America’s 1-Month President
In the year 1800, the United States of America began an over two decade long period of near one-party rule under the Democratic-Republicans, a party first established by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison to challenge to Federalist led establishment set forth by Washington and Adams; Jefferson’s faction would remain the unshaken leading force in both the legislative and executive branches until the late 1820’s, when General Andrew Jackson ascended to prominence, and sought to root out the decades-old establishment which had become rife with corruption.
The Democratic-Republican party fractured, and from it emerged Jackson’s Democrats on one side, and a mess of remnants on the other, who along with a handful of smaller political factions, coalesced into a united Anti-Jackson front. This front saw Jacksons massive victory, and his imposing character, as a threat to the Republican values of country; the way in which he inspired such political participation from the common citizens and lower classes, left the remnants of the old establishment worried that Jackson was using mob-rule to make his presidential position into a position of absolute power: A monarchy fueled by the tyranny of the masses; and so, this opposition party adopted the title of the Whigs, named after the anti-monarchical party of England; as such, the Whigs would attempt to curtail presidential power, while strengthening that of congress, even despite the fact they wouldn’t achieve lasting influence in either of those two branches.
During their existence, the Whigs were largely unsuccessful at achieving their national agendas; they managed to win only two presidential elections before their collapse, one of which having only been on account of a split democrat vote.
Neither elected Whig President lived to serve the entirety of his term, forcing their lack-luster vice-presidents to assume power, and further tarnish the reputation of the faction. The party as a whole had several issues, perhaps most obviously the fact that beyond all else, the faction was merely an anti-Jackson party, not one originally defined by a clear ideology or goal, as such, it’s leadership was often at odds with itself over the direction in which to move.
Henry Clay held the clearest vision for the Whigs, seeing them as the builders of American self-sufficiency and national strength. He believed American industry and business must be encouraged and protected from foreign competition. The federal government should play a leading role in bringing the states closer together through integrated commerce, and modern infrastructure. That congress, and not the president, should be the leading policy maker for the country. And that America’s focus moving forward should be upon developing the American continent, rather than interaction with Europe. He’d campaign against Jackson whilst the president was seeking reelection, but by that point, the Anti-Jackson faction had yet to gain enough cohesion. When the Whigs had become a better united party, Clay, despite his role as a leading Whig, was seen as too divisive a candidate; not harsh enough on slavery in the opinion of the North-East, while his protectionist, pro-industry views posed a direct threat to the Deep South’s agricultural economy, and so, if the Whigs had any hope of defeating Jackson’s successor, Martin Van Buren, who was running for reelection, mind you, an alternative needed to be found: A candidate who was likeable and inoffensive to both the North and South; someone who gave off the same military prestige of Jackson, but who wasn’t so intimidating; someone who appeared down-to-earth, but still fatherly and wise; at the same time, he must also be passive-enough to leave the majority of policy-making to congress, and not battle them over legislation as Jackson had. The solution was 67 year old veteran general, William Henry Harrison.
Harrison had been the oldest president to serve yet (the Whigs would nominate another man just slightly younger only a few years later) and while 67 may not seem too old by the standards of today, this was during a time when the average life expectancy at birth was only around 40 years. Suffice to say, most people of the time assumed Harrison didn’t have much longer to live, but because the death of a president while in office had yet to occur, it wasn’t a substantial fear, and the media had made it a goal to play up his vitality and robust history as a conquering general; more than that, his well-off Virginia Plantation upbringing was obscured to instead paint the picture of a down-to-earth frontiersman who lived in a log cabin, drinking homemade cider, the Whigs attempting to steal the lower-class vote that Jackson had originally earned for the Democrats by actually being a self-made frontiersman himself.
By blaming a global economic downturn upon Van Buren’s administration, pushing Harrison as a fatherly, inoffensive candidate, and fudging the facts to make their nominee appear as the common-man’s candidate, the Whigs were able to win Harrison a landslide victory of 234 electoral votes to Van Buren’s measly 60.
Harrison would turn 68 by the time he took office, though he wouldn’t hold that position for very long, as he would die just one month into his term, and be replaced by Vice-President Tyler, who largely disagreed with the broader Whig agenda, and held previous loyalties to the Democrats, halting Whig efforts at passing their agenda for the majority of what would have been Harrison’s Presidency…but what if that changed? What if in an alternate timeline…Harrison successfully served his entire term?
