WHAT HATH A WARM OVERCOAT WROUGHT?
An Alternate History Timeline
By Robert Perkins

Part One: 1841-1860

March 4, 1841--William Henry Harrison heeds the advice of his wife, who urges him to wear a warm overcoat as he gives his inauguration address, because it is an extremely chilly and windy day. He does not catch cold, and does not die a month later.

1841--President Harrison signs the Clay Tariff Bill into law. The bill raises tariffs from their current levels of 20% up to a new level of almost 40%. The bill also includes provisions for the disbursement of public lands in the West. The bill is roundly condemned by the South.

1842--The U.S. Supreme Court, in the Prigg v. Pennsylvania decision, upholds the right of slaveowners to recover slaves which have escaped into States which have abolished slavery, and declares unconstitutional State laws intended to interfere with the recovery of said slaves. President Harrison, in an attempt to mollify the South after his support for the Clay Tariff Act of 1841, quickly announces his support for the decision and that the Federal Government stands ready to enforce it. Also in this year, President Harrison sends in federal troops to suppress the Dorr Rebellion in Rhode Island, thus demonstrating, for all to see, his willingness to use military force to enforce the Constitution.

1843--The American Republican Party is founded in New York. It is founded as a result of fears that major cities, especially in the North, are being overwhelmed by Irish Catholic immigrants who are regarded as hostile to American values and controlled by the Pope in Rome. It pursues an anti-immigration, anti-Catholic agenda.

Also in this year, in Nauvoo, Illinois, Joseph Smith, Jr., leader of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (commonly known as the Mormon Church), has a special revelation which introduces polygamy, which is called the "Law of Abraham," "Patriarchal Order of Marriage," or "Celestial Plural Marriage." Along with the "Law of Abraham" went the "Law of Sarah," in which women were admonished to accept polygamy. Joseph Smith assigns some women to some men. When news of this leaks out, it inflames the passions of local non-Mormons, already concerned that Mormon block-voting could lead to a theocracy being imposed on them.

Early 1843--Several Northern States pass "Personal Liberty Laws" in defiance of the recent decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in the Prigg v. Pennsylvania case. These laws seek to take advantage of a statement in Chief Justice Story’s opinion in the Prigg case that, although States are not able to over-ride Federal Laws, neither are they required to enforce them, and the new laws prohibit State officials from taking any action whatsoever with regard to escaped slaves. The escaped slaves will not be apprehended by State law enforcement officials, will not be allowed to be incarcerated in State jails, and claims for the return of escaped slaves will not be heard in State Courts. These laws are intended to effectively nullify both the Fugitive Slave Act and Article IV, Section 2, Clause 3 of the Constitution.

July 1843--President Harrison declares that “The States must follow not only the letter, but the spirit, of the law. Passive Nullification is, and remains, Nullification,“ and proclaims that the Federal Government will enforce compliance with Federal Law and the Constitution, by military means if necessary.

August 1843--President Harrison begins massing regular army units in Maryland and Kentucky to back up his threat, as well as stationing naval squadrons outside New York and Boston harbors.

September 1843--In response to President Harrison's provocative actions, a Convention of the Northern States is called in Hartford, Connecticut. A resolution is passed calling for secession from the Union. The New York and Massachusetts State Legislature vote for secession a week later.

On September 21, President Harrison declares New York and Massachusetts to be in rebellion, and orders the closure of New York and Boston Harbors. In response, the rest of the New England States secede over the course of the following two weeks, along with Pennsylvania and Ohio.

October 1843--President Harrison calls for 75,000 troops to put down the rebellion. However, the Southern States refuse to support the effort to coerce their sister States, and impeachment proceedings are soon brought against Harrison.

November 1843--President Harrison is impeached and removed from office. Vice President John Tyler, who has strongly opposed President Harrison's actions, is sworn in as the tenth President of the United States.

January 1844--The seceded States petition to rejoin the Union. However, the Southern States, which now control the Federal Government, insist that if the Northern States are to rejoin the Union, they must agree to repeal their “Personal Liberty Laws” and abide by the Constitution and all of it's provisions. The seceded Northern States balk.

March 1844--A Convention of the seceded States decides to form the Federated States of America (F.S.A.). Daniel Webster of Massachusetts is selected as Provisional President, pending an election to be held in November. After much debate, a flag is adopted for the new nation.  Reflecting the widespread sentiment within the new nation that it is the true torchbearer for the ideals for which the Old Union was founded, the flag of the F.S.A.  will basically be identical to the flag of the Old Union, but with the colors reversed.  There are now two nations, where once there was but one.

FLAG OF THE FEDERATED STATES OF AMERICA, ADOPTED MARCH 1844

March 1844 onward--The breakup of the Old Union has left the United States in possession of the vast majority of the former Union’s army and navy. The Federated States, therefore, must basically build a new military establishment from scratch. They are helped by the fact that most of the Northern-born officers resigned from their posts in the U.S. armed forces at the secession of their States from the Union, and the former U.S. Military Academy at West Point also is now the property of the F.S.A. The F.S.A. also inherits the federal arsenal at Springfield, Massachusetts, as well as the naval yards at Boston and Philadelphia.

The Congress of the F.S.A. passes regulations for it’s army which are basically a duplicate of those in use by the United States. They adopt gray, which was used by many U.S. forces during the War of 1812...due to shortages of blue cloth…and therefore has an honorable military tradition in America, as the color of the uniforms worn by the new Federated States Army. As the F.S.A. is not sure of the future of relations with it’s neighbor to the South, it’s Congress authorizes a larger military than that maintained by the United States in OTL during this time period. However, the American tradition of distrusting large standing armies still remains, and the size of the Federated States Army is set, by law, at only 20,000 (about twice the size of the OTL U.S. Army during this time period). The hard life and low wages offered to potential recruits, however, will make it hard to maintain even this small number in the field, and the actual size of the Army will hover at between 15,000 and 18,000...except for a brief surge of volunteers which will bring the strength of the Army to 60,000 during the War with Mexico…throughout the 1840s and 1850s. Most of these troops will be posted to garrison duty in the West, or in various fortifications along the coast and along the borders with the United States. Later, as the size of the U.S. military establishment grows due to the stresses introduced by the conquest of Mexico, the F.S.A. will also raise it’s own authorized establishment to 100,000 by 1880.

The Federated States Navy, like the Army, will basically be built from scratch, and will pattern itself on that of the United States. A fleet of 50 vessels is initially authorized, to consist primarily of wooden frigates and sloops-of war, suitable for protecting the commerce of the F.S.A. on the high seas, but not intended for a major war with a European power. The F.S.A.’s Navy will reap one benefit over that of the U.S.A. by the fact that it has to be built, basically, from scratch…from the beginning, almost all of it’s ships will be equipped with steam power and the most modern naval artillery. The Federated States Navy, like the Army, will see some expansion during the 1860s and 1870s, and will stand at almost 100 vessels of various kinds…including 10 of the new ironclad warships…by 1880.

Meanwhile, the breakup of the Union has lead to some changes in the structure and strength of the United States military as well. The United States was fortunate in that it retained the bulk of the nation’s pre-secession military strength. However, the loss of the arsenals and naval yards of the North, as well as the military academy at West Point, is a serious problem. Fortunately, the fine arsenal at Harper’s Ferry, Virginia, and the Gosport Naval Yard at Norfolk, Virginia, both remained in the hands of the United States. There are also two good military academies, the Virginia Military Institute at Lexington, Virginia, and the Citadel, at Charleston, South Carolina, which might lend themselves to adoption by the United States as a replacement for the academy at West Point. In the end, after much debate, the U.S. Congress purchases The Citadel from the State of South Carolina in 1845 and establishes it’s new military academy there. In the same year, a Naval Academy is established at Baltimore, Maryland. New arsenals will established at Columbia, South Carolina, Augusta, Georgia, Nashville, Tennessee, and Selma, Alabama, to supplement the production of the Harpers Ferry Arsenal, and shipyards will be established at Mobile, Alabama, Charleston, South Carolina, and New Orleans, Louisiana by 1880.

The United States, too, is unsure of it’s new neighbor to the North, and authorizes an increase in the size of it’s military establishment in 1845. The 1845 Military Act establishes the strength of the U.S. Army at 25,000. During the Mexican War, the strength of the Army is swelled by volunteers to approximately 80,000. In 1848, in the aftermath of the Mexican War, Congress increases the authorized strength of the Army to 50,000. As the need for more troops to hold down the conquered Mexican Territories becomes clear, subsequent acts during the late 1850s, the 1860s, and the 1870s, will gradually increase the authorized strength of the Army to 150,000 blue-jackets (as U.S. troops are popularly known due to the color of their uniform coats) by 1880.

The United States was fortunate in that it retained almost all of the pre-secession Navy after the breakup of the Old Union, for this allowed the U.S. to focus it’s resources into the expansion of the Army during and after the War with Mexico. Nevertheless, the U.S. Navy will see a slow expansion, to 85 ships by 1880, and conversion from sail to steam power over the period from 1850 to 1880, but will lag far behind the more modern Federated States Navy in that department. Indeed, it is not until 1879...ten years after the last such ship was retired from the Federated States Navy…that the last sail-powered U.S. warships are decommissioned and replaced by steam-powered vessels. The U.S. Navy will also be far slower in introducing ironclads into it’s fleet, introducing it’s first ironclad in 1875, and having only commissioned 3 of them by 1880.

March through June 1844--The remaining "free" States, fearing the new power of the South and it's control of Congress, secede from the U.S.A. and petition to join the F.S.A. Their applications are accepted.

May 1844--James Wilson Marshall leaves Illinois and moves to the Iowa Territory. He settles there, sets up a successful sawmill business, and remains in Iowa to the end of his life. (In OTL, Marshall settled in Missouri, caught Malaria, and was told to go west by his physician. He ended up in Northern California, working as a carpenter for John Sutter. Marshall had the idea to start a sawmill business, and Sutter agreed to partner with him, leaving Marshall to design and build the mill. During the process of construction, Marshall discovered gold, leading to the California gold rush. Since in the ATL Missouri is now in a different country, he goes elsewhere. As a result, he doesn't catch Malaria, and is not told to go West by his doctor, the sawmill is never built, and gold is not discovered in January 1848).

FLAG OF THE FEDERATED STATES OF AMERICA, JUNE 1844

June 1844--Mormon leader Joseph Smith, Jr., orders the presses of the Nauvoo, Illinois EXPOSITOR destroyed after the newspaper published criticisms of the secret practices of the L.D.S. Church, including polygamy. This action further inflames the non-Mormons in the area. To protect the Mormons of Nauvoo from potential attack, Smith declares martial law in Nauvoo and calls out the Nauvoo Legion, a 5,000-man Mormon militia. Smith is charged with inciting a riot, and, because of his declaration of martial law in Nauvoo, with treason against the State of Illinois. Smith initially refuses to surrender, but after a tense stand-off with Illinois authorities, is persuaded to surrender by the Governor of Illinois. He is later shot to death in his jail cell by a lynch mob in Carthage, Illinois.  The last of the "free" States leave the Union and join the F.S.A.   The Congress of the Federated States adopts legislation to add stars for the newly admitted States to it's flag.

June 1844-December 1845--Mormon War in Illinois. Following the murder of Joseph Smith, Jr., the conflict between Mormons and non-Mormons in Illinois escalates into what is sometimes called the "Mormon War in Illinois." Latter Day Saints in outlying areas are driven from their homes and gather to Nauvoo for protection. The Illinois state legislature votes to revoke Nauvoo's charter, forcing the city to operate extra-legally. By the end of 1845, it becomes clear that no peace is possible, and Brigham Young and the Quorum of Twelve negotiate a truce so that the Latter Day Saints can prepare to abandon the city.

