President of the United States

The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The role of the Executive Branch, of which the President is the head, is to enforce the national laws as stated in the Constitution or made by Congress. The office of president was established upon the ratification of the United States Constitution in 1788 and the first president, George Washington, took office in 1789.

The president serves as the chief executive and leader of the executive branch of the federal government. Article Two of the Constitution establishes the president as the commander-in-chief of the armed forces and enumerates powers specifically granted to the president, including the power to sign into law bills passed by both houses of Congress, to create a Cabinet of advisers, to grant pardons or reprieves, and, with the "advice and consent" of the Senate, to make treaties and appoint federal officers, ambassadors, and federal judges (including Justices of the Supreme Court). Article Two also defines a presidential term at four years.

In OTL, since 1951, presidents have been limited to two terms by the Twenty-second Amendment. There have been forty-four presidents, but only forty-three individuals have held the office; Grover Cleveland served two non-consecutive terms.

This article lists the known presidents found in the works of Harry Turtledove after the Point of Divergence. Many presidents who served before the POD of a given alternate history are mentioned in passing. Also stories set in OTL may reference past presidents, or even the sitting president.

The Guns of the South
With the Second American Revolution ending in 1864 with a Confederate victory, incumbent U.S. President Abraham Lincoln was defeated by Horatio Seymour, in a highly contested election.

Joe Steele
In 1932, California Congressman Joe Steele won the Presidency, and proceeded to establish a dictatorship as he served an unprecedented five terms. He died shortly after entering his sixth term. A power struggle saw his Vice President John Nance Garner's brief ascension to the presidency. However, Garner was impeached, convicted, and removed from office. As a series of circumstances had removed all legal successors to the presidency, J. Edgar Hoover, the head of the Government Bureau of Investigation, immediately seized emergency executive powers, and moved into the White House Oval Office. He maintained the title of "Director", rather than adopting the office of President.

"Must and Shall"
President Abraham Lincoln was killed by a Confederate sharpshooter at Fort Stevens in 1864, during the Great Rebellion. Vice President Hannibal Hamlin ascended to the Presidency, and began a policy of retribution against the rebelling Southern states.

Southern Victory
For most of the history of the United States between the end of the War of Secession and the end of the Great War, the presidency was held by a member of the Democratic Party. This came in response to Abraham Lincoln's status as a Republican. Aside from Republican James G. Blaine, who served from 1881 to 1885, every president from 1865 to 1921 was a Democrat.

After U.S. victory in the Great War, Upton Sinclair became the first Socialist Party president. From there on, the Socialists met success over the next generation, winning five of the six elections between 1920 and 1940, though usually by very narrow margins. Neither party dominated the political cycle the way the Democrats had in the 19th century, as each party was able to capitalize on the failures of the other.

Following the Second Great War, Democrats won the 1944 election, electing Thomas Dewey to Powel House and also taking control of the House of Representatives.

It had been the custom since George Washington that the a president was only elected to two consecutive terms. Theodore Roosevelt ran for an unprecedented third term in 1920, but was defeated, thus leaving the custom intact.

Calvin Coolidge holds the distinction of being the only person elected to the office never to serve. After winning the 1932 election, Coolidge died of a heart attack the following January, just under a month before he could take the oath of office.

Al Smith was killed by a Confederate bombing raid in 1942, the first and only time a president was killed during war time.

Officially the Presidential residence was the White House in Washington, DC. During the Second Mexican War, Washington was evacuated by the Federal government due to its location within range of Confederate heavy artillery. The government relocated to Philadelphia where the President set up residence and office space in the Powel House. After the war, the Federal government remained in Philadelphia due to Washington's continued insecure position, and though Washington remained the capital of the US de jure, for all practical purposes, Philadelphia became the permanent capital and Powel House the permanent executive mansion. The White House was periodically used by the President for certain formal functions, such as inauguration ceremonies and state funerals.

Literary Comment
In The Center Cannot Hold, Harry Turtledove specified Hosea Blackford as the 30th person to serve as president. Mathematically, this implies that two presidents did not complete their terms at some point between the presidencies of Lincoln and Roosevelt for this to be possible.

Turtledove has not identified all presidents between Lincoln and Roosevelt. Only Tilden, Blaine, Mahan, and Reed have been specifically identified as presidents in that time period (1865-1913). The exact terms of Mahan and Reed have not been revealed; circumstantial textual evidence supports Mahan serving from 1889-1897; some evidence supports Reed serving from 1897-1902, which would make him one of the two presidents to die in office.
 * 1=Presidents identified in the series canon, but their terms are not given.
 * 2=Calvin Coolidge was elected to be the 31st President, but died before taking office, so his entire term was served by his elected Vice President Hoover.

