AHC: Make Impeachment Relatively Common in America

[GeographyDude]

Barnburners, is apparently the name for Democrats who objected to the extension of slavery into new territories.

The following book is talking about the lead up to the 1848 election. Twelve years before Lincoln, so it's a complex history.
http://books.google.com/books?id=W9...a=X&ei=kp7QU6ubC8WL8QG8lYHwAQ&ved=0CAsQ6AEwAA

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I do want to find one or several realistic scenarios where Reconstruction works out.

 

[Simreeve]

Okay, in retrospect, looking back with 20/20 hindsight, maybe the mistake was giving the rebellious states representation in Congress so soon after the war they started. How about that?

Unconstitutional. If they're states of the USA then they're entitled to seats... and if you want to try claiming that they are just conquered territory instead then you'd effectively be admitting that their secession had been legally valid after all.

 

[mrmandias]

I think you start by making impeachment of lesser officials more common, especially cabinet level officials and maybe even judges. Once the precedent is established that it can be done for scandals and big judgment errors that are not necessarily criminal, then you can do that for the President too.

This would be a very different USG.

 

[David T]

Eventually someone will just use the army to overthrow the would be impeachers

Impeachment (by the House) in theory *is* relatively easy. It's conviction by the Senate that is difficult because of the two-thirds requirement.

To have more impeachments, all you need is a House that decides it doesn't care whether the Senate convicts or not. True, impeachments without convictions tend to alienate swing voters, but Representatives from safe districts may decide that they don't need to worry about swing voters, only about satisfying their base.

 

[GeographyDude]

Unconstitutional. If they're states of the USA then they're entitled to seats...

If it comes down to it, if it's between being unconstitutional or allowing former slaves to be murdered, hung, burned, etc., I will choose the former.

I'd very much prefer go between, around, under, over the dilemma, something like that. And in reality, I think re-incorporating the state will be a process, and so I'm saying extend the process somewhat to give Reconstruction a chance to work.

As victor, the North can and will dictate terms and certainly from their perspective, the South started the war. And so one approach might be, a state is re-admitted when it pays from its regular tariffs (which was the primary tax in those days) its share of the war debt which the U.S. government and Northern states incurred and can demonstrate full political enfranchisement and fair elections. The debt might be negotiated downward through broader accounting, but not political enfranchisement.

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None of this is easy. Again, I'd like to have several realistic timelines where Reconstruction works.

 

[GeographyDude]

In requiring a supermajority for removal from office,

there's the Andrew Johnson danger, that a chief executive will limp along with ineffectual policy at a time when you really need effective policy.

there is also a darker danger. which happened elsewhere in the world in 1973. Can anyone figure out what and where this happened?

 

[DominusNovus]

You could turn impeachment into a trumped up vote of no confidence, the means to remove a bumbling chief executive rather than an outright criminal one.

Thats the simplest way. If impeachment was not limited to high crimes and misdemeanors, but allowed for any reason (or just more reasons), then it could certainly end up as a vote of no confidence.

 

[Tonifranz]

If it comes down to it, if it's between being unconstitutional or allowing former slaves to be murdered, hung, burned, etc., I will choose the former.

I'd very much prefer go between, around, under, over the dilemma, something like that. And in reality, I think re-incorporating the state will be a process, and so I'm saying extend the process somewhat to give Reconstruction a chance to work.

As victor, the North can and will dictate terms and certainly from their perspective, the South started the war. And so one approach might be, a state is re-admitted when it pays from its regular tariffs (which was the primary tax in those days) its share of the war debt which the U.S. government and Northern states incurred and can demonstrate full political enfranchisement and fair elections. The debt might be negotiated downward through broader accounting, but not political enfranchisement.

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None of this is easy. Again, I'd like to have several realistic timelines where Reconstruction works.

But the North doesn't care about former slaves at all. They care about slavery extending to the Western territories, they care about the Union, but the actual former slaves themselves?

They don't. Only a minority of Northerners do, and those minority of Northerners aren't enough to have the force of will to force what the majority of the south (full political equality) doesn't want.

As long as the south says the things the north wants to hear (and they did), and doesn't secede, it won't particularly care about the details about civil rights of the former slaves.

The north is very much racist too, you know. A lot of northern states barred blacks from voting before the civil war. That's not going to translate to fighting for the civil rights of the blacks.

As I said before, the Democrats need only win the House of Representatives, then it will starve the army of funds, the army would be shrunk further, and it can't enforce anything. They won't even need to win a single vote of the former Confederacy to do that, as was demonstrated in 1874!

 

[ValidUsername]

You'd either have to vastly decrease the normal standards for an impeachment (which would require an amendment) or every elected official in America would need to be even more corrupt than they are usually.

 

[Laqueesha]

Andrew Johnson's impeachment was entirely politically motivated.

