Cinco de Mayo
- Thread starter KingSweden24
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I know who’s getting coal in his stocking this year (this year being 1902)Merry Christmas to all except that prick Henry Cabot Lodge
Bound for Bloodshed: The Road to the Great American War
"...few had much, if any, sympathy for Cipriano Castro's position; his harassment of the Dutch merchant marine for years had already eroded his position at the 1901 Panamerican Conference, and Venezuela's ensuing financial crisis and refusal to honor debt agreements affected a great many American firms as well, even if Foraker was reluctant to dispatch the US Navy through the Windward to join the small flotilla of British, German, and Italian warships anchored off the Venezuelan coast to settle the conflict. Castro had snubbed his nose at larger powers, both Great and middle-tier alike, and had only himself to blame, the thinking went, and the State Department, in Allison's last weeks at the helm, had received assurances from both Britain and Germany that territorial acquisitions were off the table. Besides, the United States was keen on keeping their German-Dutch partners in the Nicaragua Canal happy, and so the Navy built up a small squadron at Tortuga but took no more action than that.
This, in the end, wound up being a remarkable tactical blunder in the short term and a major strategic mistake in the long-term. While the Monroe Doctrine had always relied upon the British to enforce it, American naval expansionism had at least threatened to suggest that the US would flex her naval muscles. The "limpness" of Washington's reaction to the Venezuelan blockade was taken both in Europe and in capitals south of the Ohio as a sign of American weakness and indecisiveness, a lesson that would not soon be forgotten and created a permission structure for other states to begin to behave more aggressively in the Caribbean Basin and South America. Germany, meanwhile, deduced - not incorrectly - that the United States cared more about Nicaragua than Venezuela and responded by landing their marines in three Venezuelan mainland ports (most prominently Maracaibo, which they took after a ferocious shelling that killed two hundred persons) while also occupying the Isla Margarita near the Dutch West Indies. Britain withdrew from the flotilla as Germany exercised military force, thus opening the door for further bloodshed; the German expatriate community in Venezuela, prominent in its business elite, escalated the ongoing civil war there and invited German military intervention via the cities of Maracaibo and Barcelona, and an expeditionary corps full of grizzled veterans of the Boxer Intervention took Caracas by late spring, driving Castro and his men deep inland. The German occupation of Venezuela in support of a new, pro-foreign capital junta and its attempts to kill or capture Castro would last until its final withdrawal in 1911, and Venezuela's civil war would see the death of nearly half a million people and close to twenty thousand Germans, a preview of the ugliness of warfare in the 20th century (though, it must be said, a great many of those German deaths were from yellow fever and malaria in the tropical climes of the Caribbean coast, rather than from combat).
The German invasion of Venezuela made the Foraker administration look utterly impotent to both domestic and international observers. It soured relations between Washington and Berlin for the rest of a very crucial decade and had a definitive impact on delaying the completion of the Nicaragua Canal by many years as the financing and construction became the site of a bureaucratic turf war (partially by Costa Rica taking a German line and Nicaragua, of course, near-fanatically attaching to the American position). The incident had a number of knock-on effects in Washington as a result; Allison, already mulling retirement, was quietly encouraged to exit before the 58th Congress, with large and ambitious Democratic majorities imminent, was seated in March, and Elihu Root was slid over into the role to complete his sweep of the Core Four Cabinet offices within a ten year period. To replace Root, Naval Secretary Chauncey Depew was tapped to head the Treasury and recently-defeated Indiana Senator Albert Beveridge appointed as his replacement in turn. Root's time at State under Foraker would be brief and uneventful, for it would be his return ten years later to the same job that would truly define his career; Beveridge, however, had a major impact at the Navy Department, where he formalized the 1:2:4 standard and set about implementing the famed 1904 Naval Act that accelerated and doubled-down on the global naval arms race..."
