A Fresh Start

GovernorGeneral

A Fresh Start



Prologue



22:14 14 April 1865
City of Washington, District of Columbia, United States of America

Ford’s Theatre

Major Henry Rathbone, United States Army, reached into his coat pocket for a handkerchief. After catching the sneeze, presumably brought on by the theatre’s musty air, in turn the result of a fierce thunderstorm the night previously, Rathbone turned back around to return the piece of cloth to his coat. As he fumbled in the dim light, Rathbone saw movement out of the corner of his eye. At first dismissive, he quickly realized something was not right. The man had a small pistol in his hand!

Immediately the Army officer vaulted out of his seat, making headlong for the assassin; surely the President was his goal. The assailant started to turn to meet this sudden and unexpected interruption. His weapon was discharged; the bullet caught Rathbone in the shoulder. While Rathbone slammed into the assassin and the two grappled on the floor, pandemonium erupted in the theatre.

***

15 April 1865
City of Washington

The White House

President Abraham Lincoln nodded his thanks to the aide and turned his spectacled eyes to the telegram. “It seems good Henry is in good spirits and health both. Much the same for Secretary Seward, thanks be to God.” Handing the bit of paper back, Lincoln furrowed his brow, his thoughts turning, inevitably, back to matters of state. There was much talk among the Radical Republicans in Congress of late as to how best to punish the rebels. While Lincoln had always adamantly opposed the rebel cause, he nonetheless saw no reason to rub salt in the wounds of his nation when healing was surely the wiser course.

***

Appomattox Courthouse, Virginia

Robert E. Lee felt a pain in his chest as he read of the attempt on Lincoln’s life. Northern Tyrant or not, it was unthinkable that such at action had been made. The Southern Cause was lost, that much was certain. The time had come to look to the future.

After he had breakfasted, Lee received a delegation from General Grant. The unofficial word relayed through staff aides of both commanders was that Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis were being invited to a special conference at the White House. Lee was uncertain what to make of this, but was hopeful that something could be salvaged of the terrible war that had finally drawn to a close.
 

Dathi THorfinnsson

????
Lee surrendered April 9
Richmond VA, the capital of the csa, surrendered April 3
What on earth has Lincoln got to talk about with Davis??,

Lee, maybe, the governors of the Rebel states, maybe, but Davis's ONLY claim to importance, is as leader of a nonexistant (to Union eyes), entity.


It seems very odd to me.
 

GovernorGeneral

I figured Lee would still be there coordinating dispositions of the surrendered army. If not, it isn't of great importance to where I'm going with this. I'm positing that Lincoln appeals to former rebel leaders to help with bringing the country back together.
 

GovernorGeneral

Chapter 1

Reconciliation National Commons (OTL National Mall)
City of Washington, United States of America

December 1876

Before the incensed crowd, blacks and whites together, elder statesman Abraham Lincoln sought to project his voice. “The Corrupt Bargain being hashed out behind those walls, the walls of our nation’s glorious capitol must not stand! It is we, the nation’s people, who must stand for true democracy and the unwavering commitment to the universal rights enshrined in the natural law of the Almighty!”

“Tilden lost the popular vote, and should have lost in the Electoral College! Although not personally responsible, his party’s barbarous rabble rousers sought to disrupt the due orchestration of democratic elections. Hayes is the rightful President come springtime, and we will not let him be forced to bow to political pressure to make the devil’s own bargain with extremists!”

Even behind barricaded doors, congressmen and senators could hear the roar of popular opinion. Standing against it would be, quite literally, suicide. After further heated debate, resulting in two broken arms and a deep gash in the forehead of a respected member of congress, the decision was made. Let Hayes the Republican have the nation’s helm.

***

The White House
City of Washington, United States of America.

March 1913

President Theodore Roosevelt was a weary man. His two previous terms in the executive office had taken their toll, to be sure, but the election of 1912 had been a horrendous affair. The Mudslinging against the ‘Bull Moose’ Progressive Party had been utterly ungodly. Still, that was, in a way, the raison d’être of his coup against Taft.

His personal secretary brought the expected delegation into the newly completed, ahead of schedule, Oval Office; a West Virginia Coal man, a Mississippi farmer, and a Michigan factory worker. Two whites and a black, bringing a united appeal to the President of the United States, would be sure to cause turmoil in the press. Chuckling to himself at the public reaction to his campaign stump speech on the need for a ‘living wage’, Roosevelt looked up and smiled, walking over and extending his hand in greeting.

“… In conclusion, Mr. President, the North American Manufactories Union, the United Mine Workers of America, and the Negro Labour Movement have come together as one on this point. ‘Fair wages for all or no work for any.’ That shall be our rallying cry and we shall stick to it. Our leadership is in agreement here, sir.”

Roosevelt stroked his mustache, sighing resignedly. “The trouble is, Mr. Watts, the industrialists and their big banks are just as united on this issue as your unions are, perhaps even more so, as they do not have racial inflammations and riots to contend with. I realize we as a nation have not seen the latter in any great scale since the middle years of Reconstruction, but the threat remains. So long as Capital can divide Labor by pitting a Negro against a White, or a Chinaman against a Mexican, the latter will never be as truly united as you would have me, and the American people, believe.”

“Congress has been increasingly making noises about the rising menace of overseas Empires. We must keep up in the Battleship Race, they say, or face the strangulation of our foreign trade, increasingly the lifeblood of the nation’s economy. If the Labor unions move ahead with their plans for a general nationwide strike, I fear the industrialists and their coin counters will not sit idly by...”

That evening, by gas lamp, Roosevelt found himself drawn once more into the pages of a striking novel by the famed British author, H.G. Wells. The question posed in the piece was a strange one. What if the era immediately after the Southern Insurrection had gone differently? Would that have lead to the long-term collapse of the southern agricultural economy, in turn spurring the European Empires to expand their own claims overseas in order to feed their textile mills? Surely Wells’ ghastly vision of the Unthinkable War and the world that followed was nothing but idle fiction? But what if it wasn’t?
 
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