Welcome to the second article in the series. It’s been a long time coming, but good things are worth waiting for. The first thing I am going to introduce the acronyms OTL (our timeline) and ATL (alternate timeline). These two acronyms will make it a little more expedient to distinguish between our timeline and the alternate timeline.



During Lee’s administration the 15th Amendment ATL was passed (modified OTL 14th Amendment). It is at the bottom of the article if you want to read it.



When we left off lat time Mexico was entering the Union. Events like that don’t just happen so we should touch on that event in more detail.



Seeing the writing on the wall, Britain and Spain pulled their forces out when they heard what Maximilian had done. Only the French had kept their forces in the country during the fighting. However, Maximilian’s invasion of U.S. had left the French government was simply dumbfounded, unable to decide on what to do. Yes, the forces were there to support Maximilian, but they were there to make sure debts were paid, not to clean up his mistakes. Juan Ruiz de Álvarez was immensely grateful for American help in overthrowing Maximilian, and was afraid of French retaliation. The French forces had largely stayed out of the way because



In the first month after victory Juan Ruiz de Álvarez and his forces set up a new provisional government in Mexico City. The Conservatives and Military under Maximilian were either dead or imprisoned. This left Juan Álvarez without any competition for power and left him as the most powerful and popular man in Mexico. Thus all Mexican states gave at least nominal support to the provisional government.



The one factor that really gave him worry was the uncertainty of the French government. French military forces still sat on Mexican territory and could be mobilized at any time.



Juan Álvarez saw their only hope lying in the Americans once again. President Lee strongly supported the new government and the U.S. had at least polite diplomatic relations with the French. The problem was that President Lee wanted to withdraw most of the U.S. forces because he felt uncomfortable having such a large standing army in peace time. Juan saw only one option, annexation.



The provisional government was parliamentary, which gave a balance between central control for stability issues and democratic function. Lee reluctantly supported annexation and promised to lend his name to it when it came before congress. In turn, the provisional government wrote constitutions for the Mexican states in assembly line fashion. Mexican land owners, the powerful class in Mexico, agreed to this when they heard that Lee would support annexation.



With a severe want of change and manifest destiny fever passing through Capitol Hill, Congress loved the idea. And with Lee’s absentee support (he was still in Mexico) it past with a majority through both Houses and Lee’s signing off the bill was sent back by courier. With a little U.S. diplomatic goading the French withdrew their forces in resignation.



The majority of U.S. forces were sent back East ahead of Lee and a small entourage who has stayed behind to tour frontier towns. While camping out in Arizona Chief Cochise, of the Chiricahua band of Apache, captured Lee while he was off guard. Here is a description of Chief Cochise:



“In his day, Cochise embodied the essence of Apache warfare. But he was more than just a warrior–much more. He was an Indian who so loved his family, his people and the mountains in which he was reared that he would fight fiercely to protect and preserve all that was Apache. There can be no question that he was capable of unspeakable cruelties and violent acts of revenge upon innocent whites. The fact that Cochise was terribly wronged and misunderstood and forced to witness the disappearance of his homeland and his people perhaps cannot, in the view of history, justify everything that he did. Still he represents, probably as well as any single figure, a people’s natural resistance to the invasion of their land.



The warrior known as Cochise will enjoy forever a giant place in the history of the American Southwest. In consistently heroic fashion, he occupied his place at the head of his threatened people through the violent years. His physical skills were so extraordinary that those skills alone would have conducted him to the head of his Chokonen band. One American frontiersman who knew him well insisted that Cochise ‘never met his equal with a lance’; another frontiersman claimed that no Apache “can draw an arrow to the head and send it farther with more ease than him.” And we have many eyewitness accounts to testify to Cochise’s prowess as a horseman. During one furious encounter on horseback, an American scout tried over and over again to dispatch Cochise, but his efforts were all in vain, for the Indian ‘would slip over to the side of his horse, hanging on the horse’s neck.’



