Full Nation Name : Republic of Texas
Short Nation Name : Texas
Flag / National Symbols:Flag:
Government Type : Semi-Federal Presidential Constitutional Republic
Official Political Ideology : The ideology of Texas is a quite complex one at large. The ideological diversity of Texas is quite easy to spot, looking at the main two parties, the Houstonian Party and the Nationalist Party, as well as the up-and-coming People’s Party. The Houstonian Party, named for Sam Houston, originally followed Sam’s policies, but over time it evolved into a classical liberal/centrist ideology. The Nationalist Party is the more right-wing party, being both socially and economically conservative. The People’s Party follows more democratic socialist/social democratic views, which is quite popular among the younger population of Texas, as well as ethnic minorities.
Head of State : President Thomas Mitchell CampbellHead of Government : ^
Government Description :The government of Texas is largely based on the American government of its original timeline, with three branches of government. The President, the Vice President, and the Cabinet form the Executive Branch, the bicameral National Congress, consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives, form the Legislative Branch, and the Supreme Court of Texas, as well as other, smaller courts of various levels, form the Judicial Branch. The President is elected every four years, with a three term maximum. The Senate is made up of two elected representatives from each province, and the House of Representatives is made up of many different elected representatives from roughly equally populated congressional districts. Judges on the Supreme Court are appointed by the President and approved by the National Congress, while judges in lesser courts are usually elected.
Territory : Modern boundaries of Texas
Territorial Ambitions : None anymore, as Texas agreed to relinquish its claim on the upper Rio Grande Valley as part of the Rio Grande Compromise with Mexico.
Capital City : Austin
Population : 5,382,593
Majority/Official Culture : Texas formally identifies with the Texan identity, though informally Texas is primarily Anglo-American, with some Hispanic, Afro-Texan, and various European cultures also present.
Majority/State Religion : While Texas is officially a secular state, most Texans are Christians, mostly Protestant, with some following Roman Catholicism. Some various folk religions, such as Voodoo, are present, though not too largely.
Major Industries / Economic sectors: Oil, Natural Gas, Refined Steel, Cattle, Cotton, Foodstuffs
Amount of Industrialization : Texas, while not as industrialized as its timeline’s America, is a rather industrialized nation itself. Factories are present in its largest cities, though much of the countryside remains rural.
Economic Description : Texas’ economy has boomed in recent decades with the discovery of oil, and stood as one of the world’s largest oil producers. With the introduction of factories in the early to mid 1850’s, Texas has also been an important producer of refined materials, such as steel. While Texas has made strides with industrialization, the countryside remains largely agricultural, with various crops being grown by the many farmers who inhabit the countryside.
Technological Level : Great War-era
Magic and other shenanigans? (If any exists) : none
Military DescriptionArmy:120,000 Standing Army
400,000 Including Reserves
115 Holt’s Tractors, modified into early tanks
Navy:15 battleships
20 cruisers
1 monitor
28 destroyers
12 torpedo boats
19 submarines
14 steel gunboats
26 auxilliaries
6 gunboats
(All WW1 era)
Air Force:Texas has been researching the development and deployment of airplanes for combat, though for now, Texas has no Air Force
National Goals : The goals of Texans for Texas vary based on political views and other factors, but overall goals that all Texans share is to insure the survival of the Republic, secure Texas’ defenses, and to become a shining beacon of democracy and freedom for the rest of the world to follow, both their old world and this mysterious new world that they find themselves in.
History : “Remember the Alamo!”
Texas first won its liberty after the defeat and capture of Mexican despot and general Santa Anna at the Battle of San Jacinto. In 1844, Anson Jones was elected President, and he began negotiations with the United States regarding annexation. Naturally, alarms rang in Mexico, which had up to this point considered Texas a rebellious province. Mexico sent a message to the Republic saying that Mexico would recognize the independence of Texas if they didn’t join the US. Texas would accept, which caught the United States off guard. Texas also gained widespread recognition afterwards, as many countries didn’t recognize Texas at first because they didn’t want to tarnish their relationship with Mexico, a problem which was all but eliminated with this agreement.
However, while the agreement benefited both sides, there were still disputes between Texas and Mexico, the biggest regarding the border. Texas still maintained its pre-recognition claims on the upper Rio Grande Valley, while Mexico maintained that the Nueces River was the boundary. However, in 1846, Mexico revised its constitution and held special elections. Ricardo Gutierrez Gomez was elected president, and he was willing to negotiate a compromise with Texas regarding the border. In early 1847, he invited Texan president at the time Anson Jones to Mexico City to negotiate, an invitation he accepted. After a 9 day negotiation period, an agreement was made. Texas would be granted new territory to form its current borders for a sum of 15 million dollars. As part of the agreement, Texas would relinquish its claim on the upper Rio Grande Valley and grant Mexicans living in the newly acquired land dual citizenship, while Mexico would would pull its troops out of the territory and hand over government owned property to Texas.
Some Mexicans within the government objected, and made a legal challenge against the Rio Grande Compromise, as it came to be named, and the case made it all the way to the Mexican Supreme Court, though they would rule to uphold the compromise, setting it in stone. Some Mexicans celebrated the ruling, others reviled it, and Texans and Mexicans living in the ceded territory who feared military reoccupation breathed a collective sigh of relief.
