Turtledove
Advertisement
Confederate States presidential election, 1921
Confederate States
1915 ←
November 8, 1921
Election 1921

Electoral Map

→ 1927

 
Nominee Wade Hampton V Jake Featherston Ainsworth Layne
Party Whig Party Freedom Party Radical Liberal Party
Home state South Carolina Virginia Unknown
Running mate . Burton Mitchel Ferdinand Koenig Unknown

President before election

Gabriel Semmes
Whig Party

Elected President

Wade Hampton V
Whig Party

The Confederate States presidential election of 1921 was the eleventh sextennial presidential election, taking place on November 8, 1921. It was the first presidential election in the CSA contested by the Freedom Party; the campaign that autumn was held with unprecedented ferocity as the Freedom Party, using the issues of hyper-inflation and a dictated peace from the USA, attempted to gain the presidency for its leader Jake Featherston.

Nominations[]

The Whig Party nominated Wade Hampton V of South Carolina as its candidate, and Burton Mitchel of Arkansas as his running mate. The Radical Liberal Party nominated Ainsworth Layne. The Freedom Party, in a secured convention in New Orleans, nominated Jake Featherston and party secretary Ferdinand Koenig, both from Virginia.

The Fall Campaign[]

The Issues[]

Hyperinflation and the peace with the USA dominated the issues of the campaign. The Whigs campaigned on what they had been doing all along, which was to maintain the status quo until better times came. The Radical Liberals sought to loosen barriers and tensions and ease relations with the United States, so that prosperity could come that way. The Freedom Party, on the other hand, stood for rearmament, gaining its lost states back, and restoring the Confederacy to its pre-Great War status.

The fall campaign was marked by violence. Freedom Party Stalwarts brawled with Whigs and Radical Liberals on the streets and at rallies and meeting halls. In October, at a Radical Liberal rally in Charleston, South Carolina, a Freedom Party assault squad led by local party leader Roger Kimball attacked Layne's audience and almost killed Layne himself.

Results[]

Election Day was Tuesday, November 8, 1921. Layne was knocked out not long after results started coming in, only capturing Cuba, Sonora and Chihuahua; the real battle was between the Whigs and the Freedomites. Hampton ultimately won the election with South Carolina, Virginia, Mississippi, Alabama, and Arkansas but Freedom did exceptionally well for its first presidential election; Featherston won Florida, Tennessee, North Carolina and Texas. The fact that he did so well for his first try frightened many moderate Confederates used to seeing the Whigs safely defeating the Radical Liberals every six years. To some, 1927 threatened to be an even tighter match, though the assassination of Hampton the following June, the ending of reparations and better relations with the USA, all hurt the Freedom Party's chances for most of the remaining decade.

Advertisement