An End to Good Feelings - A 1824 and beyond President Infinity Election Game

[Huey Long is a Republican]

Source : https://www.thoughtco.com/the-election-of-1824-1773860

"In the period from 1824 to 1833, the tendency was steadily in the former direction, but it was only in the latter part of it that it was made really efficient. Read more: https://www.searchquotes.com/search/1824_Election/#ixzz7Vlw1vw9I" - Henry Charles Carey

Background

The young United States is currently at a crossroads, politically, diplomatically, and economically.

Following the 1787 Constitutional Convention and the Presidencies of George Washington and John Adams, the Federalist Party would be unable to regain control of the government, slowly crumbling following the death of leading Federalist Alexander Hamilton in 1804. As the Federalists died out, the Democratic-Republicans under Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe would adopt many of their views and ideas to try and consolidate the party as the nation's only political force. Indeed, it was President Monroe's dream to end the idea of political parties entirely with the Democratic-Republican Party remaining a strong and united force.

That is not to be the case, however.

Sectional and regional splits have caused the party to fracture into several factions and now with the 1824 election on the horizon, it's a question of what American politics will look like following it and what will succeed the Democratic Republicans, not if they continue to exist. The question on the minds of many is simple : What will be the next party divide look like?

Basics

Basics : The basic thing to know about this Timeline is that every year unless a major war or election year occurs is a single turn. If in a major war or election year, multiple turns will happen per year. During a timeline turn, you must turn in your initiative. I’ll then do an rng roll to determine how successful said initiative will be. If you’re an incumbent, unless stated otherwise, you’ll be running for re-election automatically, though you can use your initiative to help in that matter. If you want to, you can include RP which will give your rng a bonus +20 in the final result. Your trait will also be involved in the rng tallying. Any further questions you can ask me on the discord server or in a DM.

Elections : Presidential Infinity will be used to determine the result of a Presidential election. Since the start of the timeline is an era before Primaries or Conventions, you’ll be spending the entire election cycle campaigning if you’re campaigning for President. One initiative in the first elections until we have the first party convention whenever that occurs. Meanwhile, downballot elections will be determined through an RNG on how the parties do for each race and whoever scores higher in the total will win election to the seat.

Governing Turns : Presidents will be able to present an agenda for each year using political capital. Each year political capital will be determined by the sliders, which include economic conditions, foreign standing, congressional relations, and trust in government.

For every vacancy in the Supreme Court the President will have the ability to appoint a new Justice without using any political capital, however, should player candidates for the court continuously fail, it will negatively impact one political capital going forward. (Note: With this being the first Supreme Court that the Timeline will see, all your choices will likely be confirmed regardless though as time goes on, rejections could become more and more frequent)

Congressional players will have the ability to submit bills before Congress, this will not use that turns initiative for the player, players will also have the ability to state their vote on other player submitted bills, with players being prompted each turn to submit their planned votes on controversial and player sponsored bills. Each Congressional player will be limited to introducing 1 bill per Congress, so every 2 turns. I will also note that should an issue never be mentioned by players it can largely be assumed that it will go the same as in our timeline unless prompted otherwise.

I also encourage players in non-congressional positions, like local executives (governors, mayors,) and foreign policy characters (diplomats, ambassadors, the Secretary of State,) to submit initiatives for these positions, as there is still fun to be had and impacts that can be made in them.

Also, I’ll be including a curse of tippecanoe for individuals elected in years ending in 0 (1840, 1860, 1880, 1900, 1920, 1940, 1960, 1980, 2000, 2020 etc.) to determine if a President dies or not through rng negatives on the health that will occur every turn.

Sliders

These sliders represent the overton window in the United States throughout the years as well as the United States’ general condition and its relations with the great powers of the world. These will change overtime depending on the actions a President takes.

National Conditions
National Stability

Civil War - Major Unrest - National Strife - Public Disquiet - < ↔ Public Ambivalence ↔ > - Satisfied Public - General Stability - Peace and Stability - National Unity

State of the Economy

Economic Collapse - Depression - Recession - Downturn - < ↔ Stable ↔ > - Minor Growth - Healthy - Economic Boom - Economic Miracle

Trust in Government

Crisis of Confidence - Shattered - Weak - Strained - Ambivalent - Supportive - < ↔ Strong ↔ > - Unwavering - United Consensus

Foreign Standing

Pariah State - Exploited Power - < ↔ Minor Power ↔ > - Small Power - Middle Power - Regional Power - Continental Hegemon - Superpower - Hyperpower

Overton Window
Economic Spectrum

Collectivism - State Capitalism - < ↔ Protectionism ↔ > - Interventionism - Mixed Economy - Social Market - Market Liberalism - Smithianism - Minarchism