July 1844--A treaty is signed dividing up the Western Territories between the U.S.A. and the F.S.A. along the Missouri Compromise Line. It is further agreed that the two nations will have "spheres of influence and expansion" in the Far West, and they agree to extend the Missouri Compromise Line to the Pacific Ocean.

FLAG OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, AUGUST 1844

August 1844--The death of Joseph Smith and his brother, Hyrum, at the hands of the lynch mob in Carthage, Illinois, has thrown the L.D.S. Church into a succession crisis. A general meeting of the L.D.S. Church in Nauvoo, Illinois, called to resolve the issue, decides that there should be no successor to Joseph Smith as Prophet of the Church. Instead, it is decided that the Quorum of Twelve, lead by Brigham Young, should be constituted as the governing body of the Church. Several schisms will occur as a result of this decision, and groups lead by Sidney Ridgon, William Smith, and James Strang will all leave the Church and form new congregations of their own shortly thereafter.  Also in this month, the United States Congress adopts legislation to remove the stars for the seceded States from the U.S. Flag.

November 1844--James K. Polk of Kentucky defeats President Tyler in the national election and is elected President of the United States. Daniel Webster is elected the first non-provisional President of the Federated States of America.

December 1844--President Tyler persuades the U.S. Congress to pass a joint resolution for the annexation of Texas.

1845 onward--Political Trends in the F.S.A. The American Republican Party, also known as the “Native American Party” or the “Know Nothings” (because it’s members are enjoined, when asked about the activities of local party organizations, to reply “I know nothing”) steadily gains in power and influence in the F.S.A. Although they will not be in a position to make a serious run for the Presidency for some time, they begin to make inroads at the State level, capturing several State legislatures from 1846 onwards.

Another political trend in the F.S.A. will also arise during this period. With the separation of the North from the old Union, most of the steam has been taken out of the anti-slavery movement in the North. The mass of the people of the North have never been Abolitionists…that is, committed to the abolition of slavery in the South. Instead, they have been Free Soilers…that is, opposed to the extension of slavery into the Western Territories because it means competition by black, slave labor with free, white labor. Free Soilers are also, like Abolitionists, opposed to the enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Act on Northern soil, which seems to them as the first step of an attempt to impose slavery onto the North itself. Therefore, when the North remained unified to the South, and when the South retained a legal claim on the Western Territories, the Free Soilers had begun increasingly to form a united front with the Abolitionists, even though most in the North still consider them to be wild-eyed radicals. Now that the old Union has been broken, Free Soilers in the North find that their goals have been achieved, and consider the slavery issue resolved. They promptly distance themselves from the Abolitionists.

And, the Abolitionists themselves suffer large desertions from their ranks, because many of them hold the view that, although slavery remains deplorable, now that the North has separated itself from the South, it is no longer tainted by the “sin of slavery” and therefore, it is no longer their problem. Therefore, within a relatively short time after The Secession, only a small, hard-core group of abolitionists remains, and they will become increasingly marginalized as a group in the years to come.

Instead, new issues arise to attract the attention and increasingly replace the slavery issue as the focus of the puritanical and reformist elements in the Northern population. The most prominent of these is Mormon polygamy. Lurid stories of wild sex orgies begin to be propagated in Northern newspapers, and condemnations of the practice as a form of legalized slavery will flow from Northern pulpits. These voices will grow in volume during and after the Mormon War in Illinois during 1844-1845, when it appears to many that the Mormons are bent on establishing a theocracy in place of American democracy. Although the anti-Mormon hysteria subsides somewhat once it is announced that the Mormons are leaving Illinois for a new settlement in the Far West, that will be only a short respite. When, in the aftermath of the Mexican War, the F.S.A. lays claim to the land on which the Mormons have settled in the Great Basin, the hysteria will begin anew, and grow increasingly strident as time goes on.

The Anti-Polygamy Movement will, itself, help to feed the growth of another movement…the Women’s Rights Movement. The cries of the Anti-Polygamists that Polygamy is a form of legalized slavery of women will help to raise awareness of the unequal status held by women in society. Women like Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucy Stone, and Susan B. Anthony will be active in both movements. Although males will prove highly reluctant to give up their control over society and allow women an equal place in the seats of power, the movement will, nevertheless, advance more rapidly than in OTL as a result of the boost it receives from the Anti-Polygamy Movement.

Another movement which will start to gain steam in the F.S.A. as the slavery issue recedes into the background is the Temperance Movement. This movement will receive support from both former Abolitionists and from the growing Know Nothing movement, which views Irish (and later, German) immigrants as drunkards who threaten the moral character of America, and the Temperance Movement will make great strides in the F.S.A. over the succeeding years.

1845 onward--The secession of the Northern States from the Union has created a major economic problem for the United States. The vast majority of the banking industry at the time of secession was located in the North, along with almost all of the nation’s reserves of specie. The U.S. is fortunate in that the Georgia Gold Belt is still producing gold in significant quantities…although the easy gold has, by now, been taken and more industrialized mining operations are now necessary to extract the precious metal…and that mints have been established at Dahlonega to coin the gold thus produced. But the relative scarcity of specie in the early years after the Secession, and lack of a banking industry, will prove significant issues.

In order to meet the demand, most States follow a free-banking policy, allowing banks to be chartered and operate with little regulation. As a result, a banking industry will evolve which will follow some highly questionable practices over the upcoming years. In particular, they will issue large amounts of paper money, in most cases backed by questionable securities such as mortgages and bonds rather than by specie. The lifespan of the majority of these banks will be, on average, about five years, and more than half of them will fail when they cannot redeem their notes.

Needless to say, this all causes a good deal of economic instability in the country. The reopening of the Mexican silver and gold mines (discussed elsewhere) will eventually bring some stability to the banking system by injecting more specie into the U.S. economy and allowing banks to rely less on mortgages and bonds as backing for their paper money, but this will take time. In the interim, several major Panics will result, leading to severe economic recessions. This will lead the Whig Party in particular to argue for the creation of a nationally regulated banking system and the establishment of a single national currency, but this will be opposed by the powerful planter aristocracy, which is shielded, to a large extent, from the effect of these recessions by the stability of the cotton market, and many of whom dabble, as a sideline, in banking as an extra source of income. These planters and their allies form the dominant faction within the Democratic Party, and they will prevent effective action to correct the defects of the banking system for many years.

The resulting recessions affect the non-slaveholding majority much more than they do the upper classes, and over time, they will contribute to the erosion of the power of the planter aristocracy in the U.S.

Meanwhile, in the F.S.A., the dominant Whig Party will pass, in 1847, legislation creating a new central bank, called the Bank of the Federated States. This is based on the old Bank of the United States, but with some additional regulations to help curb the widespread corruption and fraud which plagued it’s ill-fated predecessor. The Bank of the Federated States will not be the sole source of the nation’s money supply…only issuing about 25 percent of the banknotes in circulation in the F.S.A….but the fact that it provides the largest single source of currency in the economy allows it to exercise some control over the money supply in the country, and thus provide a degree of stability to the economy of the F.S.A. which is not enjoyed by the U.S.A. during this period. Nevertheless, like the U.S.A. (although to a lesser degree), the F.S.A. will suffer from an oversupply of bank notes issued by poorly regulated State Banks which are not backed by specie, and bank failures in the F.S.A. will be common, leading (as in the U.S.A.) to economic panics.

March 1845--James K. Polk is sworn into office as the twelfth President of the United States.

July 4, 1845--The Texas Convention passes an Ordinance of Annexation, agreeing to annexation by the United States.

September 1, 1845--The Republic of Texas is formally annexed by the United States, and ceases to exist. Mexico strongly protests and threatens war.

September 1845 to January 1846--President Polk attempts to negotiate the purchase of New Mexico and California from Mexico. Upon learning of Polk's action, President Webster of the F.S.A. sends a stern diplomatic warning to the U.S.A. reminding President Polk of the agreed-upon spheres of influence in the Far West, and demands that any such negotiations be conducted on a joint basis. Polk agrees, and a joint delegation is sent to Mexico with the aim of procuring all Mexican territory north of the Rio Grande River. Mexico refuses to negotiate.

FLAG OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, OCTOBER 1845

October 1845--Texas is formally admitted into the United States as a State.

Winter 1845-1846--The L.D.S. Church in Nauvoo undertakes the enormous preparations for the “Mormon Exodus” across the Great Plains. It is decided to establish a new base for the Church in the Great Basin, at a place called the Salt Lake Valley.

January 1846--President Polk sends troops, under General Zachary Taylor, to secure the southern border of Texas at the Rio Grande. Mexico holds that the southern border of Texas rests upon the Nueces River, and Mexican troops attack the U.S. forces, beginning the U.S./Mexican War.

February 1846--Mormons begin leaving Nauvoo, headed for the Salt Lake Valley.

April 1846--Iowa is admitted into the F.S.A. as a State.

January 1846-October 1847--The U.S./Mexican War. The war, as in OTL, ends in a victory for the United States. As U.S. forces battle Mexican troops in Mexico, as well as New Mexico and southern California, the F.S.A. sends troops westward, against little opposition, to secure the lands north of the Compromise Line, including the prize port of San Francisco Bay in California. Fighting ends by October 1847, with U.S. forces occupying most of Mexico’s major cities, including Mexico City, and Mexican military opposition is pretty much at an end. However, the Mexican government flees from Mexico City to the city of Santiago de Queretaro and refuses to surrender.

1846-1847--The Liberian Crisis. Since 1821, the American Colonization Society, an organization based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, has maintained a colony on the coast of West Africa called Liberia, where freed slaves from the United States have been re-settled, in small numbers, since that time. With the secession of the Northern States and the formation of the Federated States of America, de facto ownership of the colony has passed to the newly created Federated States of America. Like the United States, the government of the F.S.A. has, until now, preferred to leave the task of administering Liberia to the Society. However, the Society has not been doing a great job at this, and in 1846 a new problem crops up which threatens to bring British intervention in the colony.

The Liberian commonwealth receives most of its revenue from custom duties, primarily levied on indigenous traders and British merchants. The British government has, up until now, turned a blind eye to this and ignored the complaints of it’s merchants, who have long been angered by this taxation. But in early 1846, the British government advises the Liberian authorities that it does not recognize the right of the American Colonization Society, a private organization, to levy taxes on it‘s citizens. Britain's refusal to recognize the authority of the American Colonization Society has convinced many colonists that independence with full taxing authority is necessary for the survival of the colony and its immigrant population. In October 1846, therefore, the Americo-Liberian colonists vote in favor of independence.

In the meantime, pressures within the Federated States have been building which are forcing the government of the F.S.A. to take a more concerned stance toward its “bastard stepchild” in Africa. One of the unexpected consequences of the breakup of the Union has been a significant increase in the number of runaway slaves seeking asylum in the States of the F.S.A. With this influx of black people into the F.S.A., however, there has been increasing political pressure among the white majority to send them somewhere else…anywhere else, as long as it’s outside the F.S.A. The American Colonization Society’s venture in Liberia, therefore, now looks increasingly attractive as a place where all these escaped slaves can be sent, and thus removed from the F.S.A.

