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Hail To The Mirror-Universe
Chief: 5 Alternate Presidents
by Alasdair Wilkins
 Author
says: we're very pleased to present a new story from Alasdair Wilkins'
excellent blog
Io9. Please note that the opinions expressed in this post do not
necessarily reflect the views of the author(s). ).
 If
24 has taught us anything, it's that the presidential succession
can be the stuff of riveting, wildly implausible drama. Here are five
presidential might-have-beens that would make for some fascinating
alternate history stories.
My favorite obscure historical topic has always been the
vice presidents. For some reason, I've always found the exploits of William
Rufus de Vane King, Hannibal Hamlin, and Schuyler Colfax nothing short of
fascinating. (Their admittedly fantastic names may have something to do with
it). The Constitution charges the Veep with three duties…
1. Break tie votes in the Senate.
2.
Protect the space-time continuum.
3. Be on standby in case something happens to the president.
Nine times in our nation's history, the vice president
has been called upon to fulfill that third and most important duty, which is
why Millard Fillmore and Chester Alan Arthur are still the butts of jokes
while George Dallas and Daniel Tompkins are people you probably first heard
of about two seconds ago. But there have been plenty of other times when
presidents might have had to step aside, be it by death, resignation, or
impeachment, and it's intriguing to speculate on what might have happened.
Just ask Philip K. Dick, whose Nazi-victory story in The Man in the
High Castle hinges on the assassination of Franklin D. Roosevelt in
1932 and the subsequent, ineffective presidency of John Nance Garner. So
let's put our alternate historians' hats on and consider five other possible
moments in presidential succession that would make for great stories.
 The
President:
John Tyler
The Date: February 28, 1844
The Event:
A cannon malfunction on the USS Princeton kills
President Tyler's Secretary of State, Secretary of the Navy, and New Yorker
David Gardiner, among others. Tyler not only survived the crash, but he
actually ended up marrying Gardiner's daughter Julia, whom he comforted in
the aftermath of the explosion. In all possible senses of the term, Tyler
got lucky. But…what if he hadn't?
The Successor: President of the Senate pro tempore
Willie Mangum of North Carolina
 Why
the alternate history novel should be written now:
Tyler had no vice president, having succeeded William Henry Harrison
after the old general died a month into his term. Known as "His Accidency",
Tyler had waged a three-year war with pretty much everybody in Washington
for the right to be the actual, full-blooded president, not just an acting
president. This ultimately led to Tyler's entire cabinet resigning and his
expulsion from the Whig party. After all that, what sort of authority could
Mangum have possibly had, especially when the constitution made it quite
clear he would only have been the acting president for certain. With over a
year before a new president could be sworn in, would Washington have ground
completely to a standstill? Can you even imagine? (Don't answer that.)
OK, fine, I'll admit it. Pretty much all political history between Andrew
Jackson and Abraham Lincoln is deathly boring. But how about…
 The
President:
Andrew Johnson
The Date: May 16, 1868
The Event:
Another former Vice President who had become ostracized
from his supposed party, the technically Republican, but actually
Democratic, Johnson spent three years sparring with the Republican congress
as to just how the South should be rebuilt in the aftermath of the Civil
War. Hoping to oust him from office, congressional Republicans impeached the
president on what was essentially a technicality. His conviction failed by a
single vote, the result of seven Republican senators breaking party lines.
But…what if they hadn't?
The Successor: President of the Senate pro tempore
Benjamin Wade of Ohio
 Why
the alternate history novel should be written now:
One of the leaders of the so-called "radical"
Republicans, Wade so alienated moderates that the seven dissenting
Republican senators didn't as much vote for Johnson as they did against
Wade. Considering the also radical (but ethically challenged) Grant
administration came into power only ten months later, it's hard to know what
President Wade could really have done all that differently policy-wise.
Still, this would have basically destroyed the power of
the presidency, asserting Congress as the real head of government and the
president as an obedient servant who served at its pleasure and who could be
removed based on little more than personal dislike.
In any event, the U.S. could have morphed into a de facto
parliamentary democracy, and considering how gloriously, deliriously corrupt
Congress was in the Gilded Age without wielding absolute power,
their exploits in such a hypothetical world would be the stuff of legend. Or
at least a pretty decent first novel.
 The
President:
Woodrow Wilson
The Date: October 2, 1919
The Event:
President Wilson suffered a massive stroke. First Lady
Edith Wilson and a team of doctors immediately moved to place the
incapacitated president in seclusion. For much of the rest of his term, the
First Lady essentially ran the government, deciding which matters were
important enough to bring to the attention of the partially blind and
paralyzed president. Frankly, it's a wonder the stroke didn't kill him
outright. But…what if it had?
The Successor: Vice President Thomas Riley Marshall
 Why
the alternate history novel should be written now:
Deeply unpopular for an almost endless number of reasons
– his support of the League of Nations, an economic recession, general
weariness with the war and his reforms, his totalitarian domestic policies
during the Great War, and there's always his massive racism – Wilson was
leading the Democrats to certain defeat in the 1920 election. The only
possible chance for the Democrats was if the current administration
completely reversed itself overnight.
That just might have happened if
Thomas Marshall had become president. A smart but unassuming Indiana
politician with a sharp sense of humor, Marshall had been utterly ignored by
Wilson and completely shut out of the government. It's just possible
Marshall could have built on the likely goodwill his succession would have
created, and moderated the Democrats enough for them to keep control in
1920.