Social Spectrum

Egalitarian - Permissive - Progressive - Liberal - Moderate - Conservative - < ↔ Traditionalist ↔ > - Reactionary - Puritan

Cultural Spectrum

Post-Nationalist - Multicultural - Libertine - Liberal - Pluralist - Conservative -Traditionalist - Nativist - < ↔ Nationalist ↔ >

Foreign Policy Spectrum

Pacifism - < ↔ Isolationism ↔ > - Non-Interventionism - Restraint - Realism - Internationalism -Hawk Diplomacy - Belligerence - Empire of Liberty

Abolition vs Slavery

Slave Empire - Slave Nation - Slave Republic - Pro-Slavery - < ↔ Balance ↔ > - Pro-Abolition -Anti-Slavery - Free Soil - Free Nation

Rules

Rules are pretty basic

Rule #1: No racism, sexism, homophobia or any form of bigotry are welcome in this community.

Rule #2: No usage of slurs of any kind.

Rule #3: No form of bullying or harassment is welcome in this community.

Rule #4: Please be respectful to others, not everyone playing a character within this time period endorses their views, there are many controversial politicians at this time, and many of them were awful people, a character playing an awful person does not make them an awful person. We are all just here to have fun after all.

[Huey Long is a Republican]

Avatar/Character Image (Can't choose any major figure of this era)
(Name and Source Link for Avatar)

Name :
Ideology (Are you more a Jeffersonian Anti-Federalist or Hamiltonian Federalist within the Democratic-Republicans) :
Date of Birth :
Place of Birth :
Positions :
Biography (Keep it plausible) :

Spoiler alert! Click Show to show the content.

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Stances (Place your issue stances here) :

The Tariff
Far-Left : Make tariffs as high as possible!

Left : The tariff must be increased drastically.

Center-Left : Tariffs are necessary for federal revenue and protect businesses

Center : not important.

Center-Right : Tariffs stifle free trade and raise prices.

Right : The tariff must be decreased drastically.

Far-Right : No tariff should even exist in the first place

Internal Improvements
Far-Left : Incentivize heavy industrialization across the country!

Left : We need rapid industrialization at all costs!

Center-Left : Internal improvements are "necessary and proper.

Center : not important

Center-Right : We need them, but they're unconstitutional

Right : Unconstitutional and they only help the North

Far-Right : Internal improvements is a scam.

Banks
Far-Left : There is only one bank : THE Bank of the United States. Abolish the Treasury Department and let them handle everything!
           
Left : We need a stronger federal bank; wipe out regional banks

Center-Left. Let's preserve the federal bank.

Center : not important.

Center-Right : repeal the federal bank; replace it with an independent treasury .

Left : Repeal the bank! The federal bank only helps the cities; local banks only

Far Left : Only state banks should exist and

States Rights
Far-Left : Hopefully, an American Plan becomes something that ends slavery once and for all!

Left : Ideally, the whole country unified to a national plan--an American Plan!

Center-Left : The national government should have precedence over all state matters.

Center : not important.

Center-Right : The states are more important than the national government.

Right : Secession is an option to too much government intrusion.

Far-Right : Secession is a viable alternative to government tyranny.

Monroe's Presidency
Far-Left : Monroe stuck to his Democrat-Republican roots, we need an actual Federalist in charge!

Left : Monroe accomplished too little, we needed an active president.

Center-Left : was a good president, but failed to modernize

Center : not important.

Center-Right : Monroe will be remembered as a great president.

Right : Monroe betrayed the values of Jefferson.

Far-Right : Monroe is a Federalist in Democrat-Republican clothing!

Western Expansion
Far-Left : Why expand at all? We have plenty of land to settle and issues to deal with right now, like a certain peculiar institution.

Left : That land is not ours and expanding would hurt Northern interests.

Center-Left : We have to expand but through gold, not guns.

Center : not important.

Center-Right : We have to expand by military force, if necessary.

Right : We have to expand to extend Southern interests

Far-Right : We have to expand to create a southern slave empire.

Indian Policy
Far-Left : They are as civilized as we are, let them govern their own nation!

Left : We should integrate them, and allow them to join us.

Center-Left : Take the land only if they wish to sell it to us.

Center : not important.

Center-Right : Force them to take the land through payment.

Right : They aren't real people. Just take it!

Far-Right : They're just savages, kill them all!

Slavery
Far-Left : We need to abolish slavery, give reparations to freed me, and give them the right to vote! All men are created equal!

Left We need to abolish slavery.

Center-Left : We need to contain slavery to prevent it from spreading.