- Bound for Bloodshed: The Road to the Great American War
This, in the end, wound up being a remarkable tactical blunder in the short term and a major strategic mistake in the long-term. While the Monroe Doctrine had always relied upon the British to enforce it, American naval expansionism had at least threatened to suggest that the US would flex her naval muscles. The "limpness" of Washington's reaction to the Venezuelan blockade was taken both in Europe and in capitals south of the Ohio as a sign of American weakness and indecisiveness, a lesson that would not soon be forgotten and created a permission structure for other states to begin to behave more aggressively in the Caribbean Basin and South America. Germany, meanwhile, deduced - not incorrectly - that the United States cared more about Nicaragua than Venezuela and responded by landing their marines in three Venezuelan mainland ports (most prominently Maracaibo, which they took after a ferocious shelling that killed two hundred persons) while also occupying the Isla Margarita near the Dutch West Indies. Britain withdrew from the flotilla as Germany exercised military force, thus opening the door for further bloodshed; the German expatriate community in Venezuela, prominent in its business elite, escalated the ongoing civil war there and invited German military intervention via the cities of Maracaibo and Barcelona, and an expeditionary corps full of grizzled veterans of the Boxer Intervention took Caracas by late spring, driving Castro and his men deep inland. The German occupation of Venezuela in support of a new, pro-foreign capital junta and its attempts to kill or capture Castro would last until its final withdrawal in 1911, and Venezuela's civil war would see the death of nearly half a million people and close to twenty thousand Germans, a preview of the ugliness of warfare in the 20th century (though, it must be said, a great many of those German deaths were from yellow fever and malaria in the tropical climes of the Caribbean coast, rather than from combat).
The German invasion of Venezuela made the Foraker administration look utterly impotent to both domestic and international observers. It soured relations between Washington and Berlin for the rest of a very crucial decade and had a definitive impact on delaying the completion of the Nicaragua Canal by many years as the financing and construction became the site of a bureaucratic turf war (partially by Costa Rica taking a German line and Nicaragua, of course, near-fanatically attaching to the American position). The incident had a number of knock-on effects in Washington as a result; Allison, already mulling retirement, was quietly encouraged to exit before the 58th Congress, with large and ambitious Democratic majorities imminent, was seated in March, and Elihu Root was slid over into the role to complete his sweep of the Core Four Cabinet offices within a ten year period. To replace Root, Naval Secretary Chauncey Depew was tapped to head the Treasury and recently-defeated Indiana Senator Albert Beveridge appointed as his replacement in turn. Root's time at State under Foraker would be brief and uneventful, for it would be his return ten years later to the same job that would truly define his career; Beveridge, however, had a major impact at the Navy Department, where he formalized the 1:2:4 standard and set about implementing the famed 1904 Naval Act that accelerated and doubled-down on the global naval arms race..."
- Bound for Bloodshed: The Road to the Great American War
Faultlines: The Complicated History of Canada's Ethnic Tensions
"...Mowat's health was in such plain decline that he could no longer reasonably exercise his duties as Prime Minister, though Laurier and the other Cabinet ministers were loathe to make it seem like they were forcing him out, instead mostly maneuvering around him with his tacit consent. The matter was settled with Mowat's death in his sleep on April 19, 1903, after nearly six years as Prime Minister; in having settled the Manitoba Schools Question amicably, returned the Liberal Party to a larger majority in the 1900 election, passed legislation to defend the rights of the provinces, and deftly maneuvered through tensions of ultramontanist Catholics and chauvinist Orangemen alike, his Premiership had been an unqualified success. Those Liberals frustrated that he had not done more did not realize it at the time, but the "Mowat Majorities" would be high points for Canadian liberalism for quite some time.
Mowat's death was mourned across Canada, but in strongly Orange constituencies something darker occurred - protests, even riots, against the thought of Laurier becoming Prime Minister. Despite the tremendous success of the federal Liberals, in the provinces Catholic rights had in fact been rolled back during the Mowat years, particularly in the realm of education in Ontario. Laurier seemed a natural candidate to heal the divisions on paper, but in the tense atmosphere of Canadian politics his Catholicism made him nonviable to the soft-nationalist Protestant voters the Liberals needed to keep away from the Tories and his secularism and anticlerical sympathies made him a tough sell in Quebec, which would otherwise have been his natural base [1]. The candidate of choice, then, would be George William Ross, Mowat's Treasury Minister but a man of the Commons, who had served as a federal and provincial politician both and who had managed a diverse array of portfolios at both levels, most famously that of Ontario's head of education policy, where he had been a transformative modernizer.
