More radical reconstruction leads to Black majority states in the South

[Catalunya]

Could a more radical reconstruction plan, perhaps by VP Johnson also getting shot, lead to black political majorities in some Southern states? From the top of my head Louisiana, Mississippi and South Carolina had black majorities, and might have been solid R states.

I would also be interested in how such a development would affect the Republican party and America as a whole. For some reason I feel like it could lead to a stronger left-wing presence in the Republican party, and as a result the rest of the US.

I’ll also just quote our forum Civil War specialist @Japhy here. I’m especially interested in his thoughts on this subject.

 

[Japhy]

Between enacting land reform in the South After the war (Something that could happen without Johnson or another Liberal in the White House) or Congress going with the State Suicide Theory and redrawing the borders, yeah I think that black majority or plurality (supported by White Unionists) states are a pretty easy to get outcome.

I would hesitate to extend that out the way you're going tough. Black politics during Reconstruction are not just the proto-socialism that a lot of AH folks want to imagine they are. Land Reform is certainly a radical step, but the key advantage therein isn't that it would have transformed everything all at once, but that it would have helped entrench the Freedmen financially and politically while damaging the power of the planter elites. Long term, by 1900 for example, I think that can easily lead to huge changes, but in the time before support for Reconstruction and Republican Party dominance runs down it would mostly just be a goal of entrenching what gains were established in the immediate end of the war.

 

[Catalunya]

Between enacting land reform in the South After the war (Something that could happen without Johnson or another Liberal in the White House) or Congress going with the State Suicide Theory and redrawing the borders, yeah I think that black majority or plurality (supported by White Unionists) states are a pretty easy to get outcome.

I would hesitate to extend that out the way you're going tough. Black politics during Reconstruction are not just the proto-socialism that a lot of AH folks want to imagine they are. Land Reform is certainly a radical step, but the key advantage therein isn't that it would have transformed everything all at once, but that it would have helped entrench the Freedmen financially and politically while damaging the power of the planter elites. Long term, by 1900 for example, I think that can easily lead to huge changes, but in the time before support for Reconstruction and Republican Party dominance runs down it would mostly just be a goal of entrenching what gains were established in the immediate end of the war.

Wouldn’t a stronger black political presence lead to a more severe, yet more equal, polarization? Kind of like something we have now in Georgia.

Also how likely is it that Southern Republicans form part of the vanguard of the feminist movement around the turn of the century? In OTL the NAACP had a lot of women in influential positions, especially for its time.

 

[Japhy]

Wouldn’t a stronger black political presence lead to a more severe, yet more equal, polarization? Kind of like something we have now in Georgia.

If the rights of Freedmen are entrenched, I would expect there to be some sort of polarized balance yes, with blacks on one side, confederate die hard rights on the other, and the "Scaliwag" or "Unionist" white Bloc as a swingable faction. Or at least, I would expect that to function as such until the next big political shakeup (see: the rise of the Populists and their role in coopting and then destroying the black vote in what parts of the South Blacks had retained voting access after 1876)

Also how likely is it that Southern Republicans form part of the vanguard of the feminist movement around the turn of the century? In OTL the NAACP had a lot of women in influential positions, especially for its time.

I wouldn't say that its likely at all.

Again, the political organizations that were being built during Reconstruction were not some proto-socialist vanguard. What Socialist and Proto-Socialist, and Labor organizations there were in the United States were in fact, firmly opposed to Civil Rights and the Radicals.

I would caution looking at the Freedmen or the Radical Republicans are clear cut forerunners of later Radical Political movements, sometimes there is overlap, but by and large the ideology, aspirations, and policies were in line with the majority of the Republican Party: that of a 19th Century Liberal reform movement. To put it simply Booker T. Washington, and the Tuskegee Institute have a much greater claim to being their intellectual successors then DuBois and the NAACP crowd.

 

[Japhy]

I'm sorry if I'm being overly critical, but a lot of people in the AH community have developed some very incorrect, and I think personally problematic views about Reconstruction.