Center : not important.

Center-Right : Slavery is morally wrong, but it is unconstitutional to stop it.

Right : Slavery is a necessary good and should be expanded.

Far-Right : America is a slave nation, legalize it everywhere!

Monroe Doctrine
Far-Left : We shouldn't care about the world at all, isolation is what Washington wanted!

Left : We should have consulted Latin American countries first.

Center-Left : We do not have the navy to back this document up.

Center : not important.

Center-Right : This document preserves our dominance in the hemisphere.

Right : This doctrine did not go far enough.

Far-Right : Conquer the Americas to protect the Americas!

Standing Army
Far-Left : A standing army ensures we are strong enough to protect ourselves.

Left : A standing army is essential to nationalization.

Center-Left : A standing army protects our borders.

Center : not important.

Center-Right : A standing army should only exist in war time.

Right : A standing army is unconstitutional.

Far-Right : Dramatically reduce the size of the federal government.

Congressional Caucus
Far-Left : The caucus assures demagogues don't rise to prominence

Left : The caucus is essential to making wise nominations

Center-Left : Slay King Caucus! Let's have conventions instead.

Center : not important.

Center-Right : Slay King Caucus! It's undemocratic.

Right: The caucus allows those born to lead to select their leader.

Far-Right : The caucus allows for a true leader to be selected by men among men.

Spoiler alert! Click Show to show the content.

Show

Stats (You'll have 75 Points for the stats. With you having 1 point in each stat at the start, that'll means you'll be able to use the remaining 58 points for the stats) :

58 points to distribute.

01 - Leadership
01 - Experience
01 - Integrity
01 - Issue Familiarity
01 - Charisma
01 - Stamina
01 - Debating
01 - Ideologue
01 - Ambition
01 - Command
01 - Strategic
01 - Advertising
01 - Spinning
01 - Fundraising
01 - Research
01 - Polling
01 - Ground

Trait(s) (I give you traits once I have all the information for your character in) :

I'll also be including a scandal system. You'll have to choose the scandal level and tell me it in a private DM either here or on Discord. This'll be borrowing from several games on AH.com so I give credit to The Buck Stops Here, The Road Ahead, and The End of History.

Level 1 : Slightly embarrassing, but no real legal or political ramifications. An example would be an extramarital affair, alcoholism, or financial carelessness. | +2 bonus to initiatives

Level 2 : Quite embarrassing and can hurt your political career. An example would be signs of mental illness or allegations of minor political/financial corruption. | +4 bonus to initiatives

Level 3 : Deeply embarrassing and can carry legal ramifications depending on severity. An example would be assault or obvious ties to political corruption or organized crime. | +6 bonus to initiatives

Level 4 : Significant legal and/or political ramifications. An example would be martial abuse or a same-sex relationship. | +8 bonus to initiatives

Level 5 : Massive legal and/or political ramifications - basically an instant career-ender. An example would be outright murder ... let's just leave it at that. | +10 bonus to initiatives.

Now, as for what initiatives are. Basically, what an initiative is what you plan to do for the Year that a turn is set in. You'll have two weeks to have an initiative with an agreement to stretch a deadline by 24-48 hours if requested. Here's what an Initiative looks like

#00Year
Character :
Action :
Strategy :
Trait Bonus :

and as for an explanation on stats, I'll use the explanation The Buck Stops Here used.

Leadership - Extremely critical. Perhaps the most important stat in the game. This improves your fundraising and rallies, but most notably it gives you more Command Points, which determines how much stuff you can do in a turn. As you can imagine, being able to do more things than your opponent is a big step up. That is more rallies, fundraising, and speeches, and ultimately more campaigning.

Experience - Also a useful stat, this makes rallies and positive news more effective, and gaffes and negative news less effective. It's just a blanket bonus to good things and malus to bad things. Certainly a good stat.

Integrity - High integrity makes it harder for opponents to find and publicize scandals on you, low integrity does the opposite. With very low integrity as a major candidate, you will probably be getting hit with scandal after scandal, but you get some diminishing returns if your integrity is really high. Another mid-range stat, but perhaps on the higher end.

Charisma - Perhaps the second most important stat after Leadership, this improves your rallies, debates, interviews, ads, speeches, and essentially everything else where your candidate is directly involved. Highly, highly recommend.

Stamina - A bit of a weird stat. Your character has a certain amount of actions you can take in a turn, determined by your Command Points. You can go over that, but doing so will take away from your Energy Points, and Stamina gives you more energy points. Low Energy Points will force your character to take a break, and will make gaffes more common if you do not. The AI is surprisingly willing to deplete its Energy Points, meaning high Stamina is useful, but not crucial.

