Kingpoleon
Atlas Star
Posts: 22,144
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« on: January 21, 2018, 04:39:56 PM » |
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Picture:
Name: James Houston Jr.
DoB: May 1, 1844
Home State: Texas
Previous Office(s): Governor of Texas
Party: Constitutional
Bio: He is the nephew of the famed Sam Houston. When the latter became sick before he died in 1864, James Houston Jr. moved into his house to help him. James would manage the finances of Houston’s estate, eventually convincing the man to free one slave named Joshua Houston. James then hired Joshua as the chief servant, offering food, board, and a meager amount of pay in order to win his loyalty. While not a member of the True Equality Party, James was a leader of the abolition of slavery West of the Mississippi, and he supports the status quo with eventual abolition in the East within a decade. Upon Sam Houston’s death, James Houston Jr. provided for his widow as well as his children, raising them as though they were his own sons. Joshua Houston eventually convinced James to free the rest of the slaves, provide much better housing and treatment, as well as a share of the profits, and let their children be educated. James hired a Yankee teacher to teach the servants’ children as well as his own. While an eighth goes to the widow, another three-eighths is divided among the servants, and the last eighth goes to the sons, James controls nearly two-fifths of the profits and manages the estate. He eventually adopted his two young nephews and married Catherine Downing, a daughter of the Confederate Cherokee chief. James would go on to expand the Houston estate greatly, increasing his worth several times over. His ties to the Cherokee nation allowed him to conduct a good deal of trade with them, and eventually he and leading Texas families created a business alliance that largely produced crops for Europe. They sold crops especially to Germany and the British. Once he became Governor, James began to reform the system and named Joshua Houston, who had changed his name to Joshua Green, as Secretary of Negro Affairs. Houston became a major power-broker in the country, with the President regularly meeting with him about military and economic matters. James has begun to hire German immigrants and English immigrants at his farm as well, causing some minor strife before he began making sure that the immigrants would work with blacks and not hiring men who wouldn’t. James employs some families of both races, offering education for the children, besides the regular share of shelter and profit/crops, and his six-man entourage consists of eight men, two of whom are black, another two are immigrants, and his most trusted two are his nephews/sons. The other two are former soldiers he served with. Some disapprove of this as openly flaunting his wealth, but Houston considers them members of his household, and it has began to catch on with other Western politicians.
Issue Stances:
Mexican Intervention: Generally supports.
Anglo-American War: Propose that we keep the Union friendly, especially as we attack Mexico.
Nation: Mixed. Allow big cities to become industrial, but western expansion should center on providing food and agriculture for the nation.
New National Bank: A federally chartered system that supplies money to banks and is prepared to back currency with bimetallism: a 8:1 silver-to-gold ratio.
50 Negros Act: Repeal, especially since in much of the country there is a semi-feudalistic system that offers profit, food, and shelter to the blacks who work for it. James himself is particularly concerned with the implications for men like Joshua Houston, who James eventually gave his own estate and workers.
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