Therefore, when the Liberian colony declares it’s independence, the government of the F.S.A. refuses to recognize it. A military expedition is fitted out which sets sail in early 1847. When it arrives at Monrovia in March, it meets with some resistance from the colonists, but this is crushed within three months, with many casualties on both sides. A white governor and a strong garrison are stationed in Liberia, and a more efficient administration is put in place for the colony. A steady stream of new colonists…mostly escaped slaves from the United States…begins arriving soon thereafter, and the population begins to grow. With the support of the Federated States government, the colony begins to move beyond it’s shaky early beginnings and to establish itself as a more stable and economically prosperous place.

1846-1848--The Apache tribes of the southwest, bitter enemies of Mexico, cooperate with U.S. troops and give them safe passage through their country. Mangas Coloradas, chief of the Mimbreno Apaches, as well as other Apache leaders, will make treaties with the U.S. during this period, as well.

Winter 1846-1847--The Mormons establish a winter camp in the area of what would eventually become, in OTL, Omaha, Nebraska. By the arrival of winter, almost 16,000 Mormons have gathered there. The Mormon camp in the area, known as “Winter Quarters,” will remain active until late 1848.

1847 onwards, Liberia: The colony of the Federated States in Africa, called Liberia, continues to expand as a steady stream of new colonists are transported there. With military support from the Federated States, the colonists begin driving deeper into the African interior, as well as eastward along the coast into what, in OTL, would become the French colony of the Ivory Coast. In 1861, a second colony…called Freedonia…will be founded along the coast of what, in OTL, would become the French colony of Guinea. This, too, will expand into the interior during the coming years, and by 1881, the territory of the two colonies will have met in the interior region behind the British enclave at Sierra Leone.

The territorial expansion of Liberia, and especially the foundation of Freedonia, strains relations between the Federated States and the governments of Britain (which has a colony at Sierra Leone which it sees as increasingly threatened as it is gradually surrounded by F.S.A.-controlled territory) and France (which had, beginning in the early 1840s, staked claims to the Guinea Region and what would later become known as the Ivory Coast, although these areas would not be formally colonized by the French in OTL until the 1880s and 1890s). However, these tensions do not erupt into open conflict between the three powers.

In 1883, the two African colonies are officially joined, by Act of Congress, into one, called American West Africa.

April 1847--The Mormons begin departing from their Winter Quarters in Nebraska and heading west.

July 1847 onward--The first Mormons arrive in the Salt Lake Valley, and establish a settlement in July 1847. More companies of L.D.S. members follow, and by the end of the year, more than 2,000 have gathered in the Salt Lake Valley. Their numbers will continue to grow as more and more make the journey across the Plains, and additional settlements are soon founded.

1848 onward--The settlement of the Western Territories proceeds at a much slower pace than in OTL. The fact that gold was not discovered on schedule in California means also that the phenomenon of people loading up mules with picks and shovels, heading into the wilderness, and prospecting all over the West looking for gold and silver veins, which occurred in OTL largely because the California Gold Rush of 1849 put that idea into the public mind, does not happen. And so the other Western mineral strikes...the Comstock Lode, the Black Hills, the Arizona Strikes, etc., are significantly delayed...if indeed they occur at all in the ATL (historically, the discovery of the other mineral veins was critically dependent on the California Gold Rush happening).

The end result of all this is that the West will be peopled, at a much slower rate than in OTL, primarily by farmers who have gone west, seeking free land. Nevertheless, there will be a steady stream of immigrants, ranging from 2,000 to 10,000 people per year into California, and about the same into Oregon. These Territories will therefore qualify for Statehood before the end of the 19^th Century. As the Great Plains is still considered as “The Great American Desert,“ settlers will not find these regions attractive, and Dakota and Nebraska Territories, on the other hand, will be settled much more slowly. On average, between 500 and 3,000 people per year will attempt to settle in these territories, and most of the these won’t stay permanently. These Territories will remain sparsely populated as a result, and will still not have been admitted into the F.S.A. as States well into the 20th Century.

1848 onward--Relations between the U.S. and the Apaches in the Southwest remain cordial, for the most part, for the next 20 years after the end of the Mexican War. Indeed, the U.S. often makes good use of Apache scouts as it fights Mexican rebels during these years. This situation is largely due to the fact that there have been no “gold rushes” into Apache territory during this time period. Although U.S. military exploration parties sent by Presidents Benton and Davis, as mentioned elsewhere, discovered gold and silver veins in several places in the New Mexico Territory during the 1850s, these discoveries were not made public, as the Federal Government…remembering the chaos and lawlessness caused by the Dahlonega and other Eastern gold rushes earlier in the century…intends that when the new veins are eventually exploited, it will be by government-licensed companies and not by mobs of independent prospectors. And so “gold fever” was not sown among the public during this period, and settlement of the region by whites has proceeded in a more regulated manner.

However, this situation cannot last forever, and by the late 1860s, relations between the two groups will be strained to the breaking point as increasing white settlement leads to clashes between settlers and Apaches over water sources and other resources.

1848 onward--The Decline of Slavery in the U.S.A. and it’s Impact on the F.S.A. The secession of the North will, over the succeeding decades, have a major and largely unforeseen impact on the institution of slavery in the United States. Without the ability to enforce the return of fugitive slaves from the North, slaveowners in the U.S.A. are forced to watch helplessly as the trickle of run-aways slowly becomes a flood. As time goes on, this begins to impact the supply of slave labor available in the United States, and prices of slaves begin to rise. Of course, all this seriously increases tensions between the U.S.A. and the F.S.A., but despite much acrimony, the two nations will remain at peace, and the F.S.A. will do nothing to stop the influx of runaways across it‘s borders.

Although the majority of the people of the F.S.A. do not really want the blacks to come North, neither do they want to return them to the U.S.A. As a result, the American Colonization Society, for the first time, gains strong support from the government in the F.S.A., and the F.S.A. does not relinquish it’s control over the colony in Liberia. Hundreds of thousands of free blacks and run-away slaves will be transported to Liberia by the end of the 19th Century. And so, even though the F.S.A. becomes a haven for run-away slaves, the actual population of blacks within the F.S.A. itself will actually decline over time.

Paradoxically, the problem faced by U.S. slaveholders is exacerbated by the U.S. conquest of Mexico, which has opened up vast new lands for the expansion of slave-based agriculture. There quite simply are not enough slaves to go around, and slave labor will be, henceforth, at a premium. Prices for slaves now go through the roof, and become simply prohibitive as time goes on. This, in turn, will lead the U.S. Congress to consider re-legalizing the African slave trade. But in the end, strong diplomatic pressure…including not-so-thinly veiled threats of war…from the F.S.A. and, more importantly, Britain, will prevent this from happening. And so the prices of slaves keep rising, which puts pressure on the institution as a whole. More and more planters begin to use cheap, paid Mexican labor instead of purchasing exorbitantly priced slaves.

And so, the fate of slavery has been sealed. As more and more planters have switched to free labor, opposition in the U.S. to slavery as an institution has grown. The coup de grace comes in the last decade of the 19th century and the first decade of the twentieth, when a major collapse of cotton prices forces most of the big planters into bankruptcy. The situation is compounded by the arrival of the boll weevil, which makes it impossible for planters to maintain even their already greatly reduced incomes. The large plantations are broken up and sold off to small farmers. These farmers cannot afford to purchase and maintain slaves, and their former owners can’t afford to retain them, either. In order to cut their losses, most of them manumit their slaves by 1905, and most State Legislatures respond by abolishing slavery shortly thereafter. The U.S. Congress will pass an amendment formally abolishing slavery throughout the United States in 1910, which will be ratified in early 1911.

1848--Cuban revolutionary Narcisco Lopez flees to the United States, where he tries to create interest in a filibustering expedition to Cuba for the purpose of overthrowing Spanish rule there. He is, unlike in OTL, allowed to freely operate and recruit in the U.S. without molestation by the United States government, which is upset with Spain for allowing the Mexican “Government in Exile” to take up residence in Havana.

January 1848--President Polk, who has been trying to negotiate an end to the Mexican War since the end of effective hostilities in October 1847, is not having any success. He makes a last attempt in January 1848. When the Mexican government still refuses to negotiate, Polk decides enough is enough, and asks Congress to declare the total annexation of Mexico.

February 1848--The U.S. Congress passes legislation formally annexing Mexico south of the Missouri Compromise Line. U.S. troops, at the instruction of President Polk, move into Santiago de Queretaro. They capture many of the members of the Mexican government and force the rest to flee the country. Most of them end up in Cuba, where they set up a Mexican “Government in Exile.” Although they will not be able to retake Mexico, they stir up rebellions against U.S. occupation forces which cause the U.S. a lot of problems in the upcoming years. As noted elsewhere, U.S. policies will also play a large role in keeping these rebellions going.

February 1848 onwards--Major Trends in the U.S.A. Resulting from the Mexican War. In the aftermath of the annexation of Mexico, the United States Congress passes the Mexican Territorial Act, which divides the territory of Mexico into fourteen Territories, stating that these Territories can be admitted as States when the population of U.S. citizens in each territory reaches 60,000. This will lead to increasing discord in U.S. politics as the Territories which have been formed out of the Mexican States are considered for Statehood.

A lot of this discord arises because the passage of the Territorial Act placed the United States in a conundrum. Just what is a citizen, and just as importantly, just how does a virtually exclusively English-speaking, Protestant country incorporate over six million…equal to the entire white population of the United States at the time…predominantly Spanish-speaking Catholics into the political and economic structures of the United States? One major problem…the Constitution at the time does not clearly specify just who is, and who is not, a citizen of the United States, and Congress has passed little legislation on the matter. The Naturalization Act of 1790, which stated that only “free white persons” could be naturalized as citizens of the United States, acts as their guide, and Congress passes, before the end of February 1848, the Citizenship Act, a law which declares natural-born citizenship, or citizenship by virtue of having been born within the territory or under the jurisdiction of the United States, to be applicable only to free white persons. Taken together, these two laws effectively exclude almost all of the population of Mexico from holding either natural-born or naturalized U.S. citizenship. This will, over the next few years, lead to a myriad of Supreme Court cases which challenge the 1848 Citizenship Act and force the courts to define just what constitutes a “free white person.”

However, the status of the majority of the population of Mexico is left in question by the Citizenship and Naturalization Acts. If they are not citizens of the United States, what are they? Several Supreme Court decisions will spur Congress to take action in 1852, when it passes the “Act to Clarify the Status of Persons Not Holding Citizenship.” In so doing, the United States creates a class of non-citizen “U.S. Nationals,” who are entitled to the protection of the law but who are not allowed to participate in the national political process. Nothing in the act prohibits them from participating at the State level (similar to the way in which some Northern States, in OTL, allowed free blacks to have State citizenship and vote in State elections at different times prior to the OTL Civil War, but were not able to extend national citizenship to them).

In practice, however, the majority of Mexicans will be excluded from the State and local political process as well. The Conventions which eventually draw up the Constitutions for the Mexican Territories, in preparation for their admission as States, are composed mostly of Anglo immigrants, supplemented by the relatively rare elite Mexican families who have maintained their European blood and not mixed themselves with the native people of Mexico, and thus, have been defined by U.S. Supreme Court decisions as “free white people.” In most places, these groups act to protect their own interests, and the Constitutions they adopt tend to exclude those of mixed race, as well as full-blooded Indians, from the political process.