You can absolutely transform the direction of the United States with changes to that era in a lot of ways. But a better Reconstruction Policy fundamentally is "just" going to be the development of a more equitable capitalist system, and the development of a bi-racial political establishment in the American South, within the framework of the same United States that existed IOTL.

I think the mistake is akin to what happens with 1848, where a lot of people based on folks like Marx and Engels want to paint it to be a revolution akin to the Paris Commune or 1917, when in fact it was much more in line with the Liberal revolutions (such as 1848) that preceded it. And when you turn it into that, people are tending to erase the people who fought for those gains just as much as the Jim Crow Aristocracy did after they regained power and began the whitewash of their crimes.

 

[Catalunya]

If the rights of Freedmen are entrenched, I would expect there to be some sort of polarized balance yes, with blacks on one side, confederate die hard rights on the other, and the "Scaliwag" or "Unionist" white Bloc as a swingable faction. Or at least, I would expect that to function as such until the next big political shakeup (see: the rise of the Populists and their role in coopting and then destroying the black vote in what parts of the South Blacks had retained voting access after 1876)



I wouldn't say that its likely at all.

Again, the political organizations that were being built during Reconstruction were not some proto-socialist vanguard. What Socialist and Proto-Socialist, and Labor organizations there were in the United States were in fact, firmly opposed to Civil Rights and the Radicals.

I would caution looking at the Freedmen or the Radical Republicans are clear cut forerunners of later Radical Political movements, sometimes there is overlap, but by and large the ideology, aspirations, and policies were in line with the majority of the Republican Party: that of a 19th Century Liberal reform movement. To put it simply Booker T. Washington, and the Tuskegee Institute have a much greater claim to being their intellectual successors then DuBois and the NAACP crowd.

Would the Populists be able to achieve the same level of success that they did OTL in the south? I feel like the transracial coalition building that happened in North Carolina would be a lot harder in a more polarized political setting.

I'm sorry if I'm being overly critical, but a lot of people in the AH community have developed some very incorrect, and I think personally problematic views about Reconstruction.

You can absolutely transform the direction of the United States with changes to that era in a lot of ways. But a better Reconstruction Policy fundamentally is just going to be the development of a more equitable capitalist system, and the development of a bi-racial political establishment in the American South, within the framework of the same United States that existed IOTL.

I think the mistake is akin to what happens with 1848, where a lot of people based on folks like Marx and Engels want to paint it to be a revolution akin to the Paris Commune or 1917, when in fact it was much more in line with the Liberal revolutions (such as 1848) that preceded it. And when you turn it into that, people are tending to erase the people who fought for those gains just as much as the Jim Crow Aristocracy did after they regained power and began the whitewash of their crimes.

I know that the black-and-tan’s were no Daniel De Leon, and most would be just as corrupt as their Northern colleagues. However, wouldn’t by the time of the turn of the century a new generation of Black leaders replace the more corrupt and pragmatic gerontocratic leadership, as they either pass away or get forced out? With the memory of the Civil War and construction increasingly fading, and new political issues between Southern and Northern (or Black and White) Republicans flaring up, wouldn’t they look for new allies like the suffragettes and socialist movements? I know Booker Washington was more representative of the Black elites at the time than Du Bois, but the latter still replaced the former, just like how MLK replaced the likes of Roy Wilkins.

Lastly, wouldn’t the increasing support of civil rights among socialists make it easier for such an alliance to form as time moves on. I know it took until the early-to-mid-20s OTL for segregationist views to be completely rooted out among the elites of the American socialist movement, and aligning with African-Americans would lose them a ton of popularity in the White South, but I’d argue they still have more to gain from it. The more moderate elements of both the Labor movement and Suffragettes would undoubtedly avoid making such controversial alliances until well.. they’re no longer controversial, but their more radical elements would undoubtedly form the same coalitions that were formed OTL at a much later time.

 

[Japhy]

Would the Populists be able to achieve the same level of success that they did OTL in the south? I feel like the transracial coalition building that happened in North Carolina would be a lot harder in a more polarized political setting.

