King Andrew II
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Earthling
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« on: January 17, 2012, 12:23:50 PM »

March 3, 1869

The President sits behind his desk in his office in the White House. He is working on what will probably be the most important speech of his life. Working on the lines that should help to heal the nation after 8 terrible years. The Civil War, the assassination of Abraham Lincoln and his own impeachment procedure just last year. It's all been so much.
1868 Had been very tough on him, personally. The hatred coming from the Radical Republicans was almost too much to handle, but he prevailed. And he even did one better by winning the election later that year.  His old party didn't want to nominate him, but when they nominated Horatio Seymour and the Republicans were not able to get Grant on the ticket and picked the Speaker of the House Schuyler Colfax, he knew there was an opening. He would take the same party name under which he had run as Vice Presidential candidate in 1864 with Lincoln. The National Union Party would stand against the extremists of the Republican Party and the traitors of the Democratic Party. His Vice Presidential candidate would be senator Edmund Ross, the man who had saved him in the senate less than 6 months before the election.  The tactics of denouncing the other parties had worked and in November he won a small but satisfying victory.
And now, just hours before the inauguration by Chief Justice Chase, he was working on his address. He was no Abraham Lincoln, but he believed it would be fine. The people had voted for him and knew what he would say to them.

The next day:

I, Andrew Johnson, do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.

And so it begins. For the second time.
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Earthling
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« Reply #1 on: January 17, 2012, 12:28:57 PM »

Any comments or suggestions? They are always welcome.

This is my first timeline and I'm not a native English speaker. So I hope you don't mind the possible grammar errors.
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Kalwejt
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« Reply #2 on: January 17, 2012, 12:44:09 PM »

Welcome to the forum Smiley
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Earthling
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« Reply #3 on: January 17, 2012, 12:47:46 PM »

Thank you.
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Captain Chaos
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« Reply #4 on: January 17, 2012, 01:13:27 PM »

Good start. For someone whose first language is not English, your writing isn't that bad.

Now that Johnson has been elected President in his own right and Edmund Ross's career has been saved from political oblivion, I am looking forward to this TL (very likely butterflies away Ross's switch to the Democratic party and the 1872 birth of the Liberal Republican Party).

Hopefully, this timeline will continue to the present day.

Welcome to the board.
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Earthling
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« Reply #5 on: January 17, 2012, 01:54:07 PM »
« Edited: January 17, 2012, 01:56:17 PM by Earthling »

March 5, 1869

New York Post

Yesterday, Andrew Johnson started his own term as president by taking the oath of office and then giving us his inaugural address. In his speech the president spook about his opposition to reconstruction. He called it an failed policy, thought out by the extremists in congress. Further, he called for the end of the obstruction by the Republican Party on his judicial appointments so he will be able to fill future vacancies on the Supreme Court. Three years ago Republicans in the senate blocked his nominee by eliminating the Supreme Court seat. The president ended his address by asking his fellow citizens to come together after all the years of war, death and struggles.

Reporters, however, argue that the harsh words spoken by the president might come to haunt him. His relationship with congress was already rocky and none in the capital expects improvements in the coming years.

Earlier in the day senator Edmund Ross took the oath to become the vice president, filling the office that has been left empty after Andrew Johnson became president on the death of Abraham Lincoln.

Yesterday was certainly one of Andrew Johnson's finest hours. But one can only wonder how many good days the president will have in the next four years.
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Kalwejt
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« Reply #6 on: January 17, 2012, 02:26:41 PM »

Who's in Johnson's second cabinet, Earthling? I think it would be cool to see Seward staying as SoS, giving his great terms with Johnson, for third term.

Btw, is "King Andrew II" referencing to Andrew Jackson being called "King Andrew I" by his opponents? Smiley
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Cathcon
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« Reply #7 on: January 17, 2012, 06:32:18 PM »

Looks very nice. What party was Andy re-elected as?
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Kalwejt
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« Reply #8 on: January 17, 2012, 06:33:58 PM »

Looks very nice. What party was Andy re-elected as?

He would take the same party name under which he had run as Vice Presidential candidate in 1864 with Lincoln. The National Union Party would stand against the extremists of the Republican Party and the traitors of the Democratic Party.
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Cathcon
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« Reply #9 on: January 17, 2012, 09:39:58 PM »

Looks very nice. What party was Andy re-elected as?

He would take the same party name under which he had run as Vice Presidential candidate in 1864 with Lincoln. The National Union Party would stand against the extremists of the Republican Party and the traitors of the Democratic Party.

Sorry, I tend to skim. Tongue Anyway, when you have enough posts to make a map (twenty?), I'd love to see it.
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Earthling
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« Reply #10 on: January 18, 2012, 10:52:58 AM »

1868

The election year had been brutal for the president. In May he survived the impeachment procedure by one vote, in the summer the democrats, his old party, had refused to nominate him for president and the Republican Party had nominated Colfax, one of his biggest enemies in congress. This happened after they had not been able to get general Grant to run.
After all that, he decided to throw his own hat into the race. By taking on the same political label as four years earlier Lincoln had done he hoped the people would see him as the successor to the murdered president. He asked senator Edmund Ross of Kansas to join him on the ticket, after all it was Ross's vote that had saved him. Ross knew that his vote effectively ended his political career within his party, so he accepted the offer from the president.