The major results of all this is that much of Mexico will remain in a state of near-constant rebellion, and as a result, will still not have been admitted to the U.S. as States by the end of the 19th century. The United States will be forced to maintain a strong military presence in Mexico, which will force it to retain relatively high tariffs (not as exorbitantly high as the 1841 Clay Tariff, but still well over what they were prior to 1841) in order to finance this unplanned expansion of the military. This, in turn, along with the need to supply this enlarged military, will have the secondary, but not unimportant, impact of fostering the growth of industry and manufacturing in the U.S. Cities like Richmond and Charlottesville, Virginia; Nashville and Chattanooga, Tennessee; Columbia and Charleston, South Carolina; Selma and Birmingham, Alabama; Little Rock, Arkansas; Shreveport, and New Orleans, Louisiana; Augusta and Milledgeville, Georgia; Raleigh and Wilmington, North Carolina; and Houston and San Antonio, Texas, will all become, by the end of the 19th century, major centers of manufacturing.

Almost all of the labor for these growing industries will be composed of poor Mexicans who move north in search of better opportunities than they can find at home. Some factory owners will initially employ slave labor, but will soon find that it is more economic to hire poor Mexicans who will work for practically nothing, can be fired at will, and who they don’t have to support in their old age, than to employ exorbitantly priced slaves, further pushing the institution of slavery along the road to extinction.

March 1848--During the war, U.S. forces occupied some areas north of the Missouri Compromise line, and F.S.A. forces occupied some areas south of the line. In this month, a treaty is agreed upon exchanging these illegally occupied territories and recognizing each nation's claims to the territory they have seized from Mexico.

May 1848--President Webster of the F.S.A., whose attention has been diverted by the unfolding drama over Texas and the U.S./Mexican War, decides to resume negotiations with the British over the status of the Oregon Country, which is disputed between the British Empire and the F.S.A. These negotiations had been placed on hold by the Secession Crisis and never resumed since that time. Secretary of State James Buchanan is sent to negotiate with the British. The negotiations will drag on for some time.

July 1848--A convention of female reformers and their supporters held in Seneca Falls, New York, issues a manifesto calling for equal rights for women.

November 1848--Elections are held in the U.S.A. and the F.S.A. In the U.S.A., Democrat James K. Polk is re-elected to a second term, narrowly defeating Mexican War hero Winfield Scott, who ran as the Whig candidate. In the F.S.A., President Webster, citing ill health, decides not to run again. Democratic candidate (the major parties having, for the time being, retained their old names in both nations, despite the split) Lewis Cass of Michigan defeats Whig candidate Millard Fillmore in the F.S.A. voting. A factor in the defeat of Fillmore by Cass is the growing influence of the American Republican Party. The 1848 election is the first in which the said party fields a national Presidential candidate, in the person of Robert Conrad of Pennsylvania. Although Conrad comes out a distant third in the election, and although his candidacy also attracts many Democratic voters, it much more seriously splits the Whig Party. Thus, although the Whig Party is theoretically the dominant party in the F.S.A. (having greatly profited by the removal of Southern opposition to it‘s programs since the break-up of the Old Union), the Democrats prevail in the election.

1849 onward--Railroad development in the U.S.A. and the F.S.A. Railroad development in both the U.S.A. and the F.S.A. is proceeding at a faster rate than in OTL. However, because the Whig Party of the F.S.A., which is, despite the recent electoral victory of Democrat Lewis Cass in the Presidential race, the dominant party in the F.S.A. (partly because the economic program of the Whig Party has much in common with that of the American Republican Party, allowing the two parties to cooperate, to a certain degree, in Congress…of course, this also is a reason why the Whigs have been hurt so much more than the Democrats in the Presidential polling by said party), has been able to push through much of it’s economic program, calling for federal subsidies to railroad developers, development of railroads within the F.S.A. is significantly more advanced than in the U.S.A.

1849 onward--Following the unsuccessful 1848 Revolutions in Europe, there is a new wave of immigration into the F.S.A. Many thousands of Germans, French, Poles, Hungarians, and others, fleeing political repression in Europe, move into the F.S.A. While many of these are not Catholic, they nevertheless are seen as undesirables by the American Republican Party, which sees the beer-loving Germans especially as drunkards who threaten the morals of the nation, The power of the party grows as the tide of immigration increases and native citizens of the F.S.A. increasingly worry about the effect that foreign immigration is having on the traditionally Anglo-Saxon culture of the F.S.A. The American Republican Party also begins to take an anti-Mormon position, due to the success of Mormon missionary activity in Europe and the steadily increasing numbers of immigrants being brought to the F.S.A. by the Mormon Church.

1849--Narcisco Lopez, at the head of an army of 1,000 mercenaries (his second in command is a former U.S. Army officer, Major Robert E. Lee, and one of his junior officers is a newspaper editor from New Orleans named William Walker), lands in Cuba, where they take the town of Cardenas. However, the local support Lopez had counted on fails to materialize, and the local populace instead supports the Spanish. The Lopez expedition is forced to retreat to Key West.

1849-1857--The Administration of President Lewis Cass of the Federated States of America. President Cass’s administration will be marked by increasing strife within the Federated States over two issues…immigration, and polygamy. Cass will veto restrictive immigration laws passed by the Whig/Know Nothing alliance in Congress several times during his two terms in office, and so the issue does not come to a head during his term of office. But the issue of Mormon polygamy will erupt in violence during his term, leading to drastic and tragic consequences.

Cass’s administration will also be notable for the passage of legislation authorizing subsidies for the completion of a transcontinental telegraph line. Last but certainly not least, his term will be notable for the achievement of opening up Japan to contact with the outside world for the first time in over two centuries.

   FLAG OF THE FEDERATED STATES OF AMERICA,  JANUARY 1849

January 1849--Minnesota is admitted into the Federated States of America as a State.

March 1849--In ceremonies held in Washington, D.C. and in New York City (which has been selected as the capital of the Federated States of America), James K. Polk is sworn in for a second term as President of the United States, and Lewis Cass is sworn in as the second President of the Federated States. Also at this time, a Mormon delegation sent by Brigham Young arrives in New York to petition the Congress of the F.S.A. for the creation of a new State of Deseret, to include all the territory between the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Nevadas. Congress rejects this proposal.

June 1849--U.S. President James K. Polk dies in office. Vice President Thomas Hart Benton of Missouri (George Mifflin Dallas, Polk’s OTL Vice President, having been from Pennsylvania, and since Pennsylvania seceded to join the F.S.A., he was never nominated in the ATL. Benton, who shared President Polk‘s views regarding the development of the West, was nominated to run with Polk in 1848) succeeds to the Presidency.

June 1849-March 1853--The Administration of U.S. President Thomas Hart Benton. Benton will gradually steer the Democratic Party, and the nation, onto a course which it will continue to pursue for decades. Benton, a strong believer in currency backed by specie (of which the F.S.A. ended up with the majority of the United States’ old reserves in the ATL) will successfully champion the reopening of the old colonial Mexican gold and silver mining operations, which had been, essentially, shut down by the Mexican War of Independence and never reopened due to continued poor government and turmoil in Mexico. Benton will also successfully champion the expansion of mining operations into new regions of Mexico, tapping the rich veins of the northern Sierra Madres (which were virtually untapped at this time in OTL…that will not be the case in the ATL). He also sends out expeditions to do geological, mapping and resource surveys of the Western Territories, which greatly increases awareness of the economic potential to be found there. These surveys will lead to the location of additional silver and gold veins at several locations in Sonora, Chihuahua, and New Mexico Territories in the upcoming years, as well as the discovery of ancient canal systems which had once been used to irrigate large regions of the Southwest, indicating the region‘s potential as a farming area.

President Benton also will champion, with less success, the development of a transcontinental railroad and a transcontinental telegraph line, and programs designed to promote settlement and development of the West. Opposition to these programs is primarily due to a disagreement over the source of funding for it. The mainstream Democratic Party is controlled by the slave-owning plantation class, which opposes the use of federal subsidies to promote such internal improvements primarily because the tariff is the major source of federal revenues at this time, and the planters object to being taxed to promote improvements projects which do not directly benefit them, believing that such projects would be better financed at the State level so as to prevent inequities in the distribution of funding.

However, Benton’s efforts to promote economic development of the West are not all in vain, and under his administration, the first Western Development Act is passed by the U.S. Congress, giving away public land in the West to anyone willing to develop it. As a result, a steady influx of Anglo settlers soon begins to make it’s way into the Territories, especially the northern former Mexican territories, where current landowners are few. In the more populated southern territories, Anglo settlement is somewhat hindered by the fact that most land is owned by Mexicans of European descent, who are defined as white and thus eligible for U.S. citizenship. However, there are also large holdings held by Mestizo families, whose political powerlessness will allow unscrupulous means to be used, in many cases, to deprive them of their titles to the land, making it available to white Anglo settlers. And so, Anglo settlement of southern Mexico will proceed as well, albeit at a slower rate.

Benton’s Administration will be remembered for another thing as well, this one not so good for the United States…the Spanish-American War of 1850-1851. This will be detailed in another entry in this timeline.

1850 onwards--Increasing Power of the Mormons in the West. The rejection of their proposal for a State of Deseret, coupled with reports of increasing anti-Mormon sentiment in the newspapers of the F.S.A., has gradually lead to increased feelings of resentment and persecution among the Mormons, both those in the Great Basin and those who have remained in the East. As a result, a larger number of Mormons leave their homes in the East and make their way to the Great Basin than in OTL. This, along with successful Mormon missionary efforts in Europe, which bring in a significant number of immigrants who go immediately to the settlements in the Great Basin, causes the Mormon presence in the West to become significantly stronger than in OTL. Mormon settlements spread from the Salt Lake Valley to many other sites all over the southwest, but especially in what would, in OTL, become Utah and Nevada.

The increased size and strength of the Mormon settlements in the West, combined with the fact that the Territorial Government of the California Territory, in which the Mormons of the Great Basin find themselves included after August 1850, is in San Francisco…far enough away to give the Mormons a great deal of local independence…leads the Mormon leadership to become more radical. They are also encouraged in this by the fact that their numbers have given them a great deal of strength in the Territorial Legislature of the California Territory, which prevents any anti-Mormon legislation from being passed in the Territory.

Up until now, the Mormon leadership has actively discouraged rumors of Mormon polygamy, which has served, to some degree, to keep in check the tide of anti-Mormon sentiment in the F.S.A. Now, however, church leaders begin to publicly acknowledge their practice of plural marriage. A sermon on the subject given by Apostle Orson Pratt in October 1850 (in OTL, Pratt‘s sermon took place in August 1852) marks the official change of policy by the Church. Additional sermons by top Mormon leaders on the virtues of polygamy and the evils of monogamy soon follow.

1850 onwards--Mexico under U.S. Rule. The population of Mexico, which had largely adopted a “wait and see” attitude and been relatively quiescent in the immediate aftermath of the annexation of Mexico by the United States, is becoming more and more restless. This is because of several reasons. First, propaganda leaflets clandestinely distributed in Mexico by supporters of the Mexican “Government in Exile” in Havana have taken a while to be circulated among a majority of the population. By 1850, however, that is beginning to happen, and many Mexican patriots are starting to resist the U.S. occupation. Second, it is becoming increasingly clear that the “Gringos” intend to disenfranchise the vast majority of Mexico’s population and consign them to second class status…or worse. The passage of the Citizenship Act, and later, the “Act to Clarify the Status of Persons Not Holding Citizenship,” has driven this point home dramatically for those who had any doubts.

