Thread by @Prolemasses

A House Divided Part 247 - Let Justice Be Done Though the Heavens Fall

In the aftermath of the Thanksgiving Coup and the dissolution of the Redemption Party, the new regime in Richmond set about the process of trying to balance a need for national unity and personal vengeance

Nearly all of the Redemption Party members of Congress and state governments were expelled or forced to retire.

Most avoided direct criminal charges, simply being barred from standing for election or political participation.

Of the major figures of the Faubus administration, Vice President James C. Davis agreed to go quietly, taking a plea deal that saw him pay a fine, be placed under house arrest for around six months, and retire from politics.

Strom Thurmond, not technically in office when the coup occurred, but still massively influential as one of the founders and intellectual architects of the Redemption Party, was offered a similar deal.

As a member of the original post-war Byrd government, and a key player in the passage of the Byrd Amendments, Thurmond was generally respected, even by his political enemies.

He was allowed to retire quietly, with no charges being filed.

John Tower fled to Mexico before he could be captured. He would spend the next thirty seven years as a political refugee, finally settling in Australia in the early 1970s.

Thus, the only major figures in the Faubus government to face serious charges would be Faubus himself and some of his close aides, who had played a key role in the planning of the attempt to overturn the 1963 election.

Faubus was charged with treason, obstruction of justice, and political corruption. After an expedited trial, which many outside observers noted as biased and improperly executed, Faubus was sentenced to fifteen years in prison in December of 1964.

At his trial, Orval Faubus, given only a few minutes to speak, defended his actions as patriotic, claiming he only did what he did to protect the South from American influence. He accused the prosecution of being an agent of the US government, and Smathers, a Yankee puppet.

Faubus' defiant speech was not included in most newspaper accounts of the trial, as the government invoked the 1963 National Security Act and the 21st Amendment, which created exceptions to the first amendment's protections on speech for issues of treason or national security.

The Nixon and Humphrey administrations mostly ignored these crackdowns, seeing it as necessary for a stable government, and focusing their attention on the upcoming 1965 talks to resolve the Libertas question, and the broader issue of the Black Territories within the CSA.

The quiet suppression of opposition in the aftermath of the coup was only one component of the gradual process of the National Dixie Party establishing their monopoly of power over the South.

Though all the Constitutional structures remained in place, elections were held, and freedoms were guaranteed, the CSA slowly transformed over the course of the 1960s into a stable and reformist, but illiberal and oligarchic, one-party state.

In a uniquely Confederate spin on things, the new post-coup government would, while still retaining some of the centralized federal power created over the past few decades, oversee a process of decentralization.

Power was returned to the states, who became more sovereign as friendly governments were installed. Power became more diluted, with the Smathers-Russell constitutional reforms greatly empowering the Congress, especially the Senate, at the expense of the executive.

The ratification of the 23rd, 24th, 25th, and 26th Amendments to the Confederate Constitution by mid 1965 would confirm this new reality.

George Smathers would be the last truly powerful President of the CSA, as after the ratification of the 24th Amendment created the...

...title "President of the Senate", the President of the CSA was, at best, co-executive with the designated leaders of Congress.

It would create a true party state, a system oriented around not one man, but political institutions.

The new South was one of stability and growth, ending the turmoil of the past four decades, but at the cost of basic democratic governance and civil liberties.

[NIXON]: "I tell you Mike, this cocksucker is driving me up the goddamn wall. These backwards rednecks elected a pinheaded moron, and now I have to deal with him".

[MANSFIELD]: "Of course, we are not the only ones who dislike Faubus"

[NIXON]: "Yeah, the bastards in the other party want his head. They think democracy is too dangerous, that Southerners can't be trusted picking their leaders, they'll just go for the first moron who waves a shiny object in front of their face"

[MANSFIELD]: "Maybe there's some wisdom in that".

[NIXON]: "Oh I agree, you can't trust these hicks with democracy. I don't care if there's some evil son of a bitch in Richmond, so long as he's OUR son of a bitch".

-Nixon and Secretary Mansfield, September 13, 1963.

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