America: Home of the Brave

Canada and the South



Even with the news of the Infrastructure Development Act passing through Congress, that still wasn't quite enough for the Northern states. The cities of Montreal and York seceded from the United States to form the nation of Canada. In doing so, the city of York was renamed to Toronto.

To begin talks with Canada, President McClellan traveled to Montreal and met with the Canadian Prime Minister (presidents aren't good enough these days, apparently), John A. MacDonald. MacDonald seemed to be of the interesting type, because McClellan persistently wrote about MacDonald's constant smolder. President McClellan had work to do, so he ignored it.

Prime Minister MacDonald and the rest of Canada was aware of the IDA, but they felt that the Canadian and Northern identity just wasn't the right fit with the United States, so they seceded peacefully. Prime Minister MacDonald wished President McClellan, along with the Congress, would respect their decision.

This left Congressman Guay in a tizzy; does he stay Canadian, or run in another state?



In other news, President McClellan formally denounced slavery and it's rhetoric in the Southern states. In doing so, the Southern states were outraged. Many local businesses and citizens protested near government offices, and many local churches organized sermons for anti-Abolitionist sentiments.



President McClellan was confused; he didn't know what else he could do to stop the South from clinging to their held beliefs on slavery. It seemed to be getting closer and closer that something appear from the chasm of their divided interests.

Oh, and President McClellan would also like to make note that a project of past presidents has been completed: a road from Seattle to the rest of the United States... But what is it to be called? Perhaps the Oregon Trail? No, that doesn't sound right.



However, during the time of an anti-Abolitionist movement, the plague had appeared in the southern states of Charleston and New Orleans. President McClellan immediately sent out aid relief to the South to help heal the sick and care for the weak and diseased, garnering the Democratic Party and President McClellan a healthy public image.

Whilst doing so, President McClellan created the state of Florida to the south of Georgia. The state of Florida was mainly created to grant statehood to the people living there, and to create a state that could be used as a military base, in case for any reason the United States wanted to take Cuba from Spain... Wait, did I just say that? This is off the record.



In accordance with the Milkwright Bill, the city of Salt Lake City was founded in the Rocky Mountains to ensure safe travel for any and all troops traveling through the mountains to the West, or from the west coast to the East. The city wasn't expected to grow too large; it's only lake and source of water was abnormally salty (hence the name), and the rest of the area was either desert or mountains.

The area mostly became a home for Mormons who needed somewhere to settle so that they could be free from judgement and/or persecution. President McClellan had a strong desire to name the state Utah, but for some reason he decided to instead create the state of Deseret.

Deseret took the area of what could have been the states of Utah, Colorado, and Wyoming. Where did those names come from? I don't know. Must be some places from another universe or something. Or China. You never really know at this point.



For a measly 10 gold, President McClellan was able to purchase a map of Canada from MacDonald. It was quite awkward for McClellan when he saw MacDonald sensually roll the map up and stab it at McClellan when the deal was made. Once the map was given to Congress, MacDonald washed his hands immediately.

What a weird guy.

After this, President McClellan stepped down after having become exhausted from the tension growing in the South and West. He was seen as an above-average president, seeing how he handled the plague in the South. What really tarnished his image was Canada seceding from the Union. McClellan did, however, strengthen the military. He wasn't able to produce all of the units that Congress had wanted in accordance to the NDA, but he did create two of the Riflemen, and one of the Cannons. He did send a settler to the S.S. Pinckney to be sent into the Pacific, though...

You win some, you lose some.​

Election of 1874

Democratic Party

Horace Greeley



Republican Party

With no nominee, the Republican party has refused to run this election. The Republican party planned to nominate Grant, but they have no other options they considered.

Unitarian Party

Ulysses S. Grant



Greeley: 217

Grant: 235



Thanks to President McClellan's mediocre image compared to President Van Buren, the Democratic Party was not able to inspire the enthusiasm needed to defeat the popular general Ulysses S. Grant. The Unitarian Party accredits its success to the more populated east.

The Democratic Party's success in the Great Plains and the South was not able to beat Grant's success in the East.
​

The Gilded Age



The entire nation was watching the Grant presidency; an anti-slavery Grant with a pro-slavery VP, Jefferson Davis. The two seemed to be at quite a standstill when it came to the issue of slavery, but the issue didn't appear to have come often.