Harrison was infamously known for having quote “no strong opinions”, although one might instead say that Harrison simply kept his own opinions in check, and knew when to play to the tastes of those around him. During his time as governor of the Indiana territory, for example, he had campaigned strongly to allow the practice of slavery of in the region, and though he was personally a supporter of slavery, he officially did so on the grounds of territorial-settlement and states-rights, insisting that the region was underpopulated, could benefit from not discouraging slave-owners from moving there, and that it should be the decision of those who settle Indiana territory to determine if or not slavery would continue within it’s borders; when it became clear the territory was progressing well enough without luring in slave-owners, and was developing a clear anti-slavery position, Harrison abandoned his campaign, moved on, and largely avoided the slavery discussion to focus on other matters instead, suggesting he was at the very least flexible in his political ambitions.
Despite the ambiguity of where he stood in the build-up to the election, he made very clear his presidential agenda through a roughly two-hour long inauguration speech, still the longest to this very day. Ironically, the laying out of his goals that day ultimately contributed to his inability to carry them out, as he, in the hopes of clearing away rumors of his weakness and ill-health, gave this two hour speech in the rain, without a coat, after having arrived on horseback, enduring much the same conditions. In this speech he acknowledged what he recognized as a dangerous concentration of power within the presidential office which had been accumulated there by Jackson; he asserted that the American government had all the necessary facets by which to create a tyrannical dictatorship, and it was only through separation of powers that such was prevented; as such, he would aim to play a minimal role in the legislation process, leaving national policy in the hands of the legislative branch, and only intervening whenever he believed a law might violate the constitution, infringe upon the rights of a political minority, or was simply passed too hastily, and demanded additional review, otherwise, congress would be given free reign.
His appointments, he asserted, would be purely based upon merit, and not upon party preference in order to prevent a consolidation of power within the government by any single faction. Additionally, he refused to pursue a second term, both on account of his age, and in the belief that a second term contributed to the unsafe expansion of Presidential power.
As you might imagine, rumors circulated that Harrison was nothing more than a puppet for Whig-leader Henry Clay, and Harrison took significant offense to this, especially as Clay himself attempted to steer Harrison’s Presidential appointments for him. In retaliation, Harrison brought rival Whig-leader, Daniel Webster, into his cabinet while increasingly excluding Clay. Following Harrison’s death, Webster and Tyler would collaborate to block Clay’s agenda, but in doing so, Webster was straying further away from Whig ideals, and Tyler soon went off in his own direction which Webster refused to follow.
Had Harrison lived, the tension between Clay and the President is likely to remain, however, unlike in our timeline where Tyler was more willing to simply veto Whig policies such as the reestablishment of the national bank, Harrison expressly stated that he wouldn’t, thus allowing much of the Whig Agenda to come into effect as both houses had been under Whig control, coming just short if 2/3rds up until 1843 when the Democrats sweepingly retook the house.
The beginning of Harrison’s term would see congress reestablish the national bank after it had been decentralized by Jackson; the raising of tariffs to double or more what they had previously been in order to cut-down on imports and promote American production; promote the sale of public lands to help settle the frontier, and to put the proceeds from those sales toward internal improvements. The greater success seen by the Whigs in pushing their agenda through, as well as not needing expel the sitting President from the party, as had occurred with Tyler, would almost certainly earn the Whigs greater returns in the midterm election; while the Democrats could still be expected to win the house given their tremendous victory in our timeline, the results would be much closer, allowing the Whigs to retain some influence there, and still push through their agenda during Harrison’s last two years in office, albeit at a slower pace.
The dramatic change of this world doesn’t so much come from the legislation which did pass, but rather, that which did not pass, specifically Tyler’s annexation of Texas, the subsequent Mexican-American War which followed, and the escalation of pre-Civil War tensions.
In our world, John Tyler, hoping to win a second term, pursued the annexation of Texas as a slave-state to win-over Southern Democrat voters, as he had been earlier expelled from the Whig party, and could no longer rely upon their support. This itself created the first major cracks in the Democrat faction by pitting those who opposed the creation of another slave state against those who supported the expansion of Southern power. Because Harrison intended to only serve a single term, and previously expressed his disinterest in the acquisition of Texas, not to mention the significant opposition it would receive from the congressional Whigs, the likelihood of the Harrison administration carrying out an annexation of Texas is very slim.
As Harrison’s term reaches it’s end, the election of 1844 comes around. Because the annexation of Texas isn’t a key issue of debate, and the North-South factions of the Democrat party remain united, Van Buren becomes the Democrat nominee instead of Polk, who surpassed the former President largely on account of the Texas question. Henry Clay, just as in our timeline, is the Whig front-runner; once again, because the annexation of Texas isn’t on the table, Clay isn’t forced to denounce the movement, earning him additional support from the South; this, paired with the greater momentum of the Harrison administration, allows Clay to win a significant victory over Van Buren, and reinforce the Whig vision for America another four or possibly eight years; steering the country in the direction of greater national unity and self-sufficiency instead of division and Civil War.