Ross, a classical Liberal of Scottish descent, came into power during a time of tremendous economic growth for Canada's protected industries and increasing immigration from the Home Nations as well as Southern Europe and Eastern Europe, Italy and Galicia in particular. [2] He retained the treasury portfolio as Prime Minister, built out a Cabinet of men he trusted from Ontario, but kept Laurier as Minister of Justice, where he hoped the formal leader of the party would remain quiet. Of course, as anybody who was familiar with Wilfried Laurier could have told him, asking the north star of pluralist Canadian nationalism and the avatar of Quebecois liberalism to ease into the background would find that a foolhardy proposition..."
- Faultlines: The Complicated History of Canada's Ethnic Tensions
[1] And now we see why it'll be hard for the Canadian Liberals to keep threading the needle enough to win majorities
[2] Though with Canadian attitudes towards non-Protestants, the Eastern European settlement of the Prairies is much less pronounced. Let's say half as many, with the rest off to the US, Mexico and South America
(Mea culpa that when I went looking for a not-Laurier I must have skimmed how old Mowat was by 1897, though I guess it works out for a prestige figurehead PM even in hindsight)
Mowat's death was mourned across Canada, but in strongly Orange constituencies something darker occurred - protests, even riots, against the thought of Laurier becoming Prime Minister. Despite the tremendous success of the federal Liberals, in the provinces Catholic rights had in fact been rolled back during the Mowat years, particularly in the realm of education in Ontario. Laurier seemed a natural candidate to heal the divisions on paper, but in the tense atmosphere of Canadian politics his Catholicism made him nonviable to the soft-nationalist Protestant voters the Liberals needed to keep away from the Tories and his secularism and anticlerical sympathies made him a tough sell in Quebec, which would otherwise have been his natural base [1]. The candidate of choice, then, would be George William Ross, Mowat's Treasury Minister but a man of the Commons, who had served as a federal and provincial politician both and who had managed a diverse array of portfolios at both levels, most famously that of Ontario's head of education policy, where he had been a transformative modernizer.
Ross, a classical Liberal of Scottish descent, came into power during a time of tremendous economic growth for Canada's protected industries and increasing immigration from the Home Nations as well as Southern Europe and Eastern Europe, Italy and Galicia in particular. [2] He retained the treasury portfolio as Prime Minister, built out a Cabinet of men he trusted from Ontario, but kept Laurier as Minister of Justice, where he hoped the formal leader of the party would remain quiet. Of course, as anybody who was familiar with Wilfried Laurier could have told him, asking the north star of pluralist Canadian nationalism and the avatar of Quebecois liberalism to ease into the background would find that a foolhardy proposition..."
- Faultlines: The Complicated History of Canada's Ethnic Tensions
[1] And now we see why it'll be hard for the Canadian Liberals to keep threading the needle enough to win majorities
[2] Though with Canadian attitudes towards non-Protestants, the Eastern European settlement of the Prairies is much less pronounced. Let's say half as many, with the rest off to the US, Mexico and South America
(Mea culpa that when I went looking for a not-Laurier I must have skimmed how old Mowat was by 1897, though I guess it works out for a prestige figurehead PM even in hindsight)
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Programming Update:
Because I was so laser focused on fully fleshing out the Boxer War and all its knock-on effects, I have a pretty thin outline for 1903 to the end of Part VI, which will run thru 1905, as well as Part VII beyond. As a result, I'll be doing some buildout here to so that the rest of Part VI has the level of over-detail everyone has come to expect!
That said, I'm taking wikibox requests, mostly so I can practice but also as an addendum to the world itself. If there's anything you'd like more info on or to see a Wikibox on, post it here and I'll do my best to put it together!