Therefore, by 1850, the first armed rebellions have arisen in several regions of Mexico. These are minor affairs at first, but by 1860, there will be several major rebellions going on, notably those lead by Juan Cortina in Nuevo Leon and Coahuila Territories; by Juan Alvarez in Jalisco and western Puebla Territories; by Tomas Mejia in Zacatecas Territory; and by Benito Juarez , with Porfirio Diaz, in Oaxaca Territory. These rebellions, however, are not coordinated…being lead by people with often radically different political views…and they do not seriously threaten U.S. control over Mexico. Nevertheless, they do force the U.S. to devote increasing military resources to their suppression.

There are also many Mexicans who welcome the United States as a force which can, perhaps, bring stability and economic development to Mexico. This is especially true among those groups classified as “whites,” and thus eligible for U.S. citizenship. This group happens to include most of the large landowners in Mexico, so their power and influence far exceeds their actual numbers. Men such as Felix Zuloaga, Miguel Miramon, Ignacio Comonfort, Manuel Robles Pezuela, and Jose Ignacio Pavon will become prominent supporters of U.S. rule in Mexico, participating in the new Territorial Governments when they are formed.

1850-1851--The Spanish-American War. After his ignominious retreat from Cuba the previous year, Narcisco Lopez recruits another army for the invasion of Cuba. This time he is given more support by the United States government, including a naval escort for his expedition’s ships. Lopez lands near Santiago, Cuba, in March 1850, with 12,500 men. Recognizing his own limitations as a military leader, he gives command of the military part of the expedition to Robert E. Lee. As was the case with the previous expedition, little support is forthcoming from the local population, who see the expedition as a thinly veiled attempt by the United States to seize control of Cuba for it’s own purposes. Nevertheless, under Lee’s command, the filibusters defeat a superior Spanish force and take Santiago in May 1850. This emboldens U.S. President Thomas Hart Benton to increase the level of U.S. support for the expedition. Several more regiments of U.S. “volunteers” soon after land at Santiago, leading Spain to break relations with the United States in June 1850. In July 1850, Spanish naval vessels open fire on a U.S. Navy vessel which is escorting a filibuster convoy into Santiago, and when news of the incident reaches the U.S., there is a public clamor for war. President Benton, knowing the United States is in no condition to pursue a foreign war while also trying to digest it’s recent conquests in Mexico, resists the war hawks as much as he can, but Congress nevertheless votes to declare war in August 1850.

Unfortunately for the United States, it’s aggressive actions have raised the ire of several other nations, including the Federated States of America and Britain. These two powers, although they never formally declare war, jointly impose what is essentially a naval blockade on the United States, stopping and searching unescorted U.S. merchant ships entering or leaving U.S. ports and even seizing those which are found to contain “contraband” headed for Cuba. They also offer loans and unlimited access to arms supplies to the Spanish, who gratefully accept this generosity.

The United States, which has it’s hands full in holding down Mexico, is not able to devote it’s full strength to the war in Cuba. Nor does it dare to take direct action against the warships of the F.S.A. and Britain which are conducting the de facto blockade of it’s ports, as it needs, at any cost, to keep those powers out of the war. Instead, the U.S. counters the de facto blockade by sending merchant ships out in convoys, escorted by warships, which the F.S.A. and British do not molest, as neither power wants to enter the war directly. While this does effectively break the “blockade,“ it also ties up most of the U.S. Navy and prevents it from being actively involved in the war itself. As a result, the Spanish are able to establish naval superiority in Cuban waters in relatively short order, and land a very large army which defeats the rebel and U.S. forces and captures Santiago in July 1851. The remnants of the U.S. and rebel forces are forced to surrender in August 1851.

Humiliated, the Benton Administration sues for peace in September 1851, and a treaty, mediated by Emperor Napoleon III of France, is signed at Paris in December 1851. In exchange for peace and the repatriation of the prisoners of war held by the Spanish, the United States is forced to pay a large indemnity to Spain, and to recognize Spanish sovereignty over Cuba. In the aftermath of the war, Spain formally recognizes the Mexican “Government in Exile” which has been residing in Havana since 1848, as does Britain. Needless to say, the United States is infuriated by that, but can do nothing.

The war does produce a few heroes for the U.S.A. who will go on to figure prominently in later years. Jefferson Davis once again serves with distinction, a fact that, along with his Mexican War service, will propel him to the White House in 1852. Robert E. Lee, by virtue of the command skills demonstrated during the war, is promoted to Brigadier General in the U.S. Army upon his return after the war. He will later (from 1863 onward) serve as Commanding General of the United States Army until his death in October 1870, ending his career with the rank of Lieutenant General (the first man in American history since George Washington to hold that rank). And William Walker, whose personal bravery and leadership skills figured prominently in newspaper coverage of the war in the United States and elsewhere, will also go onto an interesting later career as well. More on that later…

April 1850--The Oregon Treaty is signed between the F.S.A. and Great Britain. The disputed Oregon Country is divided at the Columbia River, following it north to the 49th Parallel. The line then follows the 49th Parallel from the Columbia River east to the Continental Divide, with the territory north of said line going to Britain, and the territory south of it to the F.S.A. This division occurred because of several factors. First, with the separation of the F.S.A. from the U.S.A., Britain feels in a stronger negotiating position vis-à-vis what it sees as a weaker opponent, and therefore presses it’s claim for the territory north of the Columbia River. Second, the changed dynamics, in the reduction in the number of settlers and the need to find new routes, of American settlement in the Oregon Country caused by the split between the U.S.A. and the F.S.A., has meant that American settlement in the region via the Oregon Trail has gone almost entirely into the Willamette Valley, south of the Columbia, and American settlements north of the river have not, by this date, been founded (in OTL, the first such settlement was founded in 1846). Therefore, the two sides agree upon the Columbia River as a border. Also in this month, the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty is signed between the U.S. and Britain, in which it is agreed that both nations are not to colonize or control any Central American republic, and that neither nation would seek exclusive control of an Isthmian canal, if such a canal be built. Instead, any such canal would be protected by both nations for neutrality and security, and any canal built will be open to all nations on equal terms.

August 1850--In the time since the end of the Mexican War, there has been much debate in the F.S.A. over how to organize the western territories. The slow rate of settlement has also meant that Congress has not considered the organization of the western territories as a major issue up until now. As a result the territories have remained, for the most part, unorganized up to this date. However, increasing concern over the activities of the Mormons in the Great Basin, along with the need to provide effective government for the gradually increasing settlements in California and Oregon especially, finally lead the Congress to take action. In August 1850, the Congress of the F.S.A. adopts legislation to divide the western lands into four large territories, to be named California, Oregon, Nebraska, and Dakota. The Mormons in the Great Basin region find themselves in the new California Territory, ruled by a governor located in far-away San Francisco and a Legislature of which their numbers give them effective control. This encourages the more radical elements of their leadership to take advantage of the situation and, as detailed elsewhere, publicly declare their beliefs in polygamy.

1851 onwards--When news of the public acknowledgements by the L.D.S. Church of it’s polygamous practices reaches the East, much controversy ensues. Newspapers and novelists begin to write articles, books and pamphlets condemning polygamy, portraying it as a legalized form of slavery, and condemnations of the practice thunder from pulpits across the F.S.A. It will become a major issue in the 1852 election.

March 1851--The landmark case of Comonfort v. The United States is heard by the Supreme Court. In the case, Ignacio Comonfort, a Mexican born of French parents, argues that the lack of a definition of what the term “free white person” means in the Naturalization and Citizenship Acts has lead to the denial of citizenship rights, and equal protection of the law, to hundreds of thousands of Mexicans who have the right to U.S. citizenship. The Court agrees, and establishes a definition of “free white person” which will, henceforth, be used to guide legislators in making the laws which govern the new Mexican Territories. In so doing, it looks to the “Casta” system used by the Spanish during their colonial administration of Mexico. The said system had divided the population into a series of groups, by race. The groups, as used in colonial times, were as follows…

--Peninsulares: Persons of Spanish or Portuguese descent born in Spain or Portugal.

--Criollos: People of pure Spanish descent but born in Latin America.

--Castizos: Persons with one mestizo parent and one criollo parent (i.e. with ¼ Amerindian blood). The children of a castizo and a criollo (i.e. with l/8 Amerindian blood) were classified as criollo.

--Mestizos: Persons with one parent of pure European ancestry and one parent of pure Amerindian ancestry (i.e. with ½ Amerindian blood). Children of a castizo and a mestizo are considered mestizo.

--Cholos: Persons with one indio parent and one mestizo parent, or ¾ Amerindian blood.

--Mulatos: Persons of mixed European and negro descent.

--Indios: Pure-blooded Mexican Amerindians.

--Zambos: Persons who were mixed indio and negro.

--Negros: Full-blooded Blacks.

The Court decides upon a simplified version of this system, as follows.

--Whites: Persons of non-Hispanic European descent, and Hispanic people of pure Spanish descent.

--Creoles: People born of one white parent and one castizo parent (i.e. with 1/8 or less Amerindian blood).

--Castizos: Persons with one mestizo parent and one white parent, or ¼ Amerindian blood.

--Mestizos: All persons of mixed white and Amerindian ancestry, having over ¼ of Amerindian blood.

--Indians: Pure blooded Amerindians.

--Negroes: Persons having any admixture of negro blood in their ancestry, including the old Mulato, Zambo, and Negro groups of the colonial Spanish casta system.

The Court holds that Whites and Creoles are entitled to classification as “free white persons,” and therefore citizens under the law. Castizos, Mestizos, and all other groups are classified as non-white, and therefore, non-citizens under the law. Their legal status is still left in doubt by the decision.

March 1851--The first Christian Anti-Polygamy Society is organized at Boston, Massachusetts. The societies, which will spring up in all the States of the F.S.A. over the next few years, are composed largely of former Abolitionists and other extremists who oppose the Mormon practice of polygamy. They will publish anti-Mormon tracts, as well as organize, finance, and support parties of anti-Mormon settlers for the Western Territories, particularly California Territory (the center of Mormon power in the West).

1852--The gradually increasing number of settlers traveling through the territories of Native American tribes in the Great Plains has lead to a number of clashes between the two groups, including some highly publicized massacres of settler parties by native warbands. President Cass, mindful of the increasing tensions between the F.S.A. and the Mormons, desires to prevent the outbreak of a full-scale Indian War on the Plains. And so, he sends a team of negotiators to meet with native leaders. The result of their efforts is a treaty, signed in mid-1852 at Fort Laramie, Dakota Territory, between representatives of the Federated States of America and representatives of the Sioux, Cheyenne, Arapaho, Crow, Shoshone, Assiniboine, Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara Indian tribes. In the treaty, the F.S.A. promises to recognize the sovereignty of the native tribes over the Great Plains which was the bulk of Native American territory, for "as long as the river flows and the eagle flies", and promise to pay the tribes an annuity in the amount of fifty thousand dollars annually for fifty years. In return, the Native American nations guarantee safe passage for settlers on the Oregon and California Trails, and also agree to allow roads and forts to be built in their territories. This will lead to relative peace on the Great Plains, for a short time.

1852--The United States Congress passes the “Act to Clarify the Status of Persons Not Holding Citizenship.” In accordance with the Comonfort decision, a “United States Citizen” is defined by the Act as any free person of pure European ancestry, or of mixed European and Indian ancestry, provided said person has no more than 1/8 Indian blood.

The Act creates a new class of United States Nationals, who are defined by the act as any free, non-citizen person who is a permanent resident of the United States or it's Territories or possessions, and who is under the jurisdiction of the United States and owes no allegiance to any foreign government. The chief difference between a United States National and a United States Citizen is that United States Nationals have no voting rights in national elections, and cannot serve in any elected Federal office. United States Nationals, however, are deemed to be entitled to equal protection under Federal law, and can serve on federal juries. However, the protection they enjoy under the laws of the individual States is up to the States themselves, so long as it does not conflict with any right given under Federal law (they may be denied the right to serve on juries in State Courts, for example). They can also vote and serve in elected offices at the State level, provided that the State in which they reside chooses to allow it.

