Napoleon as a US President

[eurofed]

Discussion about the demographics of a larger, less prejudiced USA on another forum birthed the idea of Napoleon as a US President to realize it. Since I think it is a very interesting and cool idea, I feel appropriate to give its own thread. Here's the broad outline of the TL:

Napoleon's parents immigrated to America just before or soon after he was born (not a real difference since he is going to be grandfathered as 'natural-born' by the Constitution either way) because of turmoil in Corsica. His father, being the lover of liberty he was, joined the Patriots and died an hero's death in the ARW. Some Founding Father with money and military connections (such as Washington and/or Hamilton) took him as a ward and protege, he was groomed as a promising young official and politician in the post-revolutionary generation and married into New England or New York elites. He performed very well as a general in some conflict America fought at the end of the 18th century (it might be the equivalent of the Quasi-War, or some Indian conflict; it does not need be a big war since impressive victories against Indians were enough to make OTL generals stars), reaped national fame, and was elected President in the early 1800s. As President and Commander-in-Chief, he won a stunning string of successes for America in the conflicts against Indians and European powers otherwise distracted by the French Revolutionary Wars. This expanded the borders of the USA to encompass all of North America (the task of properly assimilating Mexico and Central America in the Union being entirely manageable for his talents).

He foresaw the danger the blight of slavery represented for American democracy, and implemented a compromise that sent the USA down the path to gradual abolition. He picked Southern resistance in an equivalent of the Nullification Crisis he swifty suppressed as an opportunity to crush secession in the bud and enact compensated emancipation of slaves. He supported sending most freedmen to unsettled Western territories or less likely back to Africa as a solution to racial strife in the South. He developed US infrastructure, manufacturing, and education, and buillt up America as a strong, prosperous, and united nation. Since he was socialized as a liberal and republican (politically he was an Hamiltonian Federalist), he was happy with being a democratic President, although he gave the Presidency a very 'imperial' imprint. He did sponsor a few constitutional amendments to empower the Presidency, reinforce federal government, expand civil rights, outlaw secession, and ratify gradual/compensated emancipation of slaves.

Since he was very successful and extremely popular, the Americans were happy to keep him in office as long as he lived or was healthy and willing enough to run. If we assume for simplicity it was stomach cancer and not British poison to kill him, and TTL butterflies extend his lifespan significantly but not radically, he may get elected President first time in 1804 (when he would become elegible), keep getting re-elected five or six times, and die in office sometime in the 1820s. He goes into history books with even better a reputation than OTL, his fame as a general and statesman being unblemished by defeat or despotism and with the added laurel of being an hero of American democracy (albeit in a very 'imperial' version Jeffersonians loathed, but nothing his mentors and role models Washington and Hamilton, or Lincoln, TR, or FDR for that matter, would disapprove of) and the architect of emancipation. He becomes TTL's equivalent of Lincoln on steroids, or the next-generation Washington. He gets monuments in the US capital and his face on Mt. Rushmore next to Washington's (Jefferson is still quite revered as a Founding Father but his legacy is diminished and sidelined ITTL). Americans automatically quote Washington and Bonaparte in one breath when they speak of their greatest heroes and Presidents, and say "Washington fathered the country, Bonaparte raised it to greatness".

[Rhand]

I think it's fine for the most part.

He foresaw the danger the blight of slavery represented for American democracy

The issue here is that slavery was simply not a salient issue in America until 1850 or so, when the Democrat and Whig parties started to fracture on the slavery issue. I can't see Napoleon thinking about it to any significant degree decades earlier, especially given that he tried to re-establish French domination over Haiti in OTL. I also can't see him getting much popular support for it.

I think the timeline would be better if Napoleon simply didn't care much about slavery, or he was privately opposed to it, but didn't do much about it.

[eurofed]

Mar 17, 2017 20:29:17 GMT Rhand said:

I think it's fine for the most part.

He foresaw the danger the blight of slavery represented for American democracy

The issue here is that slavery was simply not a salient issue in America until 1850 or so, when the Democrat and Whig parties started to fracture on the slavery issue. I can't see Napoleon thinking about it to any significant degree decades earlier, especially given that he tried to re-establish French domination over Haiti in OTL. I also can't see him getting much popular support for it.

I think the timeline would be better if Napoleon simply didn't care much about slavery, or he was privately opposed to it, but didn't do much about it.

Well, there is certainly historic ground for him to go this way, since it was the attitude the Founding Fathers picked. Then again, if we go through their writings, we may find several prescient warnings from them about the danger the slavery issue represented for the unity of the American nation. Back in the 18th and early 19th century, prevalent attitudes about slavery in American elites (including slaveholding ones) was much less polarized than it got in 1850, and it boiled down to "it is evil and a burden our ancestors saddled us with, but it is an headache to get rid of, in all likelihood it is going to wither and die out on its own in the future, so why create trouble by doing something drastic about it now?". So it would be in-character for Napoleon to share the same opinion. That he did what he did about Haiti IOTL is an accident created by OTL circumstances, in all evidence it was an ill-thought sideshow to European affairs to him, so I give it little importance here. In all likelihood he's going to share the opinion of his mentors on the issue as an American leader.

So I've thought he may start by being privately opposed to it, but not caring to do much about it. But then an equivalent of the Nullification Crisis occurs during his Administration (since he was a strong protectionist this is entirely plausible), which escalates to armed fighting, and he swiftly and efficiently suppresses. This turn of events makes him aware of the danger Southern sectionalism fuelled by the slavery issue represents, and he takes decisive steps to remedy it. IOTL Jackson said in the same circumstances "forget about tariffs. What these guys want is a Southern Confederation; next time it shall be slavery". If Jackson could have this kind of insight, so certainly could Bonaparte. I assume in these circumstances he would have the political capital to implement some decisive measure to send slavery down the path to extinction, be it compensated emancipation, gradual emancipation with some kind of sunset clause, or drastic limits to territorial expansion of slavery.

If you wish, we can easily add political butterflies to the TL that substantially limit territorial expansion of slavery well before Napoleon becomes President, such the Congress approving the antislavery provision in the 1780s Land Ordinances that Jefferson supported and failed to pass by one vote. It would have almost surely caused Kentucky, Tennessee, and Missouri to become free states, and their example might have easily persuaded the other Upper South states to embrace gradual abolition (Virginia could have done so if not for Nate Turner's rebellion). So when President Napoleon comes to face the slavery issue in the aftermath of the Nullification Rebellion, it is more or less limited to the Deep South and Caribbean states, and he has a much easier job to persuade the nation to put an end to it, especially when he can paint the slaveholders as would-be rebels and traitors.