After the agreement, all was quite in North America, until 1849, when gold was discovered in Mexican California. Naturally, many were attracted to California, and nearly 300,000 would immigrate to the territory over the next year, primarily Americans. In reaction to the sudden spike in population, Mexico would carve two new territories out of the Alta California territory: California Territory, which consisted of main California and Baja California, and New Mexico Territory, which consisted of the rest of Alta California. Mexico, however, would prove to have not learned its lesson from how they mismanaged Texas, making those same mistakes that causes the Texan Revolution, restricting trade and immigration from the United States and increasing military presence. To further anger the Californians, when Mexican elections began in 1850, they were denied a voice, as they were a territory and not a state. And then, Ricardo Gutierrez Gomez would win re-election, though his opponent would coup the Mexican government soon after his defeat, as he had earned the support of the military. They had been against Ricardo Gutierrez Gomez largely because he reduced military spending by 40% during his tenure. After the coup, Californians feared that their already limited freedoms would be further limited, and massive protests overtook San Francisco and Los Angeles, as well as in other cities and towns in California Territory. The new government saw these protests as borderline treason, and ordered for extra troops to be sent to regain control of the territory. The people naturally objected, and many Californians rise up in arms and clashed with Mexican troops in the Territory, sparking the Californian Revolution.
Higher up Californians, such as Joshua Norton(yes,
that Joshua Norton), as well as average civilians, would gather in San Francisco regarding the future of California, and inevitably, the idea of independence was brought up, and it proved to be a popular one. After some debate, a Declaration of Independence would be unanimously approved, and would begin to be drafted. However, Mexican troops would land in the harbor and take the city, and the people in the meeting fled, until they reached a mining outpost town, which would eventually become Sacramento, the capitol of California. There, the declaration was drafted and signed, and the Republic of California would declare its independence from Mexico, “for the reasons of the abuse of, disregard for, and blatant limitation of the God given rights and lives of the people of California”(excerpt from the declaration).
The United States would quite quickly recognize the independence of California, which resulted in Mexico suspending diplomatic relations with America. The United States, largely in spite of Mexico, began to secretly supply the Californians with supplies, like food, weapons, and ammunition. However, it wouldn’t be long before this was discovered by Mexico, who were infuriated. Infuriated enough, in fact, to use the supply of weapons to and the recognition of California as casus belli against the United States, and Mexico would declare war. Texas, meanwhile, kept a close eye on the situation, which quite quickly deteriorated. Texas, while it empathized with California’s cause, having fought for a similar cause themselves merely 15 years before, knew that they wouldn’t survive long non a conflict against Mexico, at least on their own. So in an emergency proclamation, the President of the time, William Crawford, declared that Texas would remain neutral in the Californian Revolution/ Mexican American War that had broken out. While at the time the proclamation was controversial, later on the proclamation would be seen as the right thing for Texas to do at the time.
Eventually, with the Californian victories at the Battles of San Francisco and Los Angeles, and American advances through New Mexico Territory, the Yucatán Peninsula, and towards Mexico City, the Mexicans would sue for peace on October 4, 1851, after around 6 months of fighting. In the Treaty of Guadalupe that ended the conflict, California would be officially granted independence, as well as its claimed territories in mainland California and Baja California, New Mexico Territory would go to the United States, and Mexico would agree not to attack California or America until at least 1875. After the end of that, everything was largely silent in North America, until 1854. During this time, Texas would rewrite its constitution almost completely to more mirror the American constitution, and California would go through a period of political instability. The President of California, Cassius Burke, was a fierce Californian nationalist, and would fire many of his cabinet members who even suggested that California join the United States, a question that had hovered over the minds of Californians since the end of the Californian Revolution. Cassius would also harshly punish newspapers and other organizations who encouraged American annexation of California, which many people, to say the least, didn’t appreciate. Among these people were Joshua Norton, who had largely remained out of the public eye since the Revolution, and he, after some convincing, would agree to run for president against Burke. Eventually Norton would win the election, and upon taking office would begin negotiations with the United States regarding annexation. These negotiations would prove fruitful on February 16, 1855, when California was officially annexed into the United States and made a state.
However, tensions in the US, which had been quietly stirring since the Missouri Compromise of 1820, began to flare after the annexation, tensions which would lead to the American Civil War. With California’s entrance into the Union, and with other states being joining as well, the South was feeling more and more underrepresented. Insert Abraham Lincoln’s election victory in 1860, and the Southern states would begin seceding from the Union: South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Arkansas in this order would secede during President James Buchanan’s lame duck period. The recently elected Texan president, Grant Richfield, vehemently opposed the new Confederacy, calling it a “mass-hysteria fueled backwards anarchy that will inevitably fall to the might of the Union”. Obviously, the prospects of Texan-Confederate relations potentially being established went down the gutter quite quickly. While Richfield was against the Confederacy, public opinion on the CSA was split. Meanwhile, the American Civil War progressed on, with Fort Sumter being attacked, Tennessee, Virginia, and North Carolina joining the Confederacy, and the first major battles taking place. Texas was debating on whether or not to get involved, but then, tragedy struck. Sam Houston, the First President of Texas, would pass away in his home in the city of his namesake, Houston, where he would also be buried. A two-week mourning period was declared, as the Republic looked back on the life of the man who was largely responsible for the rise of the Republic in 1836.
Meanwhile, Confederate general Victor Hayes, who was stationed in Louisiana, began to make plans for a preemptive attack on Texas. The Confederacy was suffering the effects of the American blockade, and Texas, meanwhile, had been making more of a profit on their cotton as European countries turned to Texas for cotton supply. Economic competition with Texas, combined with President Richfield’s condemnation of the Confederacy contributed to General Hayes’ feelings of hatred towards Texas, which a few Confederate citizens shared with him. As such, on October 2nd, 1862, General Hayes led an artillery attack on a Texan base in Port Arthur
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#POD 3 (don't remove this!)