The Castizos and Mestizos, as well as Indians and free blacks, will be granted status as United States Nationals under the Act. Slaves, including both black slaves and the Amerindian slaves held by many Hispanic landowners especially in New Mexico Territory, are excluded from status as United States Nationals and have, essentially, no protection under national law (although some States, as in OTL, will keep laws on the books to control abuse of slaves by their masters).

1852--The GOLD HUNTER, a merchant ship flying the flag of the Federated States of America, lands at Tehauntapec, Mexico, carrying Chinese coolie labor. The First Officer of the vessel, Frederick Townsend Ward, disembarks, spends a few nights drinking and whoring in the town, then returns to his ship when it leaves port, headed for Shanghai. He is killed in a bar fight in Shanghai, later that same year. (In OTL, Ward met and joined William Walker’s filibustering expedition to Sonora during this time. In the ATL, William Walker is in New Orleans at this time, and has not lead a filibustering expedition to Mexico, so the two men never meet. This will have important consequences later).

November 1852--National elections in the U.S.A. and the F.S.A. In the U.S.A., President Benton does not run for re-election. The two parties pick war heroes as their Presidential candidates, and in a close election, Democrat Jefferson Davis defeats Whig candidate Winfield Scott.

In the F.S.A., President Cass runs for re-election on the Democratic Ticket, while Edward Everett of Massachusetts is nominated by the Whig Party. The issue of Mormon polygamy in the Territories becomes a major issue in the election, and the growing political power of the American Republican Party in the F.S.A. is once again displayed, as the party carries the States of Illinois and New York. And elsewhere, the party once again splits the vote of the other two parties. As in 1848, they more seriously hurt the Whigs than the Democrats in most places, and President Cass narrowly wins re-election as a result.

1853--The first land-grant railroad in the F.S.A. is completed, the Illinois Central.

1853--In 1853, the Nicaraguan Liberal Party candidate Francisco Castellón from León and the Conservative Party candidate Fruto Chamorro of Granada both run for the position of Supreme Director of Nicaragua. Chamorro wins, and there are claims of election fraud. Chamorro immediately transfers the government headquarters from Managua to Granada, the Conservative stronghold.

March 1853--In the U.S.A., Jefferson Davis is sworn in as the thirteenth President of the United States at Washington, D.C. At New York, Lewis Cass is sworn in for a second term as President of the Federated States.

1853-1861--The Administration of President Jefferson Davis of the United States. President Davis, like his predecessor, is vitally interested in the development of the Western Territories, and also sees the need for greater industry in the United States in order to support the enlarged military establishment necessitated by the occupation of Mexico. As a result, his two terms in office will, despite his Democratic affiliation, see many of the programs espoused by the Whig Party passed during his administration. He will especially give support to efforts to promote railroad development, and will champion the building of a transcontinental railroad.

Probably the single most significant piece of landmark legislation passed during his term of office, however, is the 1854 Mexican Bullion Act, which will provide a solution to a major issue which has plagued the efforts of the Whig Party and like-minded Democrats (such as President Davis) to promote development, both of industry within the United States, and of development in general of the Western Territories. As mentioned elsewhere, opposition to the use of tariffs to fund internal improvements projects by the powerful planter class of the United States has effectively prevented such legislation from being passed up until now.  The reopening of the Mexican silver and gold mines, and the discovery of new veins of precious metal in the region, has provided a way around this. The Mexican Bullion Act specifies that an excise tax of five percent shall be levied on all bullion extracted from the mines at the time of assaying. Furthermore, a processing fee of one dollar is charged for every twenty dollars in bullion coined by any of the mints recently established for the processing of the Mexican bullion.  The revenues generated by these excise taxes and processing fees, according to the Bullion Act, are to go into a fund created to finance internal improvements projects and economic development projects, both in the States and in the Territories. Thus, these projects are able to be financed without resorting to forms of taxation (such as tariffs) found objectionable by the powerful plantation class in the existing States of the United States.

It is thus that, by the end of President Davis’ term, opposition to the Transcontinental Railway Project, as well as federal subsidies for railroad development and other important improvements within the States themselves, will be significantly reduced. And, accordingly, several bills for such projects will be passed.

President Davis will also, in 1853, 1854 and 1855, veto bills which would have reversed the Clay Tariff of 1841 and rolled back tariff rates to a level of twenty percent...half of what they were under the Clay Tariff. Although in 1856...in order to help his chances of re-election…he does agree to a compromise measure reducing tariff rates from forty percent down to thirty-two percent, he argues, in the end successfully, that a moderately high tariff is necessary to pay for the expanded military needed to hold down the simmering rebellions which are ongoing in many parts of Mexico. As a result, the development of industry in the United States does not lose the protection which a relatively high tariff will provide to it, which again, supports President Davis’ goal of expanding the industrial base of the United States.

However, his second term will be marred by the economic recession which begins in 1857, and, like his counterpart in the F.S.A., Davis will find this problem insurmountable. As a result, Davis will not run for re-election in 1860, and the Democrats will, for the first time since the Secession, lose the Presidency in that year.

April 1853--April 1853--The Federated States Congress passes an Anti-Polygamy Act aimed specifically at the Mormons in the Western Territories. Accordingly, President Cass decides he has to do something about the Mormons in the Great Basin. He appoints the anti-Mormon former Governor of Illinois, Thomas Ford, as Governor of California Territory (Ford, who in OTL died in 1850, has, because of butterflies released by the secession of the F.S.A. from the Union, not caught the illness which caused his death in OTL, and will live until 1868 in the ATL).

June 1853--The Congress of the F.S.A. passes a bill to subsidize a transcontinental telegraph connection. Construction of the system will take a little over a year.

1854--The first railroad bridge across the Mississippi is completed, at Rock Island, Illinois.

January 1854--After an eight-month voyage around Cape Horn, the new Governor of California Territory, Thomas Ford, arrives in San Francisco with a mandate from President Cass to “take care of the Mormon problem.” Shortly after his arrival, Ford begins dismissing all pro-Mormon Territorial officials appointed by the previous governor, who was trying to work with the Mormon majority in the Territorial Legislature to reach a compromise. Ford soon finds himself at loggerheads with the Legislature.  Also in this month, President Fruto Chamorro of Nicaragua convenes a Constitutional Assembly to promulgate a new Constitution during the absence of the majority of the Liberal Party representatives. The Constitution of 1854, as the new document will be called, will be considered to be badly flawed by the Liberals.

May 1854--After a dangerous cross-country journey from California, the officials appointed by Governor Ford arrive in Salt Lake City and other Mormon settlements in the Great Basin. They begin attempting to enforce the 1853 Anti-Polygamy Act, and run up against resistance from the Mormons. The resistance is, at first, mainly passive, as there are few F.S.A. troops in the region and the officials, therefore, have little actual power in the face of mass non-compliance by the Mormons. Nevertheless, tensions in the region begin to rise dramatically.

June1854-September 1855--The Nicaraguan Civil War. In reaction to what they see as a rigged election and Chamorro's subsequent actions including the promulgation of the Constitution of 1854, prominent Nicaraguan Liberals… including Francisco Castellón, Máximo Jerez, and José María Valle…establish a separate government in León. Castellón is proclaimed president on 11 June 1854. Although the Liberal forces are initially militarily successful against Chamorro, a long unsuccessful siege of Granada is followed by the loss of Managua, Masaya and Rivas to the Conservatives. Looking for any way to save their failing cause, the Liberals make contact with William Walker, who has returned to his former position as editor of the NEW ORLEANS CRESCENT, but is chafing at the dullness of civilian life after the thrill of his filibustering adventures in Cuba. The rebels ask Walker to raise a band of mercenaries and bring them to Nicaragua to help the Liberals win the Civil War, and Walker jumps at the chance. The United States government…which is interested in “twisting the tail of the British Lion,“ in retaliation for that nation’s actions during the Spanish American War, by interfering with British interests in Nicaragua….does not molest Walker as he recruits men and raises material for the expedition, and in May 1855, Walker sets sail from New Orleans with 500 well-equipped men and 2 pieces of artillery. In September 1855, Walker’s force defeats the Nicaraguan national army at the Battle of La Virgen, and Liberal Patricio Rivas is installed as President of Nicaragua. However, Walker…who controls the only effective military force in the country…is the real power in Nicaragua. And he knows it.

July 1854--The F.S.A. transcontinental telegraph line is completed.

August 1854-October 1857--The First Sioux War. In August 1854, a cow belonging to a Mormon settler traveling on the Oregon Trail escapes and is killed by Brule Sioux Indians after it wanders into their Camp. A party of 50 F.S. soldiers, lead by Captain John Lawrence Grattan, is shortly afterward sent to demand the surrender of the parties responsible for the killing of the cow. The Sioux chief, Conquering Bear, wants to maintain peace between his tribe and the whites, but is put off by Grattan’s blustering manner and refuses to hand the men over. As he turns to walk away, one of the soldiers fires at him. The shot misses and instead hits a young woman, standing nearby, killing her instantly. Enraged, the Sioux warriors surrounding Grattan’s party open fire, and the soldiers are cut down to a man. Their bodies are afterward scalped and mutilated. In councils held over the succeeding weeks, most of the other Lakota Sioux tribes…the Oglala, Hunkpapa, and Miniconjou especially…upon hearing of this outrage, agree to fight along with Conquering Bear’s people. Emissaries sent to the Northern Cheyennes also gain the support of this tribe, but the Mandan, Arapaho, Crow, and other regional tribes remain neutral.

When news of the “massacre” reaches President Cass, he orders expeditions sent to punish the Sioux. The expeditions are plagued by supply problems (unlike the 1870s campaigns which finally saw the subjugation of the Sioux in OTL, the railroad is not there to keep the army supplied and in the field), and, despite “successes” where F.S. troops raid Sioux villages and kill over 100 men, women, and children at one village in 1855, and another 80 at a village attacked in 1856), fail to accomplish their purpose, Of course, the outbreak of the Mormon War in late 1855...which bleeds off much of the manpower which had been devoted to the pacification of the Sioux…doesn’t help matters, either.

On the Sioux side, Conquering Bear proves to be a cunning and ruthless enemy. Under his leadership, the highly mobile Sioux avoid open battle with strong bodies of Federated States troops, instead focusing on hit-and-run raids on weakly protected wagon trains and other parties traveling along the Oregon and California Trails. Oddly, the Sioux do not interfere much with the new transcontinental telegraph line, not realizing the significance of this curiosity. They do, however, make life very difficult for telegraph repair crews working in their territory, who have to be provided with military escorts which further drain the manpower available to hunt down the elusive Sioux. The end result is that travel along the Trails becomes well-nigh impossible except by strongly escorted parties, and even General John Wool’s expedition against the Mormons in 1856 is greatly hampered by raiding Sioux war parties which kill stray pickets and burn wagons, yet avoid open battle with the increasingly frustrated gray-coats. The activities of the Sioux, indeed, play a contributory role in the final defeat of Wool’s expedition, as they slow the progress of the expedition down sufficiently to allow the Mormons to catch and destroy the secondary expedition launched in support of Wool from California, before it can link up, as planned, with Wool near Salt Lake City

The incoming President Abraham Lincoln, having ended the Mormon War in June 1857, also seeks to end the Sioux War, and he sends the troops which President Cass had been gathering to continue the war against the Mormons, against the Sioux instead. These troops, however, fare little better than the earlier expeditions sent by President Cass, and in September 1857, Lincoln decides to negotiate. A new treaty is signed at Fort Laramie in October 1857, which basically reaffirms the 1852 Treaty, and increases the size of the F.S. government’s payments to the tribes. In addition, it is agreed that an annual council between the tribes and representatives of the F.S.A., at which all disputes between the tribes and the whites will be arbitrated, will be held at Fort Laramie in the summer of each year. However, like it’s predecessor, the 1857 Fort Laramie Treaty will provide only a short period of peace between the two increasingly hostile groups.