Because I was so laser focused on fully fleshing out the Boxer War and all its knock-on effects, I have a pretty thin outline for 1903 to the end of Part VI, which will run thru 1905, as well as Part VII beyond. As a result, I'll be doing some buildout here to so that the rest of Part VI has the level of over-detail everyone has come to expect!
That said, I'm taking wikibox requests, mostly so I can practice but also as an addendum to the world itself. If there's anything you'd like more info on or to see a Wikibox on, post it here and I'll do my best to put it together!
wikipedia.en - Oliver Mowat
Oliver Mowat (July 22, 1820 - April 19, 1903) was a Canadian lawyer, politician and Liberal Party leader. Mowat served for nearly 25 uninterrupted years as Premier of Ontario, where he built a Liberal Party machine despite the pressures of the Conservative-dominated Parliament of Canada at the same time, and then was appointed Prime Minister of Canada in 1897 at the age of 76 upon the electoral victory of Wilfrid Laurier's federal Liberals due to the leader of the Commons being seen as an unsuitable candidate as head of government due to his Catholicism and Francophone background.
In Ontario, he had a longstanding rivalry with Tory grandees such as John Macdonald (his former law partner), Charles Tupper and Alexander Campbell, against whom he defended the rights and privileges of his province against the encroachment of the Orange Order-dominated government in Ottawa. Under his quarter-century in Toronto, the province industrialized, grew dramatically in population, and he extended mass public education to every corner while developing the previously rugged and untapped north. Upon Laurier's triumph in 1897, which Mowat helped orchestrate in the province of Ontario with his electoral machine, he was recommended to serve as Prime Minister of Canada to Governor-General Lord Lansdowne and as a result was appointed to the Senate of Canada while Laurier led the Liberals in the Commons. During his six-year ministry, Mowat reformed the Canadian electoral and legal systems to diminish built-in Tory advantages, settled the Manitoba Schools question with a compromise solution that mollified both Anglophone and Francophone communities, and participated in the Boxer War after calling snap elections in 1900 that threatened to divide the party and successfully winning them at the age of 80 despite headwinds, growing his majority. He died in office in Ottawa in April of 1903, aged 82.
As both Premier and Prime Minister, Mowat was famed for his skills as a canny politician, capable of careful and fluid political maneuvering to appeal to various constituencies, and is generally hailed as one of Canada's finest statesmen and pure politicians, and many schools, streets and institutions in Canada, particularly in Ontario, bear his name.
In Ontario, he had a longstanding rivalry with Tory grandees such as John Macdonald (his former law partner), Charles Tupper and Alexander Campbell, against whom he defended the rights and privileges of his province against the encroachment of the Orange Order-dominated government in Ottawa. Under his quarter-century in Toronto, the province industrialized, grew dramatically in population, and he extended mass public education to every corner while developing the previously rugged and untapped north. Upon Laurier's triumph in 1897, which Mowat helped orchestrate in the province of Ontario with his electoral machine, he was recommended to serve as Prime Minister of Canada to Governor-General Lord Lansdowne and as a result was appointed to the Senate of Canada while Laurier led the Liberals in the Commons. During his six-year ministry, Mowat reformed the Canadian electoral and legal systems to diminish built-in Tory advantages, settled the Manitoba Schools question with a compromise solution that mollified both Anglophone and Francophone communities, and participated in the Boxer War after calling snap elections in 1900 that threatened to divide the party and successfully winning them at the age of 80 despite headwinds, growing his majority. He died in office in Ottawa in April of 1903, aged 82.
As both Premier and Prime Minister, Mowat was famed for his skills as a canny politician, capable of careful and fluid political maneuvering to appeal to various constituencies, and is generally hailed as one of Canada's finest statesmen and pure politicians, and many schools, streets and institutions in Canada, particularly in Ontario, bear his name.
wikipedia.en - George H. Thomas
George Henry Thomas (July 31, 1816 - May 24, 1877) was a United States Army officer who served in the Mexican-American War and War of Secession, where he was an important corps commander in the Western Theater.