Every stat below this line can be raised by your character at the cost of a large chunk of Command Points.

Issue Familiarity - An important stat that affects how well your character performs in debates and speeches. The AI likes to invest in this, and it can do so for far less Command Points than other stats, so having a high initial stat is not critical, but it's still useful.

Debating - Determines how your character performs in debates. Typically important, because doing well can be a big boost, and doing poorly can be disastrous, but the initial investment into this stat is not major, since the AI will generally invest into this stat prior to a debate. Like Issue Familiarity, this stat takes far less Command Points to raise than others.

Command - Another critical stat, because like Leadership, this directly gives you the ability to do more things in a turn. It also allows you to improve organization in individual states, which makes your campaigning there more effective.

Strategic - Decreases time to target states, which like organization, makes campaigning in a state more effective. This stat is essentially Command but worse, it is not bad but it is clearly outdone. Both organization and targeting cost a small amount of money, but it is negligible for a large campaign.

Ads - This stat decreases the time necessary to make ads and makes your ads more effective. Ads are a good method of increasing momentum in multiple states at once, but they can be very expensive, especially in non-modern scenarios where internet ads do not exist. Being able to make ads faster may even deplete you of money quicker, making it something of a poisoned chalice. As such, a more middling Ad stat is probably good, unless you have strong fundraising abilities to match it.

Spin - Extremely important. Spin gives you more opportunities to get positive news for yourself and suppress negative news, or do the inverse to your opponents. Your news directly affects your momentum, which is the most important factor in whether your polling numbers go up or down, so this is a very good initial investment, even though it can be raised in-game.

Fundraising - Gives you more money for each fundraising activity. Largely self-explanatory. A very useful stat, with the ability to increase it only somewhat decreasing the important of investing into it.

Research - Lets you more easily research scandals on other candidates. Scandals are rather situational, as they're good for taking down a dominant candidate, but they require a constant investment of Command Points just for a percent chance of getting one to fire. Certainly not a bad stat, but not overly important, especially since you benefit from scandals other people research as well, so long as they aren't on you.

Polling - An awful stat. This decreases the time necessary for your candidate to start polling in a state. I don't know what that means, because polls are already available to you everywhere. It also decreases the margin of error of polls, though there is a mode in options to disable margin of error anyway.

Ground - This decreases the amount of time to create "footsoldiers" in a state, which improves your "Ground Ops."

Go to Alternatehistory.com and then the Shared Worlds forums to see the games I am borrowing these from. Anyway, with all the explanation out of the way, if you're interested, just comment here and I'll begin working asap. Hope to hear from all of you soon.

[Huey Long is a Republican]

Presidential Cabinet

President : James Monroe (DR-VA)
Vice President : Daniel D. Tompkins (DR-VA)
Secretary of State : John Quincy Adams (DR-MA)
Secretary of the Treasury : William Harris Crawford (DR-GA)
Secretary of War : John Caldwell Calhoun (DR-SC)
Attorney General : William Wirt (DR-VA)
Secretary of the Navy : Samuel Lewis Southard (DR-NJ)

United States Minister to the United Kingdom : Richard Rush (F-PA)
United States Minister to the Court of the Tuilleries : James Brown (DR-LA)
United States Minister to the Russian Empire : Henry Middleton (DR-SC)
United States Minister to the Netherlands : Alexander Hill Everett (DR-MA)
United States Minister to Spain : Hugh Nelson (DR-VA)
United States Minister to Portugal : Henry Dearborn Sr. (DR-MA)

United States Envoy to Mexico : James Wilkinson (DR-LA)
United States Minister to Argentina : Vacant
United States Minister to Gran Columbia : Richard Clough Anderson Jr. (DR-KY)

Supreme Court

Marshall Court (1801-)

Chief Justice : John Marshall [Appointed by President John Adams, February 4th, 1801] - Federalist
Associate Justice : Bushrod Washington [Appointed by President John Adams, November 9th, 1798] - Federalist
Associate Justice : William Johnson Jr. [Appointed by President Thomas Jefferson, May 7th 1804] - Democratic-Republican
Associate Justice : Thomas Todd [Appointed by President Thomas Jefferson, February 7th, 1826] -  Democratic-Republican
Associate Justice : Gabriel Duvall [Appointed by President James Madison, November 23rd, 1811] - Democratic-Republican
Associate Justice : Joseph Story [Appointed by President James Madison, February 3rd, 1812] - Democratic-Republican
Associate Justice : Smith Thompson [Appointed by President James Monroe, September 1st, 1835] - Democratic-Republican

Congress

Senate



Source : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/18th_United_States_Congress