Maybe? Small land and sharcropping Farmers are going be facing the same economic pressures and that was able to overcome the racial divide IOTL. Of course, who's to say they would even be the Populists and not some other Agrarian or even other reform movement?

I know that the black-and-tan’s were no Daniel De Leon, and most would be just as corrupt as their Northern colleagues. However, wouldn’t by the time of the turn of the century a new generation of Black leaders replace the more corrupt and pragmatic gerontocratic leadership, as they either pass away or get forced out?

This is also a misunderstanding of guilded age politics. Not all politicians were corrupt, and what was and wasn't corrupt had different meanings in the age. A lot of Civil Service Reform stuff was about white supremacy and purging black institutional political power for example. And Tammany Hall was an early Mutual Aid society.

With the memory of the Civil War and construction increasingly fading, and new political issues between Southern and Northern (or Black and White) Republicans flaring up, wouldn’t they look for new allies like the suffragettes and socialist movements? I know Booker Washington was more representative of the Black elites at the time than Du Bois, but the latter still replaced the former, just like how MLK replaced the likes of Roy Wilkins.

Certainly some would, but others wouldn't. Its a mistake to treat Black voters in the south as a monolith, then or now. And if Land Reform happens a lot of folks will have bought into maintaining the status quo to hold onto what they've gained.

Lastly, wouldn’t the increasing support of civil rights among socialists make it easier for such an alliance to form as time moves on. I know it took until the early-to-mid-20s OTL for segregationist views to be completely rooted out among the elites of the American socialist movement, and aligning with African-Americans would lose them a ton of popularity in the White South, but I’d argue they still have more to gain from it. The more moderate elements of both the Labor movement and Suffragettes would undoubtedly avoid making such controversial alliances until well.. they’re no longer controversial, but their more radical elements would undoubtedly form the same coalitions that were formed OTL at a much later time.

I think its fair to say that Eugene Debs would probably do roughly as well in a Biracial south as he did anywhere else. You can make the case he could do more, but if the Black population has secured economic status in the system, its unlikely that there would be huge interest in overturning said system. Its also worth pointing out that the most successful pamphlet in the history of the Socialist Party was "N****r Equality" by Kate Richards O'Hare. It wasn't the Socialist Party leadership alone that had entrenched issues with racism, it was often the rank and file as well, who were often discontent and dragged along by the likes of men like Debs and Haywood towards better stances. And that is just making the mistaken presumption that the SPA or the Socialist Labor Party are the only likely outcomes on the American left. There's just as much a chance that the Socialist movement in the United States goes the South African route of embracing White Supremacy.

If you want to make a Socialist South its absolutely possible, as long as it works for a good narrative I think anything really goes in AH. But as I've already said I think claiming its an inevitable outcome is a mistake and rewrite of the actual historical events.

 

[Catalunya]

Maybe? Small land and sharcropping Farmers are going be facing the same economic pressures and that was able to overcome the racial divide IOTL. Of course, who's to say they would even be the Populists and not some other Agrarian or even other reform movement?



This is also a misunderstanding of guilded age politics. Not all politicians were corrupt, and what was and wasn't corrupt had different meanings in the age. A lot of Civil Service Reform stuff was about white supremacy and purging black institutional political power for example. And Tammany Hall was an early Mutual Aid society.



Certainly some would, but others wouldn't. Its a mistake to treat Black voters in the south as a monolith, then or now. And if Land Reform happens a lot of folks will have bought into maintaining the status quo to hold onto what they've gained.



I think its fair to say that Eugene Debs would probably do roughly as well in a Biracial south as he did anywhere else. You can make the case he could do more, but if the Black population has secured economic status in the system, its unlikely that there would be huge interest in overturning said system. Its also worth pointing out that the most successful pamphlet in the history of the Socialist Party was "N****r Equality" by Kate Richards O'Hare. It wasn't the Socialist Party leadership alone that had entrenched issues with racism, it was often the rank and file as well, who were often discontent and dragged along by the likes of men like Debs and Haywood towards better stances. And that is just making the mistaken presumption that the SPA or the Socialist Labor Party are the only likely outcomes on the American left. There's just as much a chance that the Socialist movement in the United States goes the South African route of embracing White Supremacy.