And, assuming the Democrats might have regulated Wall
Street in the twenties more heavily than the Republicans did – in other
words, if they'd regulated it at all – the Great Depression might
just have been a mild recession. (Or it could have been a thousand times
worse. I don't claim to be an economist.) Of course, Europe probably still
would have descended into fascism and economic despair. And that still
leaves the decaying American agricultural and industrial sectors that helped
exacerbate the Depression in the first place. Even so...it's worth
exploring.
 The
President:
Franklin Delano Roosevelt
The Date: November 28, 1943
The Event:
I'm choosing from a whole bunch of possibilities here, as
our only four-term president spent the last couple of years of his
presidency slowly wasting away under the tremendous pressure of his office,
not to mention his own longstanding medical problems. On this particular
occasion, he suffered an "acute
digestive attack" while meeting with Stalin and Churchill at the Tehran
Conference. Needless to say, he didn't die (yet). But…what if he did –
somewhat earlier?
The Successor: Vice President
Henry Wallace
 Why
the alternate history novel should be written now:
There's a reason why it was Harry S Truman and not Henry Wallace who
succeeded FDR when he finally did pass away. Wallace had been dropped from
the 1944 presidential ticket because he was, to put it mildly, nutty as a
fruitcake. A New Age spiritualist, he dabbled in most major religions and a
few of the minor ones. His spiritual counselor, Nicholas Roerich, was the
most eccentric Russian political advisor this side of Rasputin (in his
defense, he was also nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize multiple times).
Wallace sent Roerich on a fact-finding mission to Asia
that may or may not have involved searching for Jesus's lost paintings that
were hidden in Tibet (no, it doesn't really make any more sense when fully
explained). This expedition proved so embarrassing to the U.S. government
that Wallace was forced to fire Roerich, and when he wrote his memoir he
tried to hide any connection between Roerich and himself.
Wallace faced criticisms of being a communist sympathizer for most of his
political career, and, whatever the exact truth may have been, it's hard to
dispute that he defended Stalin far too staunchly for his own good. He might
also have been a bit of a pacifist, which could have made being the wartime
commander-in-chief a little tricky. So now… imagine Wallace and Roerich
running World War II. I can practically smell the Sidewise Award.
 The
President:
Richard Nixon
The Date: October 20, 1973
The Event:
Desperate to stop the investigations into Watergate,
President Nixon tried to fire special prosecutor Archibald Cox, which
required the Attorney General to actually do the firing. Attorney General
Elliot Richardson refused to do so and subsequently resigned, as did his
deputy, William Ruckelshaus. Solicitor General Robert Bork was the last
person in the chain of command who could fire Cox, which he ultimately did.
Nixon's attempt to muscle the Justice Department became known as the
Saturday Night Massacre, and if Bork had resigned as well, the subsequent
outrage might well have forced Nixon's resignation right then and there.
And…what if it had?
The Successor: Speaker of the House
Carl Albert of Oklahoma
 Why
the alternate history novel should be written now:
Since Vice President Spiro Agnew had resigned in the wake
of his own corruption charges, and Gerald Ford's appointment was still a
couple months away, the 22nd Amendment dictated the Speaker of the House
would become the acting president. Albert, a Democrat, had pledged that he
would appoint a Republican as Vice President and then resign. Simple enough,
really, except for one small problem – his succession would have, in all
probability, created a constitutional crisis, which was just what the
country needed after the worst political scandal in its history.
It all comes down to
a bunch of holes legal scholars keep finding in presidential succession
laws. For one thing, it's still an open question whether members of the
legislative branch, such as the Speaker of the House, are technically
eligible to become President. Neither of Gerald Ford's Chiefs of Staff – a
couple of political nobodies called Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney – felt
the presidency could pass outside of the executive branch, and it's quite
possible others in the Nixon administration agreed. This could have set up a
leadership challenge from Treasury Secretary William Simon, who would have
been the next member of the Executive Branch in line to the presidency.
Even if Albert had maintained power, one has to wonder
whether the Democratic Senate would have allowed him to appoint a Republican
that would have any chance of, say, winning the 1976 election. (Maybe, for
comedy's sake, this could have at last opened the door for perennial
candidate and longtime laughingstock
Harold Stassen.)
Oh, and there's also the thorny issue of whether Albert would have pardoned
Nixon like Ford did, thus avoiding the national embarrassment and global
spectacle of a former president being put on trial.
You take all that succession drama, crazed infighting, and political
maneuvering, and make Carl Albert, the 5'4" Oklahoman known as the "Little
Giant from Little Dixie", your unassuming hero, and you've got "bestseller"
written all over it. Actually, I should probably copyright this now, while I
still have half a chance...
Alasdair Wilkins, Guest Historian of
Today in Alternate History, a Daily Updating Blog of Important Events In
History That Never Occurred Today. Follow us on
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Imagine what would be, if history had occurred a bit
differently. Who says it didn't, somewhere? These fictional news items
explore that possibility. Possibilities such as America becoming a Marxist
superpower, aliens influencing human history in the 18th century and Teddy
Roosevelt winning his 3rd term as president abound in this interesting
fictional blog.
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