President of the Senate : Daniel D. Tompkins (DR-NY)
President Pro Tempore of the Senate : John Gailard (DR-SC)

Democratic-Republicans : 44 Seats
Federalists : 4 Seats

House of Representatives

Speaker of the House : Henry Clay (DR-KY)

Democratic Republicans : 156 Seats
Federalists : 31 Seats

Governors

Democratic-Republicans : 21 Seats
Federalist : 1 Seat (in New Jersey)
Toleration : 1 Seat (in Connecticut)
Independent : 1 Seat (in Illinois)

Political Party(ies and Factions)



Source : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Tricolour_Cockade.svg

Democratic-Republicans

The Party of Jefferson

The Party of Madison

The Party of Monroe

The Party of the Farmer

The Party of America!

With the slow and agonizing death of the now niche Federalist Party, the Democratic-Republican Party, which has controlled the White House since 1801, is truly the only real political force in the nation as any Federalist left might as well join the party instead. However, this has come with a few major problems. That being, the Party now only has internal enemies and so are fracturing and fracturing hard. With no external foe, internal ideologies of the party are driving it apart as two main groups battle for dominance : The Northern, Urban, Elitist, Pro-Industry faction is somewhat abolitionist, being led by individuals like State Secretary John Quincy Adams, but it is mainly against westward expansion, Indian removal (unless it benefits them), and is for industrialization and internal infrastructure projects (and Tariffs!), being former strong places of the Federalist Party. Meanwhile, the Southern, Agrarian, Populist, Pro-Slavery is against Abolition, being led by War Secretary John Caldwell Calhoun and men like him, as well as being against tariffs, industrialization, and internal improvements while being for Westward Expansion, Indian Removal (unless it hurts them), and the expansion of Slavery past it's current borders.

As America grows, it's clear these two groups will eventually split off from the party while the other will turn the Party into their own one, likely the group that wins the White House this election. With many potential candidates on the ballot for the future, what will the Party look like come March 4th, 1825?

List of Presidents

1. George Washington (I-VA) [March 4th, 1789-March 4th, 1797]

1788/1789 : George Washington unchallenged

1792 : George Washington unchallenged

2. John Adams (F-MA) [March 4th, 1797-March 4th, 1801]

1796 : Vice President John Adams (F-MA) def. Former Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson (DR-VA)

3. Thomas Jefferson (DR-VA) [March 4th, 1801-March 4th, 1809]
1800 : Vice President Thomas Jefferson (DR-VA) def. President John Adams (F-MA)

1804 : President Thomas Jefferson (DR-VA)/New York Governor George Clinton (DR-NY) def. Former United States Minister to France and 1800 Federalist Vice Presidential Nominee Charles Cotesworth Pinckney (F-SC)/Former Unites States Minister to Great Britain Rufus King (F-NY)

4. James Madison (DR-VA) [March 4th, 1809-March 4th, 1817]

1808 : Secretary of State James Madison (DR-VA)/Vice President George Clinton (DR-NY) def. Former United States Minister to France, 1800 Federalist Vice Presidential Nominee, and 1804 Federalist Presidential Nominee Charles Cotesworth Pinckney (F-SC)/Former Unites States Minister to Great Britain Rufus King (F-NY)

1812 : President James Madison (DR-VA)/Massachusetts Governor Elbridge Gerry (DR-MA) def. New York City Mayor DeWitt Clinton (F-NY)/Pennsylvania Attorney General Jared Ingersoll (F-PA)

5. James Monroe (DR-VA) [March 4th, 1817-]

1816 : Former Secretary of War James Monroe (DR-VA)/New York Governor Daniel D. Tompkins (DR-NY) def. United States Senator Rufus King (F-NY)/Former United States Senator John Eager Howard (F-MD)

1820 : President James Monroe (DR-VA)/Vice President Daniel D. Tompkins (DR-NY) unchallenged

Characters & Players

Democratic-Republicans

The Graveyard

Empty as no players have died yet.

(You can post characters now)

[Huey Long is a Republican]

Everyone is open to join and the game will start once we have enough players. Remember to send me your scandal and keep it between us if you're joining. Have fun with this game (btw, if anyone would be interested in a discord server for this game, please lmk and I'll try to make one).

[Buffalo Mayor Young Kim]

Wait, is no one down for this?
Because this sounds awesome

[S019]

If I can play as a real person, I’d like to be Henry Clay

[Huey Long is a Republican]

If I can play as a real person, I’d like to be Henry Clay

No, you can't play as a real person. The point of this is for you to make fictional people and see how under them the nation would do, not have the actual people run because that would be boring and a dime a dozen games that we have here.