If you want to make a Socialist South its absolutely possible, as long as it works for a good narrative I think anything really goes in AH. But as I've already said I think claiming its an inevitable outcome is a mistake and rewrite of the actual historical events.

I wasn’t arguing that everyone in the Gilded Age was corrupt. That’s why I said “as corrupt as”. I meant it more as to argue that they would probably be on the side of the Stalwarts throughout the 70s and 80s (patronage and all that), though I should’ve been clearer about it. Also I didn’t know that about Tammany Hall, will definitely read up on it.

Treating a minority group as a monolith is one of my least favorite AH practices. I was arguing that just like pretty much any vaguely reformist movement, the black-and-tans would increasingly run into a generational divide between more radical younger members, and the increasinly ‘out of touch’ old guard, though there would of course be lots of exceptions as well.

The likes of O’Hare would of course be a bigger problem than they were OTL, but the rank-and-file of the Socialist Party wasn’t beset with that much more racist problems than the elites. By the early 1910s most Southern chapters of the Socialist Party, had already disavowed racism in one way or the other, though they didn’t go as far as most of the Northern states. Ultimately, the party as a whole held progressive views much more often than not.

I thought the idea of Black Southern States being bastions of progressivism and socialism in post-progressive era America was just a really cool thought. I know trying to make rule of cool scenarios realistic quite often hinges onto ASB territory, but I’d argue that there was a chance for a coalition of Southern Blacks, Socialists, Suffragettes and Anti-Imperialists.

 

[rosa]

I thought the idea of Black Southern States being bastions of progressivism and socialism in post-progressive era America was just a really cool thought. I know trying to make rule of cool scenarios realistic quite often hinges onto ASB territory, but I’d argue that there was a chance for a coalition of Southern Blacks, Socialists, Suffragettes and Anti-Imperialists.

I think that this is still plausible, alongside what Japhy said because overtime, we could see that become more of the norm, as opposed to the reality of the 1870s and '80s. But it likely does depend on a lot of variables to make it feel realistic

 

[Time Enough]

Would the Populists be able to achieve the same level of success that they did OTL in the south? I feel like the transracial coalition building that happened in North Carolina would be a lot harder in a more polarized political setting.

I’m not an expert on the Populists but I know they had just as a much of a problem with White Supremacists as every other party did in that era.

That all being said;

I thought the idea of Black Southern States being bastions of progressivism and socialism in post-progressive era America was just a really cool thought. I know trying to make rule of cool scenarios realistic quite often hinges onto ASB territory, but I’d argue that there was a chance for a coalition of Southern Blacks, Socialists, Suffragettes and Anti-Imperialists.

There is a possibility of this possibly occurring, though it would probably take a lot of rolled dices in there favour.

Maybe you could see Early Commune/Utopian Socialist towns being created in Black Majority states due to dealings between folks like Georgists, Socialists and Bellamyites find it easier to set them up in those areas (or maybe the work with those states to help ensure protection from local authorities etc.)

It’s not the best scenario and filled with holes but it’s something.

 

[Ricardolindo]

Before the New Deal, many blacks were conservative on economics.

 

[Japhy]

Before the New Deal, many blacks were conservative on economics.

I'm not sure that is really a fair perspective on that. Wanting to prosper in a system is not the same as supporting the economic theory.

 

[Ricardolindo]

I'm not sure that is really a fair perspective on that. Wanting to prosper in a system is not the same as supporting the economic theory.

Fair. Wouldn't you say they favored economic empowerement rather than government aid, though?

 

[Japhy]

Fair. Wouldn't you say they favored economic empowerement rather than government aid, though?

I think there's a world of difference between favoring one and the other not even being on the table for them.

 

[Nyvis]

I'm sorry if I'm being overly critical, but a lot of people in the AH community have developed some very incorrect, and I think personally problematic views about Reconstruction.

