 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
The Confederate States presidential election of 1933 was the thirteenth sextennial presidential election, taking place on November 1, 1933. It was a landmark event in Confederate States history, as Jake Featherston and his Freedom Party came to power.
Nominations[]
The Whig Party nominated Virginia senator Samuel Longstreet as its candidate, with Hugo Black as his running mate. The Freedom Party, holding its convention in Nashville, Tennessee, nominated its leader Jake Featherston; unlike 1921 and 1927, his running mate this time was not Ferdinand Koenig, but Willy Knight of Texas, who had been leader of the Redemption League before it merged with the Freedom Party. The Radical Liberal Party nominated Cordell Hull of Tennessee and Huey Long of Louisiana as his running mate.
The Fall Campaign[]
As in 1921 the run-up to the November election was marked by violence. Freedom Party Stalwarts formed assault squads and dominated the rallies of their opponents. At a Whig rally held in Birmingham, Alabama, just before the election, stalwarts drove Whig vice presidential candidate Black off his stage and savaged his audience, the Birmingham police waiting idly by doing nothing to prevent the attack.
The Issues[]
The Depression was the overriding issue of the day in 1933 (as well as every election held since 1929 when the stock markets crashed the world over). President Burton Mitchel and the Whig Party took the blame for the economic disaster. The fact that the Whig leadership ran on a platform of "the problem will solve itself" did nothing to help its chances in November; indeed it actually hurt them worse, as the Freedom Party took advantage of their lack of change. The Freedom Party promised to put the economy back on its feet, dam the rivers to prevent a repeat of the Great Flood of 1927, and rearm and get its lands back from the USA.
Results[]
Election Day was Tuesday, November 7, 1933. Featherston and Freedom won massively this time around, capturing Alabama, Mississippi, North Carolina, and Tennessee, among other states; Longstreet took Arkansas, but never gained anything close to what Featherston had. The only state the Radical Liberals did well in was Louisiana, where Huey Long had built a massive political machine of his own; in the next four years Long would rule Louisiana as Featherston would rule the rest of the Confederacy.
Freedom gained a large minority in the Confederate Congress and a small majority in the Senate, the members of which were chosen by state legislatures, which in turn were being captured by the Freedom Party. They wouldn't get an overwhelming majority until the (rigged) midterm elections of 1935, but for the first time in Confederate history the Whigs were no longer in control. When Featherston entered the Gray House in 1934, he would use his party's control of Congress to pass laws that would ultimately change the face of the CSA beyond what could be foreseen in 1933.
References[]
| |||||