A native of Virginia and one of the rare generals of his day to have served in artillery, cavalry and infantry, Thomas served both in Mexico and in a number of command posts with and under a number of prominent officers who would later pledge fealty to the Confederate States of America (such as Braxton Bragg, Robert E. Lee, Jeb Stuart, Fitzhugh Lee and William Hardee), but Thomas famously continued his loyalty to the Union and refused to follow Virginia into secession. For this, he became known as "Loyal George." He won an important victory at Mill Springs in early 1862 for which he was acclaimed; at Campbellsville, he acquitted himself well in the first day of combat and defended the Union retreat towards Louisville. Thomas would be praised in the postwar for neither seeking political favor nor for castigating his former superiors for the conduct of the war; in sharp contrast to many veterans of the Kentucky Campaign, he never publicly criticized General Don Carlos Buell's command of the Army of the Cumberland.
As one of the most prominent Southern Unionists, Thomas was entirely disowned by his slaveowning planter family and elected not to return to a Virginia where he was certain he would be ostracized, instead holding a variety of commands in the American West. During his time as Commander-in-Chief of the Presidio in San Francisco he helped modernize the facility and was a rival of George Custer within the Army, critiquing the younger general's conduct of the Sioux Wars and his role in the Missoula Massacre. Thomas retired in 1875 aged 61 and retired to his wife's native New York, dying in his sleep two years later shortly after a banquet for war veterans in Albany. He is recalled as one of the better individual commanders of the war and celebrated for his loyalty to country over state and his name adorns a number of streets, schools and other institutions in California and New York alike, including one of the dormitories at West Point.
(Per request of @TheRockofChickamauga )
A native of Virginia and one of the rare generals of his day to have served in artillery, cavalry and infantry, Thomas served both in Mexico and in a number of command posts with and under a number of prominent officers who would later pledge fealty to the Confederate States of America (such as Braxton Bragg, Robert E. Lee, Jeb Stuart, Fitzhugh Lee and William Hardee), but Thomas famously continued his loyalty to the Union and refused to follow Virginia into secession. For this, he became known as "Loyal George." He won an important victory at Mill Springs in early 1862 for which he was acclaimed; at Campbellsville, he acquitted himself well in the first day of combat and defended the Union retreat towards Louisville. Thomas would be praised in the postwar for neither seeking political favor nor for castigating his former superiors for the conduct of the war; in sharp contrast to many veterans of the Kentucky Campaign, he never publicly criticized General Don Carlos Buell's command of the Army of the Cumberland.
As one of the most prominent Southern Unionists, Thomas was entirely disowned by his slaveowning planter family and elected not to return to a Virginia where he was certain he would be ostracized, instead holding a variety of commands in the American West. During his time as Commander-in-Chief of the Presidio in San Francisco he helped modernize the facility and was a rival of George Custer within the Army, critiquing the younger general's conduct of the Sioux Wars and his role in the Missoula Massacre. Thomas retired in 1875 aged 61 and retired to his wife's native New York, dying in his sleep two years later shortly after a banquet for war veterans in Albany. He is recalled as one of the better individual commanders of the war and celebrated for his loyalty to country over state and his name adorns a number of streets, schools and other institutions in California and New York alike, including one of the dormitories at West Point.
(Per request of @TheRockofChickamauga )
I've been following this thread for a while, and I'm really enjoying it. I'm enjoying the detail of the world you've created and am looking forward to what comes next.
Regarding requests: On the subject of Southern Unionists, what happened to Andrew Johnson ITTL?
Also, are Idaho and Wyoming going to be admitted as states soon?
Regarding requests: On the subject of Southern Unionists, what happened to Andrew Johnson ITTL?
Also, are Idaho and Wyoming going to be admitted as states soon?
Speaking of a guy who's name adorns tons of things in our OTL world...what are some of the things/places named Lincoln" OTL named ITTL?
Thank you!! I appreciate that.
Wyoming and Idaho are coming soon… in an update about why Democrats are pissed at Liberal foot dragging over admitting two more mine-heavy Western states. Idaho in particular is a hotbed of more radical labor activism.