You can absolutely transform the direction of the United States with changes to that era in a lot of ways. But a better Reconstruction Policy fundamentally is "just" going to be the development of a more equitable capitalist system, and the development of a bi-racial political establishment in the American South, within the framework of the same United States that existed IOTL.

I think the mistake is akin to what happens with 1848, where a lot of people based on folks like Marx and Engels want to paint it to be a revolution akin to the Paris Commune or 1917, when in fact it was much more in line with the Liberal revolutions (such as 1848) that preceded it. And when you turn it into that, people are tending to erase the people who fought for those gains just as much as the Jim Crow Aristocracy did after they regained power and began the whitewash of their crimes.

It's going to be interesting when you've built up those freemen and the market comes for their small holding agricultural property while cities rise in importance. It's probably going to hit closer to home than it does to people who have never known anything different.

Delayed black migration to cities that only happens once smallholding farming really runs out of steam? Probably with more demands and more political power to weight on things.

On the other hand, not necessarily in a good way, as smallholders under threat can form the base for fascism too.

 

[Japhy]

It's going to be interesting when you've built up those freemen and the market comes for their small holding agricultural property while cities rise in importance. It's probably going to hit closer to home than it does to people who have never known anything different.

On the other hand, not necessarily in a good way, as smallholders under threat can form the base for fascism too.

I'd imagine those small holding farmers would be very keen, if they're outside the GOP in the various Free Silver/Agrarian Political movements tbh. But It would be very strange indeed to imagine American Fascism with racial inclusivity, but also, not impossible?

 

[Nyvis]

I'd imagine those small holding farmers would be very keen, if they're outside the GOP in the various Free Silver/Agrarian Political movements tbh. But It would be very strange indeed to imagine American Fascism with racial inclusivity, but also, not impossible?

You'll probably have a growing divide between the black people who cling to their reconstruction given small holdings and those who move to cities for work. One question is whether the second one move to work outside the south or within it. Black people might be more interested in moving to cities within black majority states where their rights are guaranteed (stuff like the south banning segregated unions but some of the north not doing so could happen). On the other hand, the industrialization is in the north and it'll take some time for capitalism to catch up in the south, especially if the states try to maintain the smallholder economy. You might get a south where the urban proletariat is mostly white or immigrant.

It's also possible this leads to a vast federal power block for smallholder politics that buoys this economic class through capitalism's growth much more than OTL. I'm thinking of the way right wingers in France consistently identified small holders as key to their continued political wealth (before neoliberalism) and they did manage to keep them around as a power base for much longer than other countries.

This is basically Jefferson but black isn't it.

It's possible you don't even get populists as a distinct force, this would just be Republican party politics, as the party of both the midwest and rural freedmen south.

You might even get the same electoral college map as you get today as the democrats move into being the party of labour because labour friendly republicans lose to an alliance of smallholders and industrial capitalists in the party. With a shade of the solid republican south being under threat in the modern day as smallholding fails and black people get proletarianized.

 

[SpudNutimus]

You'll probably have a growing divide between the black people who cling to their reconstruction given small holdings and those who move to cities for work. One question is whether the second one move to work outside the south or within it. Black people might be more interested in moving to cities within black majority states where their rights are guaranteed (stuff like the south banning segregated unions but some of the north not doing so could happen). On the other hand, the industrialization is in the north and it'll take some time for capitalism to catch up in the south, especially if the states try to maintain the smallholder economy. You might get a south where the urban proletariat is mostly white or immigrant.

It's also possible this leads to a vast federal power block for smallholder politics that buoys this economic class through capitalism's growth much more than OTL. I'm thinking of the way right wingers in France consistently identified small holders as key to their continued political wealth (before neoliberalism) and they did manage to keep them around as a power base for much longer than other countries.

This is basically Jefferson but black isn't it.

It's possible you don't even get populists as a distinct force, this would just be Republican party politics, as the party of both the midwest and rural freedmen south.