Yet it was more than his strength and physical skills that inspired the warriors of Cochise. The Chiricahua chief had often expressed his great regard for those who displayed two attributes: courage and devotion to the truth. Nobody exhibited both more persistently and dramatically than did Cochise himself. His courage in skirmishes and battles is now legendary. He always led his men into combat and was frequently the central figure throughout the fight. One American officer reported that ‘many efforts were made to kill Cochise who [led] his mounted warriors’ in several charges.



Always during an engagement, no matter how chaotic and confused, Cochise managed complete control of his men. ‘A private soldier would as soon think of disobeying a direct order of the President as would a Chiricahua Apache a command of Cochise,’ one observer declared.



The warrior-chief also respected and much admired bravery when it appeared in his enemies. One reason that his friendship with General Howard and Lieutenant Sladen developed so quickly and so firmly was that they had the “courage to visit him when to do so [might] have caused their death.”

And Cochise scorned a liar. He held to a simple philosophy about the truth: ‘A man has only one mouth and if he won’t tell the truth he [should be] put out of the way.’ He clearly had a great instinct for the truth and a keen capacity for distinguishing deceit and falsehood. All Americans, with but a few notable exceptions, he distrusted out of both instinct and experience. This distrust of Americans prevented him from revealing much of his career to inquisitive whites. He remained honest to his creed as he steadfastly refused to discuss the past. If pressured, he would simply say, ‘I don’t want to talk about that.’ “



For more information look here:

http://americanhistory.about.com/library/prm/blcochise1.htm



Cochise’s first response was to vent his rage on Lee. He unloaded bellowing insults while waving a knife in his face. As the hours passed Cochise calmed enough to see the understanding on Lee’s face. Lee began sharing what had happened during the War of the States (ATL) and what had recently happened in Mexico. Both shared memories and finally both men cried.



Public worry has risen as Lee was several days late to his scheduled destination in another frontier town. It was there that Lee made a landmark speech on the conflict with Native Americans. In it he stated the obvious; that they were equals and that any further trampling of their homelands would stop. From there he headed straight for D.C. and called an emergency session of Congress. There he presented a bill he had drafted call the Indian Rights and Land Act, which asserted Native Americans as U.S. citizens under the 15th Amendment (altered version of 14th Amendment OTL), granted them ownership of all remaining lands that all tribes in the U.S. occupied (accounting for their nomadic lifestyle), and recognized them as large townships separated by tribal bands. The States could lease land from the tribes and then sub-lease it to settlers. The bill also created a “pot” into which all the States could willingly put in money for common use in paying for leases. Land ownership could only be transferred with the agreement of an entire tribe.



Controversy broke out across the U.S. over the bill. Settlers and frontiersmen blasted Lee for not protecting their interests. Southern Dixiecrats, unwillingly to entirely give up old prejudices, gave some armchair criticism. Various State and Territory Governors didn’t like it at all. Lee responded simply, “They were here before we could ever conceive of this land mass and now we shed their blood claiming we have some right to it.” That tended to silence mouths pretty quickly. And support for the bill wasn’t small either. Many Northern businessmen, former leaders of the abolition movement, prominent Black Congressmen, famous former slaves, and several of the Southern Gulf States (Mexico OTL) lent their support to the bill.



Chiefs like Red Cloud and Cochise were asked to speak before Congress as they initiated hearings on the matter. Their testimonies were published in virtually every paper that had room. And it was their testimonies that shifted the balance and allowed for narrow passage of the bill.



All of this happened over a rather quick period of nine months. Lee would go on to see the Native American tribes vote in state elections, the industrialization of the Southern Gulf States, and a dizzying array of private efforts to end poverty and break corruption in Eastern cities.



While America was a frothing sea of change, Europe was not far away from its own change…





ATL 15th Amendment:



Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. Any person who is subject to any law which abridges the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States, or are deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law may bring suit in the Federal Courts for reversal of any abridgements or deprivation of life, liberty, or property and for restitution of those deprivations. All persons which are citizens of the United States may also bring suit in the Federal Courts for the reversal of any denial of equal protection of the laws within any State or any subject to the jurisdiction of the United States.



Section 2. Representatives shall be apportioned among the several states according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each state. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the executive and judicial officers of a state, or the members of the legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such state, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such state.



Section 3. No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any state, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any state legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any state, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.