Johnson stayed North after the war and was probably the most prominent Southern Tory of them all (he was a big figure prewar after all). His most notable achievement was serving as Secretary of War in the Seymour administration where he was a bit of an unofficial envoy to Richmond despite the bruised egos
This is a good one. Lincoln NE, the most prominent, keeps its original name of Lancaster. There’s obviously not even a discussion of naming any states after him or building an ostentatious Greek temple to him in DC (really there’s no TTL President who could warrant something like that, not even Blaine). In Illinois I’m sure some stuff is named after him and his son, seeing as how they’re a prominent political dynasty in the state, but more of a local Illinois thing, maybe like a Stephen Douglas.
The discussion around Thomas and Lincoln inspired me to think of a minor retcon; a war that ends in early 1863 would be very unlikely to produce a Ulysses Grant that could be the Republican nominee in 1864, so I’ll crib off @TheHedgehog for inspiration and just retcon that election to have been David Wilmot losing to Horatio Seymour
How likely is the Mexican Revolution? I don't think that Diaz and Maximilian compare easily. But the conservative-liberal orthodoxy that prevailed under the Porfiriato (minus some of the nasty aspects of authoritarianism) does seem to carry over. You've still got people like Jose Limantour ITL who epitomize this. But then you have people like Gonzalez and the radicals who wish to go a different way. Won't the social tensions represented by these divided interests come to a head? Maybe with the elevation of Maximilian's successor? Maybe the GAW strains and breaks the system that Maximilian bequeathed?
One of the things to remember is the Mexican state is considerably stronger than that of the Porfiriato, which always was a very personalist vehicle for Diaz (the man had no chosen successor and stuck around past his sell-by). Maximilian, having seen how poorly personalism works during his time relying on Vidaurri and then having the whole National Plan era conclude by it all exploding in his face with the Revolt of the Caudillos, has zero intention of letting that happen again. That's a big reason why he has pushed for not one but two constitutional updates since the Revolt concluded in 1885 and why he made sure that his strongmen-PMs in Zuloaga and Miramon had guardrails around them and governed as heads of a cabinet rather than just have the run of the place like Vidaurri did.
Of course, even though among the many theses this TL addresses is "what if Mexico didn't squander so much of its substantial potential," I still aim for some level of realism and Mexico is still Mexico, with the geographic constraints that a truly centralist regime would have in controlling the arid northern hinterland as well as the jungles of the Yucatan and its Maya inhabitants. On the social tension side, bear in mind that this world is one in which anticlericalism, rather than being ascendant, has been a dud effectively everywhere it has been tried save Italy, where it is pursued less as a liberal project and more as a nationalist lightning rod against the intransigent Church. Spain's successful, dominant liberal party has more or less ignored the Church, both France and Austria are dominated by political Catholicism that is only deepening, and even in radical Argentina there's no talk of land confiscation, only "secular" public schools financed by the state. Only in majority-Protestant countries as an assault on the power of the Church been even moderately a thing, and even there you have to look for extreme places like Canada to see where it has really been pursued. So a lot of the specifics of the "liberal" rule of Diaz are gone and a more soft-authoritarian society exists across much of the Catholic world instead. In my view this would probably handwave much of the more positivist element of the OTL Mexican Revolution and will have of course big effects on the evolution of both the left and right in Latin America (integralism and liberation theology are philosophies that get very short shrift on this site after all!)
wikipedia.en - Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln (February 12, 1809 - October 17, 1894) was an American lawyer and statesman who served as the 16th President of the United States from 1861 to 1865. Lincoln led the United States during the War of Secession in which the twelve Confederate States and the Indian and Arizona Territories broke away successfully over the issue of slavery, which his Republican Party had been founded to arrest the expansion of six years before his election in the chaotic and watershed election of 1860.