You might even get the same electoral college map as you get today as the democrats move into being the party of labour because labour friendly republicans lose to an alliance of smallholders and industrial capitalists in the party. With a shade of the solid republican south being under threat in the modern day as smallholding fails and black people get proletarianized.

United States Presidential Elections, 1860-1880 (Standing at the Crossroads):

-

1860:

Abraham Lincoln (Republican) - Hannibal Hamlin (Republican)
180 electoral votes

John C. Breckinridge (Southern Democratic) - Joseph Lane (Southern Democratic)
72 electoral votes

John Bell (Constitutional Union) - Edward Everett (Constitutional Union)
39 electoral votes

Stephen A. Douglas (Democratic) - Herschel V. Johnson (Democratic)
12 electoral votes

View attachment 47316

-

1864:

Abraham Lincoln (National Union, incumbent) - Andrew Johnson (National Union - Democratic alliance)
215 electoral votes (+17 invalidated)

George B. McClellan (Democratic) - George H. Pendleton (Democratic)
18 electoral votes

View attachment 47317

-

1868:

Salmon P. Chase (Republican) - John A. Logan (Republican)
223 electoral votes

George H. Pendleton (Democratic) - Francis P. Blair (Democratic)
21 electoral votes

View attachment 47318

-

1872:

Salmon P. Chase (Republican, incumbent) - John A. Logan (Republican, incumbent)
199 electoral votes

Charles F. Adams (Liberal Republican) - Benjamin G. Brown (Liberal Republican)
51 electoral votes

Jeremiah S. Black (Democratic) - John W. Stevenson (Democratic)
28 electoral votes

View attachment 47320

-

1876:

Nathaniel P. Banks (Liberal Republican - Democratic alliance) - Winfield S. Hancock (Democratic)
160 electoral votes

John A. Logan (Republican, incumbent) - William A. Wheeler (Republican)
123 electoral votes

View attachment 47321

-

1880:

Frederick Douglass (Republican) - James B. Weaver (Republican - Greenback alliance)
185 electoral votes

Nathaniel P. Banks (Liberal Republican - Democratic alliance, incumbent) - Winfield S. Hancock (Democratic, incumbent)
157 electoral votes

View attachment 47322

Cough cough... I spent a good 2 years drafting a timeline along these lines a while back, only with the trigger for successful Reconstruction being an early arrival of the boll weevil right in the middle of the Civil War, triggering massive unrest and uprisings from within the Confederacy simultaneously with the Union's advance and destroying the plantation economy enough to, combined with butterflying Lincoln's assassination, allow for successful land reform via the Freedmen's Bureau, along with general boll weevil-induced planter bankruptcy just naturally forcing the big plantations to sell off their land as their cotton crops fail.

In terms of politics I did pretty much what a lot of y'all have suggested already, that being economic empowerment of freedmen as smallholders being the catalyst for entrenching their political power within the existing economic system of the United States. The GOP, somewhat like what Nyvis proposed, ended up as essentially an overarching agrarian alliance between Midwestern farmers and Southern smallholders and freedmen under the umbrella of free trade policy and pro-rural farmer economic policy. The Populists also, as suggested, never really came into existence and as the Greenbacks died they effectively became a secondary support party to the Republicans on fusion tickets before fully merging back into them.

In terms of opposition politics I ended up having the Democrats slowly dwindle as a major party as the plantations died and GOP smallholder interests dominated the reconstructed South, gradually moving out into the West behind a wave of ex-Confederate emigres from the South onto the frontier as a secondary player. The niche of urban politics, big business, political machines in the Northeast like Tammany Hall, Catholic/European immigrant interests, and protectionism/Goldbug interests ends up filled by the Liberal Republican Party, a more long-lasting version of Horace Greeley's political vehicle from 1872 that arises from the inevitable breakaway of urban Republicans from such a rurally-focused GOP. After losing in 1872 thanks to vote splitting with the Democrats they end up coming to an agreement with the now primarily Western Democrats whereby the Democrats are effectively a Western wing of the Liberal Republicans which votes for their federal candidates on a fusion ticket in exchange for being left alone (although I was going to have them eventually merge into a party just called the Liberal Party in the 1880s).