To be fair, aren't all impeachments politically motivated? It is politics, after all.

 

[Tonifranz]

Here's my contribution for the topic.

Make conviction in the senate be a bare majority, about greater than 50%

Reason was that no senator would vote to impeach a president of his party on trivial grounds, and there is rarely a time when the opposition party has more than 66% of the senate, while plenty when they have more than 50% of both houses.

 

[GeographyDude]

But the North doesn't care about former slaves at all. They care about slavery extending to the Western territories, they care about the Union, but the actual former slaves themselves?

They don't. Only a minority of Northerners do, and those minority of Northerners aren't enough to have the force of will to force what the majority of the south (full political equality) doesn't want.

It is a very interesting question of human psychology why the North cared so much about the issue of whether slavery would be extended, but not so much about current slaves themselves.

Before 1776, I think some Northern colonies actually had slaves. And after War of Independence and the Civil War, black citizens in the North were usually and often treated as second-class citizens.

But the South was worse. And segregation wasn't great for white citizens either. Look how long the South remained a one-party region. Sure, people can compare it to Tammany Hall in New York, but on points, I think the South probably comes out with its political power more entrenched and corrupt.

Southern prisons weren't just awful for black citizens. They were pretty awful for white citizens, too.

Schools were crappy. And compare infant mortality in the North and the South.

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It remains a substantial AHC. Find ways for Reconstruction to work.

 

[GeographyDude]

there is also a darker danger. which happened elsewhere in the world in 1973. Can anyone figure out what and where this happened?

Any takers?

I'll give my answer in a little while.

 

[cpip]

Any takers?

I'll give my answer in a little while.

I'll take a swing at it, though it's way outside my ballpark, so I'm borderline random guessing.

The dictatorship in Uruguay, where Congress was dissolved and could do nothing in response?

 

[GeographyDude]

The dictatorship in Uruguay, where Congress was dissolved and could do nothing in response?

Close. You're close.

 

[GeographyDude]

I'm thinking of Chile in 1973.

Yes, the CIA worked to overthrow the elected government of Salvador Allende. They paid the truck drivers to go out on strike. And after the '73 coup and when it was obvious the regime of Augusto Pinochet was going to be really awful, our U.S. elected officials and our tax dollars continued to support this regime. That was the mindset of the Cold War.

But all the same, Allende was elected in 1970 as a minority leader.

http://books.google.com/books?id=yTjHAAAAQBAJ&pg=PA44&dq=%22Salvador+Allende+garnered+a+plurality+of+the+vote+with+36.2%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=cr3SU4yBEqTs8QHW0YHwCw&ved=0CB4Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22Salvador%20Allende%20garnered%20a%20plurality%20of%20the%20vote%20with%2036.2%22&f=false

"On the Left, Salvador Allende garnered a plurality of the vote with 36.2 percent. . . "

http://aceproject.org/ace-en/topics/es/ese

" . . By contrast, Salvador Allende’s election in Chile in 1970 on 36 per cent of the vote, and opposed by a right-wing Congress, helped create the conditions for the 1973 military coup. . "

It gets tricky and I freely admit that I'm not an expert, but there is something about the 1973 referendum called by President Allende, that either his policies or he would continue in office with less than 50% of the vote.

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And so, this is an additional danger in allowing a chief executive to continue in office with less than 50% of a formal vote.

You might be risking a military coup, which can turn out middling or fairly awful.

 

[cpip]

I'm thinking of Chile in 1973...

But all the same, Allende was elected in 1970 as a minority leader....

And so, this is an additional danger in allowing a chief executive to continue in office with less than 50% of a formal vote.

You might be risking a military coup, which can turn out middling or fairly awful.

Ah-hah! I had utterly forgotten that Allende was a minority leader.

 

[RousseauX]

Your challenge is to have impeachment/removal from office common enough so that a President has to tread extremely carefully if they become unpopular. The more removals, the better.

Removing Johnson might do it because thereafter impeachment could just become a de facto American version of vote of no confidence

 

[GeographyDude]

Regarding Chile . . . there was an election in March 1973 and then the coup occurred in September 1973.

From the above book:

http://books.google.com/books?id=yT... coup since the March 1973 elections"&f=false

" . . The parliamentary opposition to the UP had been advocating a military coup since the March 1973 elections after being united in wanting the UP out of power. . "

Wow.

 

[David T]

Removing Johnson might do it because thereafter impeachment could just become a de facto American version of vote of no confidence

The problem is that whether or not Johnson was removed from office, Grant would still become president within a year, and Reconstruction under him would still get a bad name. Just as Johnson's impeachment in OTL was for decades considered one of the "excesses" of the Reconstruction era that must never be repeated, so would Johnson's impeachment *and conviction* be regarded in this ATL.