1855--Rail lines have been extended to Council Bluffs, Iowa. Also in this year, a Federated States Navy squadron under the command of Admiral Matthew C. Perry, sails into the harbor of Edo (modern Tokyo), Japan. Perry, who, being of Northern extraction, resigned his commission in the United States Navy during the secession crisis of 1843-44, has been instrumental to the establishment of the new Federated States Navy, and has been in command of the Far Eastern Squadron for the past two years. He is not only a skilled sailor, but also an able diplomat, and he is able, over the course of the next few months, to persuade the Japanese Government to conclude a treaty which opens the Japanese ports of Shimoda and Hakodate to Federated States trade, guarantees the safety of shipwrecked F.S. sailors and establishes a permanent F.S. consulate in Japan. This effectively ends Japan's 200 year policy of seclusion.

August 1855--Governor Ford of California, upset that his officials are basically being ignored by the Mormons in the Great Basin, sends a telegram to President Cass, asking for troops to be sent to “enforce the national law”…meaning, of course, the Anti-Polygamy Act…in the Territory. The message is intercepted by a Mormon telegraph operator in Salt Lake City, who passes it along to Brigham Young, who calls a meeting of the Quorum of Twelve to debate what response should be made.

September 1855--The word that Governor Ford has requested Federal troops to be sent to California has been debated by the Mormon leadership. It is decided that Mormon leader Brigham Young should, as a precaution, call out the Nauvoo Legion and other Mormon militia units and have them begin regularly drilling in preparation for possible invasion by the “Gentiles.” The Mormons also begin constructing fortifications around their major settlements. Meanwhile, messages protesting the loyalty of the Mormons to the F.S.A. are sent via telegraph to President Cass in New York.

October 1855--Word has reached San Francisco that the Mormons are drilling their militia and constructing fortifications around their settlements in the Great Basin. Governor Ford accuses the Mormons of planning a rebellion, and orders the formation of a non-Mormon militia to counter the Mormon militias. The California Guard, as this militia will be called, is raised primarily in the region west of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, and soon numbers 2,000 men.

November 1855--President Cass is somewhat taken aback by the escalating situation in the California Territory. He sends telegrams to Brigham Young and to Governor Ford, urging them both to disband their militias and to cease the strident rhetoric which is heating up the situation on a daily basis. However, he makes it clear to Brigham Young that the national law must be enforced, and polygamy must cease. Young refuses to back down, and so does Governor Ford.

December 1855-June 1857--The Mormon War. In December 1855, faced with the refusal of the Mormons to accept enforcement of the Anti-Polygamy Law, President Cass declares the Mormons to be in rebellion and orders an expedition of 4,000 troops, under the command of Major General John E. Wool, to be fitted out and sent to Salt Lake City.

Wool’s expedition will proceed west from Council Bluffs, Iowa, via Fort Laramie, Dakota Territory, to Salt Lake City. Despite the ongoing conflict with the Sioux in the region around Fort Laramie, it is felt that the size of Wool’s force will overawe the “savages” and prevent them from interfering too much with it as it proceeds toward it’s objective (as told elsewhere, this turns out not to be the case, with drastic consequences). Governor Ford is ordered to send his California Guard, commanded by John C. Fremont, east across the Sierra Nevadas to support the main expedition (this is the last message to reach California before the Mormons sever the transcontinental telegraph line near Salt Lake City on December 21, 1855).

However, due to delays in gathering the necessary troops, supplies, and especially wagons, Wool’s expedition does not leave Council Bluffs until early April 1856.  Wool’s expedition is further plagued by problems, including poor weather, faulty supply lines, disease, and attacks by hostile Indians, as it crosses the plains, and progress across the plains is slow. The end result is that Wool’s expedition doesn’t reach Salt Lake City until late August, 1856. This allows the numerically superior and better trained Mormon forces commanded by General Lot Smith, with the assistance of friendly Ute Indians, to catch and destroy most of the California Guard (which left California in late March, 1856) in the mountains west of Salt Lake City in June 1856. General Fremont is captured and taken to Salt Lake City in triumph, along with about 800 prisoners which were taken by the Mormons. About 800 more of the Californians were left dead on the field, while the remainder escaped and fled, bringing news of the disaster back to California.

Upon arriving at Salt Lake City, General Wool attempts to convince the Mormons to surrender. After failing in this, Wool orders an assault on the Mormon earthworks at Salt Lake City on August 20, 1856. The assault is repulsed with heavy losses…about 300 Federal troops are killed in the assault, with a further 700 wounded. To make matters worse, Mormon cavalry and Ute warriors raid the expedition’s wagon train, burning about half the wagons, while the assault is in progress. Wool now finds himself in a very precarious situation…hundreds of miles away from his supply bases, with much of his stockpile of supplies gone, and facing an entrenched and numerically strong enemy. He orders his army to retreat to a point where a message can be sent via the still unbroken telegraph lines east of the Mormon settlements. He orders fortifications to be thrown up, and sends a message to President Cass, advising him of the situation and calling for reinforcements, supplies, and more artillery to be sent. President Cass advises him to retire to Fort Laramie, in Dakota Territory, and there to await reinforcement. Wool orders the retirement, and the army arrives back at Fort Laramie in early October 1856. President Cass, meanwhile, orders a second expedition to be fitted out and ready to march in the Spring of 1857.

The defeat of the two “Gentile Invasions” leads to a stiffening of Mormon resolve in the Great Basin. Although Brigham Young himself initially opposes it, many voices are raised in the Quorum of Twelve calling for a Declaration of Independence from the F.S.A. Young himself is finally converted when, after a September 21, 1856 discussion with John Taylor and Orson Pratt which ended in a joint prayer for guidance, he has a “revelation from God” telling him that the time is right. The next day, the flag of the Federated States of America is lowered in Salt Lake City, and the Beehive Flag is raised in it’s stead. The Republic of Deseret is proclaimed shortly thereafter.

News of the defeat suffered by the Wool Expedition (and, when it becomes known later, that of the California Guard) hits the F.S.A. like a thunderbolt, whose effect is doubled when news of the Mormon declaration of independence is received. There is a huge public furor, as those who view it as the duty of the F.S.A. to stamp out the “barbarism” of Mormon polygamy in the Territories clash with those who argue that the Great Basin is a worthless desert and the Mormons are welcome to it. The final straw comes when an intrepid reporter for the NEW YORK HERALD, having braved roving Indian war parties, arrives at Fort Laramie in mid-October of 1856 and telegraphs back to New York a scathing story detailing the incompetence, hunger, and suffering among the miserable troops he witnesses there. The story inflames the public against the Cass Administration…and by extension, the Democratic Party…on the very eve of the general election. The Whig/Know Nothing alliance in Congress quickly takes up the cry and passes a resolution demanding an end to the war. Public opinion decisively turns against the Democratic Party. The Whig candidate, Abraham Lincoln, wins the election on a “Peace with Honor” platform.

The winter of 1856-1857 proves to be hard on the troops encamped at Fort Laramie. Supply trains are stopped by heavy snows, and hundreds of soldiers die of cold, hunger, disease, and attacks by hostile Indians while out foraging in the largely barren countryside for food and firewood. Indeed, had General Wool not ordered several large buffalo hunting expeditions before the first snows fell...which helped to raise the ire of the local Indian tribes, who view these poachers on their hunting grounds with less than friendly eyes…the entire army might have perished. As it was, enough buffalo meat was brought in and smoked to provide at least a bare subsistence ration for the troops through the winter. By the time of the spring thaws, the army is a skeleton of it’s former self. The HERALD reporter, who has taken up residence at the fort, keeps the public abreast of the latest developments, all of which reinforce the public clamor for peace. But President Cass refuses to back down and agree to negotiate before the end of his term.

Upon taking office in March 1857, President Lincoln sends negotiators to treat with the Mormon leaders. A treaty is agreed upon in June 1857, in which the Mormons are ceded a territory bounded on the north by the Snake River, on the east by the Green and Colorado Rivers, on the south by the border with the United States, and on the west by a line running at 114 degrees longitude. It is further agreed that, in exchange for allowing the landlocked Republic of Deseret secure communications with the outside world, the said republic will allow the F.S.A. the option to run it’s transcontinental railroad through Deseret’s territory…provided that the F.S.A. guarantees that it will not become a conduit for non-Mormon settlement in Deseret…and Deseret agrees to allow rights of repair and non-interference with the F.S.A.’s telegraph line running through it’s territory. Deseret also guarantees safe conduct and right of resupply to wagon trains carrying settlers through it’s territory to the California Territory. The Mormon War is over.

1856--A U.S. Navy squadron under the command of Commodore John H. Aulick visits Japan, and a treaty, similar in content to that concluded between the F.S.A. and Japan the previous year, is signed.

1856 onward--The Republic of Deseret, declared independent on September 22, 1856, will shortly afterward adopt the 1849 Deseret State Constitution, which had been submitted along with the proposal for Statehood within the F.S.A., as the model for a new Constitution for the Republic. Of course, there are some modifications made. Instead of a Governor, there will be a President, and the bi-cameral General Assembly is replaced by a bi-cameral National Assembly. Other changes restrict the right to vote and to hold political office to members of the Mormon Church, and guarantee the right to practice polygamy and other practices held sacred by the Church. In the first election held under the new Constitution in 1858, Brigham Young is, unsurprisingly, elected as the first President of the Republic of Deseret. He will hold the post until his death in 1877.

The Republic faces many problems in it’s early years, being surrounded by hostile neighbors with no easy access to the outside world. But the Republic is mainly self-sufficient from the outset, and President Young strongly encourages the Republic to develop self-sufficiency in all areas…a project which will be largely completed. Although immigrants find it somewhat more difficult to reach the new Republic (at least until the Intercontinental Railroad is completed), the Mormon practice of polygamy, and the resulting large families, allows relatively rapid population growth. But relations with the F.S.A., although they remained strained because of agitation by the Christian Anti-Polygamy Societies of the F.S.A., will remain peaceful, and some useful agreements will be concluded. The most important of these is the Intercontinental Railroad Treaty. The F.S.A., having reviewed possible routes for the proposed railway, decided that the best route for the first Intercontinental Railroad built by that nation would run through the territory of the Republic of Deseret, and an agreement is reached allowing this to proceed. This will allow imports and immigration to reach the Republic more easily.