This, along with the significant period of time in which the Republicans are supported federally in many weak spots by the Greenbacks, also has the notable effect of giving both parties an interest in avoiding OTL anti-electoral fusion laws, and fusion tickets where the major parties are supported federally by local affiliate parties become a pretty entrenched thing in American politics by the 20th century. In particular I was planning for the Utah People's Party to survive post-statehood as a Mormon interests party instead of splitting between the Democrats and Republicans thanks to the Republicans trying to court non-Mormon miners onto their rural platform even harder than OTL with continued anti-Mormonism, with the main reason the People's Party doesn't just merge into the Liberal Party by the turn of the century being that lots of people just have negative associations with the world Liberal, due to the history of the confusingly unrelated anti-Mormon Utah Liberal Party.

 

[Japhy]

Cough cough... I spent a good 2 years drafting a timeline along these lines a while back, only with the trigger for successful Reconstruction being an early arrival of the boll weevil right in the middle of the Civil War, triggering massive unrest and uprisings from within the Confederacy simultaneously with the Union's advance and destroying the plantation economy enough to, combined with butterflying Lincoln's assassination, allow for successful land reform via the Freedmen's Bureau, along with general boll weevil-induced planter bankruptcy just naturally forcing the big plantations to sell off their land as their cotton crops fail.

In terms of politics I did pretty much what a lot of y'all have suggested already, that being economic empowerment of freedmen as smallholders being the catalyst for entrenching their political power within the existing economic system of the United States. The GOP, somewhat like what Nyvis proposed, ended up as essentially an overarching agrarian alliance between Midwestern farmers and Southern smallholders and freedmen under the umbrella of free trade policy and pro-rural farmer economic policy. The Populists also, as suggested, never really came into existence and as the Greenbacks died they effectively became a secondary support party to the Republicans on fusion tickets before fully merging back into them.

In terms of opposition politics I ended up having the Democrats slowly dwindle as a major party as the plantations died and GOP smallholder interests dominated the reconstructed South, gradually moving out into the West behind a wave of ex-Confederate emigres from the South onto the frontier as a secondary player. The niche of urban politics, big business, political machines in the Northeast like Tammany Hall, Catholic/European immigrant interests, and protectionism/Goldbug interests ends up filled by the Liberal Republican Party, a more long-lasting version of Horace Greeley's political vehicle from 1872 that arises from the inevitable breakaway of urban Republicans from such a rurally-focused GOP. After losing in 1872 thanks to vote splitting with the Democrats they end up coming to an agreement with the now primarily Western Democrats whereby the Democrats are effectively a Western wing of the Liberal Republicans which votes for their federal candidates on a fusion ticket in exchange for being left alone (although I was going to have them eventually merge into a party just called the Liberal Party in the 1880s).

This, along with the significant period of time in which the Republicans are supported federally in many weak spots by the Greenbacks, also has the notable effect of giving both parties an interest in avoiding OTL anti-electoral fusion laws, and fusion tickets where the major parties are supported federally by local affiliate parties become a pretty entrenched thing in American politics by the 20th century. In particular I was planning for the Utah People's Party to survive post-statehood as a Mormon interests party instead of splitting between the Democrats and Republicans thanks to the Republicans trying to court non-Mormon miners onto their rural platform even harder than OTL with continued anti-Mormonism, with the main reason the People's Party doesn't just merge into the Liberal Party by the turn of the century being that lots of people just have negative associations with the world Liberal, due to the history of the confusingly unrelated anti-Mormon Utah Liberal Party.

I'm honestly confused about the Chase presidency since he was, fundimentally a Liberal, even at his most radical.

 

[SpudNutimus]

I'm honestly confused about the Chase presidency since he was, fundimentally a Liberal, even at his most radical.

Yeah fair, this iteration of the timeline is pretty old, and I'm honestly not great at gauging individual political personalities and specifics nearly as well as I am overarching trends. In any case this project is pretty much shelved, I just brought it up because it seemed relevant.