The first thing President Grant did was to make sure the Unitarian Party would have quite the image when he left, similar to how Van Buren did. So what was the first thing he did in office? He settled the city of Los Angeles in the new state of California, and sent out the S.S. Pinckney to the Pacific to find a group of islands to settle.

Grant didn't exactly know when the ship (or if, for that matter) would find any islands, but he was fairly confident there was something out there.



However, on foreign affairs, Grant was the president who had to undertake the duty of telling the American people the great nation of France had fallen. While the United States was much, much closer to Spain, it was a great loss to lose such a culturally important empire.

It was said that Spain had taken most of the former land of Spain, but that is just rumors as of late; there have been no maps bought from foreign lands in quite a few years.



President Grant worked to bolster the economy of the United States, and it went quite well. He renewed trades for resources in many countries, even improving them in some cases *cough* Spain *cough*.

On the actual economic income prospect it didn't seem to be looking quite well at first sight. Grantonomics was a new proposal set in place by President Grant where taxes on corporations were raised to pay for more spending on infrastructure, and taxes on the more wealthy Americans were raised as well. At first, the economy took a huge turn for the worse, but Grant had hope.



It didn't take very long, though, for Grantonomics to take a chokehold on the American system. It only took about a year for the economy to get back into shape from its initial setback, and culture and technology inside of the United States was thriving at its fastest point yet. This era of time starting under President Grant had come to become known as the Gilded Age.

Specifically, the United States officially finished their workings on their governmental system, becoming a true democracy. This ended what many historians see as the Renaissance, and the start of the Industrial Era.

Many American cities became more modernized, and production had become more rampant. President Grant was seen as being at the head of all of this, making him more of a celebrity than a president.



The city of Albuquerque hadn't done as well in the Gilded Age, though. The city had stored its food in old-fashioned grain silos, for some odd reason. The mayor excused his behavior saying its how his ancestors did it, and that would be the way he did it.

Grant grumbled, knowing he wouldn't be able to change the ways of the New Mexicans, so he let them have whatever happened to them. Of course, seeing as technology is no longer in the 18th century, rats and other vermin had gotten into the silos and eaten all of the food.

The governor of New Mexico came to President Grant pleading for a bailout and a stimulus package for his state to help the city of Albuquerque recover. President Grant, knowing it would hurt his image not to help, sent a small amount of gold to the city to get them more food and to update their food storage.



The people were starting to become quite suspicious of President Grant; one of his campaign promises was to declare war on Canada in accordance with the Canada Requisition Act, but he had failed to do so so far. Instead he piled up a mass of troops near the Canadian border between Boston and Halifax, making many Canadians anxious.

Many started to speculate the reason why Grant hadn't declared war so far. Some called him "Granny Grant", saying he was too weak and frail to declare war. Some called him "Gracious Grant", saying he was wise not to start a war and cause the destruction of many lives, jobs, and buildings. Some even went as far to say as he was being pulled by Vice President Davis to not declare war on Canada, because Davis had a secret agenda to keep Canada out and the South in.

These are all rumors of course, but President Grant, when questioned, didn't have an answer for any of the speculations.



The Gilded Age continued into the late 19th century with the rise of a great scientist in Chicago. The man's name was Arthur Compton, who claimed to have discovered something called "the particle nature of electromagnetic radiation". People didn't know what the heck he was talking about, but he seemed quite smart.

So instead of calling him a lunatic, they welcomed him into the city and proclaimed him a great scientist. They weren't quite sure what to do with him yet, though; they'd let Congress decide.



Just before President Grant left office in early 1886, news had gotten out to the public how his explorers in the Pacific had found a very habitable set of islands called Hawaii. There were already natives there, but we didn't care, so we founded Honolulu in the most habitable island.

There were quite a lot of resources in the local water and other islands, causing the city to flourish quite quickly. Heck, if Grant wasn't popular enough already, this put the final nail in the metaphorical coffin of his popularity. Wait, that doesn't quite make sense... wouldn't that say he isn't popular? Well, he was. As popular as a President who changes the economy, founds more states, sends America into a new era, and generates more culture can be.

Oh, did I say Grant only founded California and Hawaii? Well, with enough of the culture spreading, Grant decided to found the states of Idaho and Nevada.​