The campaign had been long and hard. The democrats had accused him of being a traitor because he had joined Lincoln and the republicans in 1864 while the republicans called him a traitor to Lincoln's legacy. He stayed for the most part in the middle, calling the war an awful but necessary action while still holding on to his believe that whites are superior to blacks.
During the campaign he had the support from the two living former presidents. Franklin Pierce and Millard Fillmore supported his bid to keep the Radical Republicans out of the White House.

In the end, he prevailed, but the election was a close one. He won 43% of the vote with Colfax getting 35% and Seymour only 22%. In the electoral college it was also very close, but he prevailed. He received 149 electoral votes, Colfax won 105 votes and Seymour only took 40.

The year 1868 had been tough, but in the end, he won. 
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Captain Chaos
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« Reply #11 on: January 18, 2012, 02:27:49 PM »

1868

The election year had been brutal for the president. In May he survived the impeachment procedure by one vote, in the summer the democrats, his old party, had refused to nominate him for president and the Republican Party had nominated Colfax, one of his biggest enemies in congress. This happened after they had not been able to get general Grant to run.
After all that, he decided to throw his own hat into the race. By taking on the same political label as four years earlier Lincoln had done he hoped the people would see him as the successor to the murdered president. He asked senator Edmund Ross of Kansas to join him on the ticket, after all it was Ross's vote that had saved him. Ross knew that his vote effectively ended his political career within his party, so he accepted the offer from the president.

The campaign had been long and hard. The democrats had accused him of being a traitor because he had joined Lincoln and the republicans in 1864 while the republicans called him a traitor to Lincoln's legacy. He stayed for the most part in the middle, calling the war an awful but necessary action while still holding on to his believe that whites are superior to blacks.
During the campaign he had the support from the two living former presidents. Franklin Pierce and Millard Fillmore supported his bid to keep the Radical Republicans out of the White House.

In the end, he prevailed, but the election was a close one. He won 43% of the vote with Colfax getting 35% and Seymour only 22%. In the electoral college it was also very close, but he prevailed. He received 149 electoral votes, Colfax won 105 votes and Seymour only took 40.

The year 1868 had been tough, but in the end, he won. 

What does the map look like?
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Earthling
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« Reply #12 on: January 18, 2012, 02:32:57 PM »
« Edited: January 18, 2012, 02:49:00 PM by Earthling »

I can't make a map, but Johnson wins the Democratic states, except for New York and New Jersey, some southern states, border states and Ohio and Pennsylvania. I will post a map when I am able to do so.

Oh, and both Colfax and Johnson lose their homestate.
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Antonio the Sixth
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« Reply #13 on: January 19, 2012, 06:02:21 PM »

A Johnson win in 1868 would definitely be a Truman-like upset. Good idea for a TL. Wink
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Earthling
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« Reply #14 on: January 20, 2012, 11:13:44 AM »

June 7, 1869

In the cabinet room inside the White House the president is meeting his members of the cabinet. Now three months into office victories have been rare. But they did happen, despite the opinions of political experts that Johnson was already politically dead. His biggest victory were the people in this room. He had nominated all of them and got them approved by the senate, overcoming the objections by the radicals within the Republican Party. He had outflanked them by creating a coalition of moderate republicans and democrats. Ulysses S. Grant became the secretary of war. Although the general and the president were not close, Grant accepted the job because he wanted to help his country getting back on its feet. And some in Washington talked about a possible Grant candidacy in 1872. William Evarts stayed on as his attorney general. Evarts had helped him during the impeachment and the president wanted to show his gratitude. He also kept Alexander Randall as Postmaster General and Orville Browning as Secretary of the Interior. He asked Winfield Scott Hancock to replace Seward at the state department while Andrew Gregg Curtin would go to the Treasury. The latest post to be filled was the position of secretary of the navy. As a peace offer to the southern democrats he nominated Daniel Voorhees, a leading copperhead from Indiana. Voorhees’s nomination was the primary focus when it came to the objection of the radical republicans. They portrayed Voorhees as a traitor to the union and where able to block his nomination when several moderate republicans joined them. Johnson knew he needed their support so he gave in, nominating Charles Francis Adams instead. He was acceptable for the moderates in the senate.

Just days after the inauguration the president called for a special session of congress. In April the congress came together to discuss the urgent topics at hand: Reconstruction, voting rights for blacks and the economy. After his victory in March, getting his cabinet through the senate, Johnson was in a good mood. He believed he cornered the radicals and created a new coalition. He asked congress to readmit Virginia and Texas to the union, to get the union soldiers out of the south and he voiced his opposition to the Fifteenth Amendment. He succeeded only in admittance of Virginia and Texas. After that he lost several battles with the republicans and came to realise that the next four years would me very difficult indeed.
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