Born into poverty in Kentucky, Lincoln was raised in a frontier environment and was a militia member and Whig Party state legislator as a young man before returning to the practice of law in 1849. Despite having only served a single term in the House of Representatives over a decade earlier and having only reentered politics in 1854 over the Kansas-Nebraska Act debate and having failed to defeat Senator Stephen Douglas in his native Illinois just two years earlier, he emerged as a surprise compromise candidate at the 1860 Republican Convention in Chicago. His election, the first of a President explicitly committed to curtailing slave power in the territories and which saw him sweep the North entirely, is widely viewed as accelerating the South's path to exiting the Union into the new Confederate States of America and the War of Secession began with the bombardment of Fort Sumter which elicited a response from the North to subdue the rebellion. After a year of inconclusive fighting, the Confederacy secured key victories at Small Mountain in Maryland and Chambersburg in Pennsylvania and at Campbellsville in Kentucky, earning British, French and Mexican recognition and leading to the negotiated end of the war at the 1863 Treaty of Havana. As "the man who lost the South" and deeply unpopular in a postwar economic depression, Lincoln did not seek reelection and returned again to the practice of law, where he became one of the wealthiest and most influential attorneys in his home state.
However, in later years Lincoln emerged as an elder statesman and many of his proteges and political allies went on to have successful careers in the new Liberal Party that was formed after the collapse of the Republicans in the mid-1870s, including his former private secretary John Hay, who would eventually rise to the Presidency himself, as well as his son Robert Todd Lincoln, who served in a variety of Cabinet offices including a brief stint as Secretary of State before serving a quarter century as an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court. During his single term Presidency, the United States economy modernized drastically through the government support of a transcontinental railroad, the Homestead Act and the Morrill Land-Grant Education Act, all of which set the country up for its emergence as the world's largest industrial power by the early 20th century. The Republican administration of Lincoln's former Treasury Secretary, Salmon Chase, from 1869-1873 would successfully abolish slavery entirely and reestablish the national bank, both aims of Lincoln as well, building on what he had achieved previously. For this reason, his reputation among historians was rehabilitated in the wake of the Great American War and his domestic achievements in expanding federal authority and his moral stand in favor of preserving the Union as a just cause against the evils of slavery have since been praised. For this reason, Lincoln typically ranks in the upper half of US Presidents in presidential rankings, sometimes even the upper quarter.
(This post inspired by @Curtain Jerker and his query the other day)
Born into poverty in Kentucky, Lincoln was raised in a frontier environment and was a militia member and Whig Party state legislator as a young man before returning to the practice of law in 1849. Despite having only served a single term in the House of Representatives over a decade earlier and having only reentered politics in 1854 over the Kansas-Nebraska Act debate and having failed to defeat Senator Stephen Douglas in his native Illinois just two years earlier, he emerged as a surprise compromise candidate at the 1860 Republican Convention in Chicago. His election, the first of a President explicitly committed to curtailing slave power in the territories and which saw him sweep the North entirely, is widely viewed as accelerating the South's path to exiting the Union into the new Confederate States of America and the War of Secession began with the bombardment of Fort Sumter which elicited a response from the North to subdue the rebellion. After a year of inconclusive fighting, the Confederacy secured key victories at Small Mountain in Maryland and Chambersburg in Pennsylvania and at Campbellsville in Kentucky, earning British, French and Mexican recognition and leading to the negotiated end of the war at the 1863 Treaty of Havana. As "the man who lost the South" and deeply unpopular in a postwar economic depression, Lincoln did not seek reelection and returned again to the practice of law, where he became one of the wealthiest and most influential attorneys in his home state.
However, in later years Lincoln emerged as an elder statesman and many of his proteges and political allies went on to have successful careers in the new Liberal Party that was formed after the collapse of the Republicans in the mid-1870s, including his former private secretary John Hay, who would eventually rise to the Presidency himself, as well as his son Robert Todd Lincoln, who served in a variety of Cabinet offices including a brief stint as Secretary of State before serving a quarter century as an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court. During his single term Presidency, the United States economy modernized drastically through the government support of a transcontinental railroad, the Homestead Act and the Morrill Land-Grant Education Act, all of which set the country up for its emergence as the world's largest industrial power by the early 20th century. The Republican administration of Lincoln's former Treasury Secretary, Salmon Chase, from 1869-1873 would successfully abolish slavery entirely and reestablish the national bank, both aims of Lincoln as well, building on what he had achieved previously. For this reason, his reputation among historians was rehabilitated in the wake of the Great American War and his domestic achievements in expanding federal authority and his moral stand in favor of preserving the Union as a just cause against the evils of slavery have since been praised. For this reason, Lincoln typically ranks in the upper half of US Presidents in presidential rankings, sometimes even the upper quarter.