The Two Georges
The North American Union was created from the agreement over taxation and representation which was reached in the 1760s between Britain and her North American colonies. By the close of the 19th century, the Union had become the largest autonomous entity within the British Empire. Its highest office was the Governor-General, who was the representative of the British Monarch in the Union. Notable Governors-General oversaw the establishment of protected Red Indian nations within the Union, westward expansion of Union domains to the Pacific Ocean, the abolition of slavery and the establishment of racial equality, the defeat of Franco-Spanish and Russian conspiracies to harm the empire from without, and uprisings by racialist groups from within. The Governor-General's residence in Victoria was known as America's Number 10 after it's London model.

Literary comment
The North American Union is the timeline's functional equivalent of the United States and Canada combined into one entity, as the Governor-General is treated by the novel as the functional equivalent of the US President.

The exact powers of the Governor-General of the NAU aren't thoroughly defined. The King-Emperor of Britain appoints the G-G, but conversely, the G-G is aware of the opinions of the voting public. The G-G appears to exercise powers consistent with an OTL prime minister rather than an OTL governor-general.

Sir Martin Luther King is the incumbent GGNAU throughout the novel, which takes place entirely between June and August of 1995. George Washington is frequently referenced as a great GGNAU of the past. While it is not clear that Washington was the first GG, it is most likely the case that the authors intended him to be so. In one scene, a hallway in America's Number 10 displays portraits of GGNAUs past, including Jackson and Douglas (single-named but recognisable as historical figures) and Martin Roosevelt (who appears to be one off Harry Turtledove's signature "genetic analogs," combining elements of Theodore and Franklin). These five are the only GGNAU's mentioned in the novel, and no specific years are provided for their terms.

Worldwar
In the aftermath of the Race Invasion, the Presidency saw two critical interruptions. The first came in 1944 with the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt. Vice President Henry Wallace had been killed the year before, when the Race's explosive-metal bomb destroyed Seattle while Wallace was visiting. Then-Secretary of State Cordell Hull succeeded Roosevelt per the Presidential Succession Act of 1886. The second came in 1965 when President Earl Warren committed suicide after agreeing to allow the Race to destroy Indianapolis. This act was in response to Warren's secret attack on the Race's Colonization Fleet in 1962.

With Washington, DC destroyed by the Race in 1942, the capital was moved to Little Rock, Arkansas after the Peace of Cairo of 1944. The executive residence was the Gray House.

"Vilcabamba"
With the arrival of the Krolp and their military domination of the planet, the United States was reduced to a rump state, combined with a small part of Canada. The offices of President of the United States and Prime Minister of Canada were combined in one person. The office also appears became hereditary. The last duly elected president was Harris Moffatt I. His lineage continued to rule the rump U.S. until the presidency of his grandson Harris Moffatt III from the de facto capital of Grand Junction, Colorado. However, with the final defeat of the U.S. fifty years after the Krolp arrived, the presidency was abolished and Harris Moffatt III was forced into exile in the Krolp's North American capital of St. Louis, Missouri. Known Presidents:
 * Harris Moffatt I
 * Harris Moffatt II (killed by a renegade Krolp)
 * Harris Moffatt III

Other Presidents
In addition to the above, Harry Turtledove has written several stories in which the presidency plays a prominent role or, at a minimum, in which the incumbent president is referenced.

"Lee at the Alamo" is set from February to March, 1861, coinciding with the closing weeks of James Buchanan's presidency and the opening weeks of Abraham Lincoln's. Buchanan is referenced. Lincoln directly appears.

In addition to the above, Franklin D. Roosevelt is president in the Days of Infamy series, "News From the Front", and The War That Came Early. Days of Infamy ends before 1944, so it is unknown as to whether he would be re-elected in 1944 as in OTL, and nothing in the story points in either direction. In "News From the Front", the story ends with Congress preparing to impeach Roosevelt in 1942. He would have been succeeded by Vice President Henry Wallace, if convicted and removed from office. The War That Came Early is a six volume series covering the period from September, 1938 through Spring, 1944 (with a brief prologue in July, 1936). FDR is re-elected in 1940 as in OTL, but the series ends before the 1944 campaign is underway.

