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Updated Sunday 15 May, 2011 12:18 PM |
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This Day in Alternate History Blog
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The Ostend
Manifesto Realized
©
Final Sword Productions 2002 scott
palter <agingcow2345@hotmail.com> In
the mid-1850’s a group of American diplomats in Europe concocted the idea of
forcing a war with Spain over Cuba and Santo Domingo.
The idea was to preempt what they saw as a coming sectional conflict by
providing a foreign war that would unify the country.
The first problem was that America does not respond well to seeing itself
as the aggressor. Even when we
blatantly were (1812 as regards Canada), we like to paint a picture of ourselves
as responding to foreign provocation. The second problem is that while Caribbean slaves states were
a popular notion in the South, they were a VERY unpopular one in the North. Now, one of these diplomats, Buchanan, became President, 1857-60. In fact he was possibly the worst President in American history, doing much to make the probable Civil War certain. However, his party, the Democrats, were still the only functional national party. The Whigs were in a state of collapse that would lead to their extinction post-1860. The Americans / Know Nothings were never more than a regional nativist protest movement. The Republicans were blatantly sectional. So let us give him some smart, shifty advisers. I nominate Douglas of Illinois and Sickles of New York. Feel free to substitute, as it will not affect the results as long as you choose among the many amoral realists in the party. The
road to a unifying foreign war starts with an internal political compromise.
The South must give up any hope of expanding slavery on the American
mainland. No more slave states
including Arizona, New Mexico, and Kansas. I will allow Oklahoma as it was
effectively a slave territory by this time. The South must also give up the
unenforceable Fugitive Slave Act. Preserving
both of these were key Southern demands. However,
the proposal would be to offer the following in return: 1.
Federal compensation for runaways where local authorities refuse to aid
in recapture. This converts the
struggle over absolutes into a money claim on the Federal Treasury. 2.
A constitutional amendment guaranteeing that slavery can only be
abolished by the act of each state legislature.
This amendment would only in turn be amendable by unanimous consent of
all the states. 3.
The same amendment provides Federal payment of compensation for any state
that abolishes slavery and any owner that manumits his bondsmen.
4.
For new conquests a political deal is reached.
Slave areas with retain slavery, free areas will not. 5.
The amendment formally states that there is no right of secession. Now
as a practical matter, the extreme Southern fire-eaters and the abolitionists
will both have a cow over this. However,
prior to the election of 1860, the majority of even the deep Dixie electorate
was not of the fire-eater persuasion. The
abolitionists were a minority even in the Republican Party.
The majority of the South wanted protection against northern domination.
The majority of the North wanted to exclude competition from any black
labor, free or slave. Making the
West a Free Soil preserve for white farmers while safeguarding slavery in the
existing states pretty much satisfies this. Note:
the outline of the above proposals was pretty much what the peace advocates came
up with 1860-61. The problem was
that once Dixie seceded it was very hard to put the genie back into the bottle. All
that now remained was to find a ‘good’ foreign war to cement the deal.
A Cuban rising (financed privately out of New Orleans and New York)
begins shortly after Buchanan is nominated.
By the time the first summer of the administration is over (my guess is
that it would have taken 15-18 months to fashion the compromise above, with the
period running from the summer Presidential campaign of 1856 into the actual
first year in office of 1857), the Spanish should have commited enough
‘atrocities’, including execution of American ‘volunteers’, attacks on
American flag shipping running supplies to the rebels and actions against
American property, to begin to whip up a war fever as was done in 1898.
A few provocative acts by the US Navy convoying US ships against Spanish
‘pirate’ attacks would do the trick. So
we have a war by mid-autumn. It
would not be especially popular in New England.
There would be far more volunteers from the Deep South than from the
other regions but everybody would get to send a few regiments of their militia.
The
only power in a serious position to oppose us would be Britain.
I highly doubt they would choose war with the US.
Canada and their commerce would be at risk.
They refused to intervene in our Civil War under far more favorable
conditions. My guess is they would
send large RN squadrons to Halifax, Bermuda and Kingston while waiting on
events. The
war would not be a walkover. It
would probably take on the order of 2 years for the last Spanish garrisons to be
starved out in Havana and Santiago. In
the meantime, we gobble up Puerto Rico, Santo Domingo (the modern DR), Hawaii,
and most of the Spanish Pacific Islands (but probably not the Philippines which
had a major garrison). A second
expedition of mostly Northern troops avenges Walker’s defeat and takes most of
Central America (Nicaragua, El Salvador, Honduras and Costa Rica) as free
territories. Spain finally accepts
peace on news that if the war continues we are preparing expeditions to take the
Canaries, Maderias and Philippines. The
triumph of Manifest Destiny ensures Douglas the White House in 1860. Running as
what we would now call a Dixiecrat, Breckinridge carries the Deep South. Lincoln takes New England and a few New England settled
states (Michigan, Iowa, Kansas). The
rest of the country plus the new states (Cuba, Puerto Rico, Santo Domingo,
Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador, Costa Rica, Hawaii) go for Douglas.
The Whigs do not even nominate a candidate.
Douglas hastens the demise of the party by taking one of their leaders,
Alexander Stevens of Georgia, as VP. The
US is spared Civil War and Reconstruction.
Obviously this does not solve the race problem.
However, the solution to that was probably beyond 19th Century
America. At the price of some
further decades of black bondage (Brazil emancipated by 1888 so have the last
state except South Carolina (which was hopeless) do so by 1918), a million black
and white Americans do not die from the war and its attendant disease and
starvation. A larger, stronger US
grows ahead of Europe even faster. The
new Carib slave states would probably be the first to abandon slavery.
The new Central American free states are rapidly developed.
The first transoceanic canal will be in Nicaragua in the 1880’s.
Abe Lincoln will be a footnote in US history but so will Jeff Davis.
Finally, Robert E. Lee will be a US hero for his campaign in Cuba instead
of a Dixie one.
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