One interesting development within the new Republic is the adoption, in 1859, of the Deseret Alphabet by the Republic as the standard of communication within the Republic. The Deseret Alphabet was a phonetic alphabet developed in 1854 at the direction of Brigham Young, by the board of regents of the University of Deseret (founded in 1850 at Salt Lake City). Aimed to reform the representation of the English language, not the language itself, the new phonetic system offers a number of advantages. First, it reinforces the cultural exclusivism of the new Republic and heightens the difference between Mormon and Gentile, breeding national feelings within the population of the Republic. It also serves to keep secrets from curious non-Mormons, control what children are allowed (and indeed, able) to read, and in a largely unlettered society that includes many non-English speaking converts, eliminates the awkward problem of phonetic spelling. The 1859 law which promotes this policy mandates that the Deseret Alphabet be the standard alphabet taught in schools throughout the Republic. All newspapers, court documents, and all other official publications are ordered to be printed initially in both the Latin and the Deseret Alphabets, with the Latin versions to be phased out within 20 years. Important texts currently in the Latin Alphabet are ordered to be translated into the new Alphabet and distributed. As a result of these policies, the Deseret Alphabet will be one of the few “created” alphabets to succeed and survive (the Cherokee Alphabet being the other prime example of such an occurrence), and by the end of the 19^th century, it will be in almost exclusive use within the Republic of Deseret.

January 1856--The United States government officially recognizes the new regime in Nicaragua, and concludes a mutual defense treaty with it.

June 1856--After a farcical election, William Walker installs himself as President of Nicaragua. Walker, however, because of his Cuban experience, recognizes the need to win popular support for his regime. He becomes “more Nicaraguan than the Nicaraguans,” marrying into a prominent local family. He also allows the adoption of a new liberal constitution, lowers taxes on the common land-owner, and places prominent Nicaraguans into high places in his administration. One major difference from OTL is that he does not recast his campaign as a fight to extend slavery (as slavery is no longer under direct threat in the United States, and since the Mexican conquest has provided plentiful new horizons for slavery, there is not a lot of support there for acquiring new lands for the expansion of slavery anymore. Therefore, Walker does not find this a useful way to get recruits, money, and arms from the United States), and he does not rescind the Nicaraguan Emancipation Edict of 1824, which increases his popularity within Nicaragua itself. He also begins creating nationalistic feeling in Nicaragua as the basis for a plan for the conquest of the rest of Central America.

November 1856--National elections in the U.S.A. and the F.S.A. In the U.S.A., President Davis wins re-election over Whig candidate Alexander H. Stephens of Georgia.

In the F.S.A. voting, President Cass, who views it as his duty to see the Mormon War to the end, runs for a third term, but is defeated by Whig candidate Abraham Lincoln of Illinois, who is against continuing the war. The American Republican Party, having suffered a temporary division in their ranks between those who support the war and those who oppose it, does not field a candidate in the election, and most of their supporters vote Whig in the election, giving Lincoln a landslide victory.

1857--Samuel Clemens, a 22-year old young man living in Hannibal, Missouri, takes a steamboat trip to New Orleans. During the trip, the pilot, a man named Bixby, persuades him to pursue a career as a river-boat pilot, which is a richly rewarding profession paying the princely sum of $250 a month (equal to about $155,000 a year today). Clemens loves his new profession, and is very good at it, and he will ply the waters of the Mississippi for the remainder of his life. He will be killed when the boiler of his steamboat accidentally explodes in 1889. Other than a few humorous letters published in the HANNIBAL JOURNAL (a newspaper owned by his brother, Orion…who, like Samuel, will never go west), he will never publish anything of note.

1857-1861--The Administration of President Abraham Lincoln of the Federated States of America. President Lincoln will be chiefly remembered as the President who negotiated the treaty ending the Mormon War. He will also shepherd several significant bills through the Congress, including the landmark bill authorizing subsidies for the construction of a transcontinental railroad. One bill that does not, surprisingly, make it through during his Administration is any anti-immigration bill. Lincoln opposes such restrictions, viewing continued immigration as necessary both to provide cheap labor for the growing factories of the F.S.A., and also as a source of people to help populate and develop the West. The loose alliance between the Whig Party and the American Republican Party is thus damaged.  In the end, the economic recession which begins in late 1857 and Lincoln’s failure to effectively deal with it will doom his Presidency, and he will not be renominated by his party in 1860.

1857-1863--Economic Depression in the U.S.A. and the F.S.A. In August 1857, the New York City branch of the Ohio Life Insurance and Trust Company…one of the largest banks in the F.S.A….fails due to large-scale embezzlement. Shortly afterward, a decision by British investors to withdraw their funds from banks in the F.S.A. is publicized in the nation’s newspapers, further eroding public confidence in the stability of the banking system. A bank panic results, resulting in the failure of numerous other banks. This does not immediately affect the U.S.A., but, the next month, the steamship S.S. VERACRUZ, carrying a load of Mexican gold and silver from the recently reopened mines to the new Washington, D.C. Mint, founders in a huge hurricane off North Carolina. This shakes public confidence in the U.S.A. as to the soundness of their money, and a full scale panic results there as well.

The effects of the Panic…which will go down in history as The Great Panic…are devastating and long-lasting. Thousands of businesses fail, hundreds of thousands of industrial workers in the cities are unemployed, and many farmers lose their land (although the large planters of the U.S.A., shielded by the stability of the cotton market, are little affected). Widespread public anger over the continuing economic misery will contribute to upset victories in both countries in their 1860 elections, bringing the Whig Party to power in the U.S.A. and the American Republican Party to power in the F.S.A.

March 1857--In a ceremony at Washington, D.C., Jefferson Davis is sworn in for a second term as President of the United States. At New York, Abraham Lincoln is sworn in as the third President of the Federated States of America.

May 1857--A railroad bridge across the Mississippi River is completed at Vicksburg, Mississippi, connecting the cis-Mississippi and trans-Mississippi railroad networks in the U.S.A. for the first time.

July 1857--The Congress of the F.S.A. passes the Pacific Railway Act, which authorizes the construction of an intercontinental railway linking Council Bluffs, Iowa, with San Francisco, California. Supporters of the line argue that it will greatly facilitate the China Trade, allowing goods to be shipped east by rail from Pacific ports instead of being carried around Cape Horn to ports on the East Coast. It is also promoted as a means to help encourage settlement of the Western Territories by greater numbers of non-Mormons, viewed as a great necessity to counter the threat of the independent Mormon republic which now exists in the midst of the F.S.A.’s territories in the West.

March 1858--After much preparation, construction of the F.S.A.’s intercontinental railroad proceeds. Although it enjoys federal subsidies and full support from the F.S.A. government, it proceeds a bit slower than in OTL, because all construction is being carried on by one company, pushing the line west from Iowa. Since gold has not, by this date, been discovered in California, there is no equivalent of the Central Pacific Railroad to push the line east from California.

September 1859--The U.S. Transcontinental Communications Act is passed, authorizing federal subsidies for both a transcontinental telegraph line and a transcontinental railroad. Both of these will follow a route from Shreveport, Louisiana, through Texas, New Mexico, and Sonora, to the port of Guaymas, Sonora Territory, on the coast of the Gulf of Cortez. Construction on both projects will begin early in the following year.

January 1860--Construction of the U.S. transcontinental railway and telegraph line begins at Shreveport, Louisiana.

March 1860-July 1864--The Wars of Central American Unification. President Walker of Nicaragua has been very successful in creating loyalty to his regime, as well as nationalistic fervor, among the Nicaraguan people, and he is ready for step two in his grand plan…the conquest of the rest of Central America. In March 1860, he declares war on El Salvador and Costa Rica. His large, loyal, and professionally trained army easily defeats the ragtag forces of the El Salvadoran and Costa Rican armies in less than a year. His next target is Guatamala, which falls in 1862. Honduras falls in 1864. In July 1864, Walker calls a convention at Managua to form the United States of Central America, and a new constitution is drawn up which gives voting rights to the peoples of all the former Central American nations (now the “States” of the new U.S.C.A.).

August 1860 onward: The Partition of China--Taiping rebels in China take the city of Shanghai in an attack on August 17, 1860 (in OTL, a defense force made up of a mixture of Chinese, European, and American mercenaries, organized and commanded by Frederick Townsend Ward…who died in 1852 in the ATL…repulsed the rebels. As a result of Ward not being available in the ATL, this force…which became the nucleus of the “Ever Victorious Army“ which played such a large part in the final defeat of the Taiping Rebellion, is never formed). The city is sacked and hundreds of thousands…including a very large number of British, French, Russian and American citizens (from both the F.S.A. and the U.S.A.)…are slaughtered.

At the time, Britain and France are at war with the Qing Dynasty of China (the Second Opium War). With this outrage…which is blamed on the Qings, who are held to have not done enough to defend the city and to have “allowed“ it to be captured in the express hope that the Taipings would massacre the foreigners there…the Federated States of America and Russia both make alliances with Britain and France and enter the war (the U.S.A., which is fully embroiled in Mexico by this date, contributes some naval support, but does not directly enter the land war). The four powers decide that, in order to “restore order” to China, two things have to happen…the Qings have to be removed, and the Taiping rebels have to be suppressed. It will take a decade, but both of these objectives will be achieved. The campaigns of this war will be fought with great brutality by all sides and with little regard for the conventions of civilized war, and by the end of fighting in early 1870, well over 30,000,000 Chinese, along with over half a million foreign troops, will have died. The cost of the conflict will be so high that, when it is all over, the Western Powers decide that only the partition of China will compensate them for their huge expenditures of specie and blood during the conflict.

At a convention held in Geneva in August 1870, China is carved up like a Thanksgiving Turkey into “spheres of influence” for the Five Powers (as the victorious allies are called…the U.S.A., despite having contributed only limited naval support, is counted among the victorious powers and given a chair at the negotiating table. It ends up with a Sphere of Influence of its own, albeit the smallest one allotted to any of the Five Powers). In practice, China is too large for the victorious powers to govern directly, so the country is dismembered into a series of sixteen small statelets, whose native leaders are appointed by the Five Powers and can be removed by them, at their will. These puppet leaders basically serve as tax collectors and enforcers of the will of the Five Powers, taking their own cut of the profit from the rape of the Chinese economy which the system generates. It is the beginning of a long and very sad period for China.

November 1860--National elections in the U.S.A. and the F.S.A. In the U.S.A., President Davis declines to run for a third term. In a hard-fought election, largely as a result of the continuing economic depression which began in 1857, Whig candidate Robert Augustus Toombs of Georgia defeats Democratic candidate John Cabell Breckinridge of Kentucky.

In the F.S.A., the Whig Party leadership declines to renominate President Lincoln for a second term. Instead, they nominate William Seward of New York, while the Democrats nominate James Buchanan of Pennsylvania. The American Republican Party, having healed the rift in it’s ranks which caused them to bow out of the 1856 election, nominates Levi Boone of Illinois (a nephew of the famous frontiersman, Daniel Boone), who runs a variation of the successful Whig “Log Cabin Campaign” of 1840, trading on his uncle’s frontier reputation to claim that he is the true “Man of the People” in the campaign. The words and catchy tune of his campaign song…

Daniel Boone was a man,
Yes a Big Man.
He was brave, he was fearless,
And a man you could trust, t’was Dan.

Levi Boone is a man,
Yes a Big Man.
He’s a man of the people,
And a man you can trust, like Dan.

A man’s word is his bond, a thing you can trust
You know Levi Boone is true
Just like his uncle was the fightingest man
The frontier ever knew!

Levi Boone is a man,
Yes a Big Man!
Levi’s word is as strong,
Yes, as strong as a mighty oak tree!
And it goes beyond a doubt that
Daniel would be proud of Lee!
Levi Boone!

…will be long remembered, and will carry him to an upset victory in the election. Along with the Presidency, the party also makes significant gains in both the Senate and the House of Representatives of the F.S.A.

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Copyright 2007 by Robert P. Perkins.  All rights reserved.  Last updated on 7/6/2007.