worry about it; between the disenfranchisement of rebels by the loyalty oaths, the groundswell of anger from poor whites, and much tutting by those who didn't believe it Constitutional (the good kind, not the rebellious kind) for him to stand for election, he came a distant third and only succeeded in splitting the Democratic vote. But while the populist Opposition coalition won the popular vote, they fell short in the Electoral College and then the House, where a corrupt bargain saw them lose to the Democrats (who quite liked the idea of staying in charge, thank you).
The United States, while wounded and vengeful, did not immediately take advantage of their neighbour's strife. For one, the French and British remained poised to strike; for another, the US Army and Navy needed time to recover; finally, an invasion would only unite the warring halves of the Confederacy against the North.
However, the new Administration of President Sherman and his Unionist Party is beginning to weigh its options.
The Mexican insurgency grinds remorselessly towards a successful conclusion, as that charming General Díaz hacks his way to Mexico City through the a hapless Imperial Government now bereft of protection. Cuba is all but independent, and rabidly pro-American. Confederate society is coming apart at the seams on both class and conflict lines. The Southern military has been gutted by four years of constant war, and the new President can't be certain he can trust his own men (many of whom were, after all, trying to kill him eighteen months ago). Richmond is dragging its heels with a gradual model of emancipation that will see the last slaves freed sometime around 1908, if the states don't get tied down in litigation; consequently, Britain has lost all appetite for further American follies while France has bigger problems at home. The U.S. Army has been stripping deadwood relentlessly, and the conscription programme is starting to turn out classes of reservists.
And steaming down the Mississippi just now, right around the bend from a group of Constitutionalist bushwhackers, a Union-flagged riverboat is about to give John Sherman a big bloody shirt to wave around.
One of the few lists in this thread that I desperately want to see expanded upon thanks to the prose and imagination.
Strikingly reminiscent of Red Delta by @MAC161 which has as its background history a successful CSA then slowly destroying itself internally in the aftermath; if memory serves, it effectively sees each State stick two fingers up at President Longstreet and say "I didn't listen to the Damnyankees and I won't listen to you" with predictably bloody consequences