FDR is in his third term in "The House That George Built" (referenced) "Cayos in the Stream" (direct appearance), neither of which has a POD that would likely affect national politics.

Harry Truman is president in The Man With the Iron Heart, appearing directly throughout the book. Truman serves as a point of view in the series The Hot War; the first volume Bombs Away covers the period between November 23, 1950 through the beginning of June, 1951.

The story "Hindsight" takes place in June 1953, very early in Dwight Eisenhower's first term. He's referenced, but does not appear.

John F. Kennedy is president and the central character in "A Massachusetts Yankee in King Arthur's Court", a time-travel story set in OTL. He also probably served at the POD in The Gladiator, although he is not explicitly named. He is president in the previously unfinished work Winter of Our Discontent, initially co-written with Bryce Zabel, wherein Kennedy survives the attempt on his life, and is subsequently re-elected, but faces impeachment in 1966. Zabel completed the novel on his own and it was published under the title Surrounded by Enemies: What if Kennedy Survived Dallas? in July 2013. As Turtledove withdrew from the project while it was in progress, the final book is not in the purview of this Wiki.

There is an unnamed female president in the story "Elder Skelter". Through the course of the story, the president and her cabinet debate whether or not Quebec's attack on the Maritimes would be sufficient to trigger the emergency clause of the Twenty-Eighth Amendment.

The Supervolcano series takes place over a period of eight to ten years. References are made to a sitting president at various points in the series, but as Turtledove opted to set the series in an undefined near-future, the identity of the sitting president (or presidents) is never revealed. No election is ever depicted.

Historical Presidents in Non-Presidential Roles
Several historical Presidents have appeared in the works Harry Turtledove in a capacity other than as President.

Washington is posthumously referenced in The Disunited States of America, wherein the U.S. never adopted the Constitution and failed in the early 19th Century. Here Washington is remembered as a great general, but not as a political leader. It is not clear whether he held an office similar to President in the short-lived union.

John Quincy Adams is posthumously described in The Disunited States of America as having been the Consul of the independent nation-state of Massachusetts, which is significantly larger than the OTL state, but probably does not expand beyond New England.

Andrew Johnson is reduced to resentfully staring at Hannibal Hamlin's inauguration in "Must and Shall," and it is never suggested that he became President himself in that story. Johnson is also the "Radical Republican" (a breakaway ticket) VP candidate in 1864 in The Guns of the South. He loses the election, and the novel ends before the next election.

Ulysses S. Grant appears in The Guns of the South as the General-in-Chief of the Army in and How Few Remain as a retired failure. Later volumes of Southern Victory confirm that he never became President.

Rutherford B. Hayes is referenced in The Guns of the South. Due to the interference of time-traveling terrorists, he is killed by an AK-47 in 1864, before he could run for President.

James A. Garfield appears as a politician in How Few Remain. There is nothing to suggest in the rest of the Southern Victory series that he ever became President.

Benjamin Harrison is Secretary of War in How Few Remain. Nothing in the remainder of the Southern Victory series suggests that he ever became President.

William Howard Taft appears as a congressman in The Great War series, but never became President in Southern Victory.

Woodrow Wilson is President of the Confederate States in The Great War: American Front.

Franklin D. Roosevelt seeks the Presidency in in Joe Steele (both the novel and the short story) but is murdered before he can win the Democratic nomination. He also features prominently in the Southern Victory series as both Secretary of War and Assistant Secretary of War for the United States, but never gains (or even seeks) the presidency.

Harry Truman appears in In at the Death and becomes the Vice President in 1944 at the end of the Southern Victory series, but not President.

Dwight D. Eisenhower is depicted in his OTL capacity as a general in Joe Steele (both the novel and the short story), The Man With the Iron Heart, and Worldwar, but he isn't depicted as President.

John F. Kennedy appears in The Two Georges as a tabloid magazine publisher, but there is no indication that he ever sought to become Governor-General.

Richard Nixon appears in Second Contact (as a Congressman), The Two Georges (as a used steam-car salesman), The Grapple (as a soldier), and Joe Steele (as an Assistant Attorney General). It is nowhere suggested that he became President in any of these timelines.

Jimmy Carter appears briefly in Drive to the East, as a Confederate Navy sailor during the Second Great War in 1942. His one scene ends with him being killed in action.

Ronald Reagan appears in The Man With the Iron Heart in 1947 in his OTL career as an actor. In The Victorious Opposition, "Dutch" Reagan "appears" over the radio as a football announcer.