(This post inspired by @Curtain Jerker and his query the other day)
Hey thanks!
How did Booth's acting career end up? Imagine he did a lot of plays south of the Ohio.
How did Booth's acting career end up? Imagine he did a lot of plays south of the Ohio.
That’s another one I was mulling doing so I think I’ll give John Wilkes a whirl come to think of it
wikipedia.en - John Wilkes Booth
John Wilkes Booth (May 10, 1838 - July 16, 1900) was an American stage actor, theater owner and businessman who was a member of the famed Booth family of performers. During the 1860s and 1870s, he was regarded as the most popular and best-compensated stage actor in the world. He invested a great deal of his wealth in various real estate and oil speculations, many of which made him extremely wealthy. Occasionally controversial in the United States for his well-known Confederate sympathies during the War of Secession and his frequent tours of the Confederacy postwar as an actor, he nonetheless married Lucy Hale, the daughter of a New Hampshire Senator, and came to own the Booth Theatre in Baltimore, one of the most lavish on the East Coast. He died aged 62 in 1900 a wealthy man, popular and well-connected politically, though in later years his legacy in Baltimore would be reexamined over his denunciation of the push to abolish slavery. In 2017, the Booth Theatre was renamed the Douglass Theatre over due to the controversy over his lifelong advocacy of slavery and denunciation of abolition even to his deathbed.
Land of the Morning Calm: Korea's 20th Century
"...Guangjae was not a particularly impressive warship with only three guns and a thousand-ton displacement; the larger but long-outdated armored cruiser Maine, [1] sold at a deep discount rather than be scrapped by the US Navy, made for a fine flagship when renamed the Baekdu but it would be years until she had a crew sufficiently trained to man her. France sold the Royal Korean Navy four torpedo boats meant for coastal defense at a similarly advantageous price; Gojong decreed that they were never to leave Inchon's harbor, partly to consolidate the defenses on the approaches to the Han and partly because Korea could not reasonably use them to project power any further.
The slapdash naval expansion through purchasing surplus vessels boosted Korean prestige domestically to the emerging but small Western-educated elite that was well aware of China's recent defenestration at foreign hands, but the United States and France had their own reasons for offloading unwanted vessels onto the RKN. What few ships Seoul was able to put to sea would barely be able to defend the long and difficult coastline of the peninsula in a worst case scenario to begin with; the squadrons of Russia, France and the United States would have to do in that case. No, the surplus sales were designed less to create an indigenous naval defense force for Korea and more to send a very plain and unsubtle message to Japan that other powers had a very vested interest in keeping Korea out of Japanese domination and that Tokyo had best turn their attention elsewhere if they meant to meddle in the rest of Asia..."
- Land of the Morning Calm: Korea's 20th Century
[1] Yes, that Maine
The slapdash naval expansion through purchasing surplus vessels boosted Korean prestige domestically to the emerging but small Western-educated elite that was well aware of China's recent defenestration at foreign hands, but the United States and France had their own reasons for offloading unwanted vessels onto the RKN. What few ships Seoul was able to put to sea would barely be able to defend the long and difficult coastline of the peninsula in a worst case scenario to begin with; the squadrons of Russia, France and the United States would have to do in that case. No, the surplus sales were designed less to create an indigenous naval defense force for Korea and more to send a very plain and unsubtle message to Japan that other powers had a very vested interest in keeping Korea out of Japanese domination and that Tokyo had best turn their attention elsewhere if they meant to meddle in the rest of Asia..."
- Land of the Morning Calm: Korea's 20th Century
[1] Yes, that Maine
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