America: Home of the Brave

Election of 1886

Democratic Party

Grover Cleveland



The Republican Party has joined with the Unitarian Party for this election, despite being on opposite sides of the spectrum.

Unitarian-Republican Party



Cleveland: 258

Grant: 263



Despite Grant's overwhelming popularity, the 1886 election was an absolute nailbiter. It came down to the very last state to determine the winner.

Ulysses S. Grant has been re-elected president of the United States, being the first person to have done so.

Grant's victory has been accredited to his success in the newly formed West, Midwest, and the South. Cleveland's message of states' rights appealed to the more rural and pro-slavery voters in the rest of the South and the Great Plains, but it was not enough to overcome the appeal of Grant.

With many recent losses, especially in Congress, the Democratic Party is considering rethinking their appeal to bring their party back into the spotlight. What with their most recent president being George McClellan, who was seen as being very mediocre and sub-par, along with the recent death of firebrand Congressman Milkwright of Oregon, the Party has taken massive hits in the past few decades.​

The Populist Party



During the 1880s, a coalition of many farmers, typically from the Midwest, South, and Great Plains, known as the Farmers' Alliance had garnered political power. The Alliance consisted of three different organizations in different parts of the US: the National Farmers' Alliance and Industrial Union for the white farmers in the South, the National Farmers' Alliance for both white and black farmers in the Midwest and Great Plains, and the Colored Farmers' National Alliance and Cooperative Union for the black farmers in the South.

The Farmers Alliance mainly fought to end the crop-lien system on farmers that had begun to spring up in the South ever since slavery was outlawed. Crop-lien is a credit system that was mainly used by cotton farmers in the South. Sharecroppers and tenant farmers did not own the land where they farmed, and they obtained supplies and food on credit from local merchants. The merchants held a lien on cotton and the merchants and landowners were the first ones paid from the sale of cotton. Whatever was left from the sale would be given to the actual farmers.

That wasn't the only thing the Farmers' Alliance fought to end; the Farmer's Alliance also supported government regulation of the transportation industry, the establishment of an income tax to restrict speculative profits, and the use of inflation as a means of easing the burden of repayments of loans by debtors. The Farmers' Alliance eventually coalesced into a "People's Party", and later became known as Populists.

The Populist Party viewed the US political system as corrupted by the monied interests of the industrial and commercial trusts.

The new Populist Party appeared to have gotten a large amount of support in the Great Plains and South, bringing interest to the Democratic Party. The Democratic Party considered adopting Populist positions in order to attract new voters, and potentially dropping more of their views on states' rights. Of course, they hadn't made a decision yet.

However, the Unitarian Party was also interested...​

A Nation Divided



The Congress had recently voted on a bill that mainly hosted parts of the Populist platform and voted for it to pass, but a Congressman from California had mysteriously gone missing for the vote. The bill would have passed whether he would have voted Yea or Nay, so it wasn't all too important of a matter.

President Grant wanted to make sure he would set up a good image of himself; he did get elected a second time after all. President Grant worked to improve infrastructure and develop his country, and started with the National Academy of the Sciences Act, which stated that an academy shall be founded in the city of Chicago by a local great scientist.

Many scholars will move to the city to further their studies.



President Grant had founded connections with the Chinese and traded the knowledge of Nationalism for the knowledge of Physics. Because of this, a source of Uranium was found in the Rocky Mountains; we don't know what we the heck we can do with it, but it sure sells for a pretty penny.

It was a pretty good deal in all honesty; a mildly important technology for Physics? Sign me... wait, America... up!

Similar to the stories of former president George B. McClellan, the emperor Kangxi of China gave President Grant a constant smolder as the deal was made. MacDonald of Canada wasn't as friendly to the United States anymore, but it appeared Kangxi was quite interested in creating ties between the two countries.

Either way, people were impressed with President Grant's foreign policy.




It wasn't only the sciences that President Grant improved on, but trade with foreign nations as well. Grantonomics was doing fine, but the economy still could use a boost somehow. Whilst finding out what extra resources we had, President Grant made some trades with wealthy nations to boost our gold.

President Grant was still being ridiculed for not declaring war on Canada just yet, but his excuse was that Canada had superior troops, and thus we needed to continue to build up our army. Most citizens didn't quite buy him, so Grant was starting to fall out of the public favor. It seemed that no matter what President Grant did to appease the people, they just wanted Canada back.

Oh well, at least the South seemed to be getting over slavery.



President Grant was still amassing troops near the Canadian border. The troops stationed there made a small city in Maine as they waited for orders to attack the North. Because of this, Maine had started to boom, but it was expected to bust when the army moved out of the area. If they ever did, that is.

President Grant got reports that the Canadians had amassed Riflemen in their cities; Grant was distressed by this. The French had Riflemen of course, but these ones had training and many more battalions. President Grant truly didn't want to declare war on Canada at this point and had started a peace campaign. This started to divide the nation; many Populists and Unitarians joined the Peace movement while Republicans and Democrats called for war.





Both sides of the issue started issuing propaganda and posting around cities and towns.

No matter which side won, this would end up becoming a nation divided.



President Grant didn't feel he had much longer to live, seeing as he was 74 and getting into worse health day by day. The stress of a nation divided on war was obviously taking its toll on him, and he didn't know what else he could accomplish.

At this point, Grant felt he didn't much to lose, so he sent out a Minuteman and a Settler far to the northwest to the barren tundra to found a city in a land that was found on a map. This land was discovered by the Canadians, but it hadn't yet been settled by anyone. President Grant was known for expanding his nation, so he took a shot and sent some units up there.

This didn't go well in the public eye on both sides of the nation. The Populists and Unitarians didn't support taking away more land from the Natives, and the Democrats and Republicans didn't support taking away any troops that could be put toward a war with Canada. Despite all of this, Grant continued on his mission; the troops were too far out anyway. If they returned, they wouldn't have enough food and would die.

President Grant continued to fall out of public favor, and the United States continued to grow apart. Like a rubber band, the country did snap one day. It was December 12th, 1896. President Grant had just exited a meeting with his cabinet on what to do to soothe the tension in the country over Canada. He had walked outside when he was shot by an assassin who waited near the door for him. The man was immediately arrested by police after he was caught hiding in a local warehouse, but President Grant died of his wounds and an infection a few days later.

The United States didn't seem to be getting any better, and was going to head into the 20th century in hideous turmoil.​