American Consulate--Alternate History

my main inspiration are the Roman Consuls. I'm trying to imagine how they would function given the demands of a modern state with modern bureaucracy, since a cabinet responsible to a parliament or to a president differs so much from the system of elected tiers of magistrates in the Roman Republic.

contemporary examples such as the plural presidency of Switzerland and the Captains Regent of San Marco and the alternate prime minister of Israel have provided some options as well, with the presidency and the prime ministers incentivized to cooperate because if their coalition falls apart they will lose their office, while the Captains Regent hold mostly ceremonial power with the prime minister being head of government.

In contrast the Directorate and Committee of Public Safety in France operated by voting among themselves.

as for my project itself, I'm currently designing a world where George Washington dies shortly before or during his term as president Adams becomes an unpopular Acting President, and a third constitutional convention is held during which power is redistributed to empower the legislature over the presidency.

specifically, either a now unicameral Congress or a joint session of it's Houses now choose and can withdraw confidence from two co-equal Consuls, who nominate an equal number of cabinet secretaries.

initially the scheme for electing Consuls follows the same mechanism as the electoral college prior to the twelth amendment, with the two candidates getting the most votes becoming Consuls. rather then just making it so that a electors can't give both it's sets of votes to candidates from their same state, there is an added rule that Consuls cannot be elected from the same state. an effort is made so that consuls must come from different states after each election after it becomes clear that Virginia and New York are dominating the Consulate elections, but this amendment fails.

measures to limit the Consuls to a single term of office, to two terms of office, or to non consecutive terms of office are an ongoing political battle.

the changes result in Jefferson and Burr being elected Consuls with Jefferson using a coalition with Hamilton to vote down Burr's appointees. Buur resigns, forcing a new election of both Consuls, and this time Jefferson is re-elected with Hamilton as Co-Consul. Burr is engaged and challenges Hamilton to a duel, but Jefferson shows up as Hamilton's second, feeling honor bound to defend his Consular colleague. Hamilton is shot non-fatally and then Jefferson kills Burr while the later attempts to re-load. while Hamilton remains recuperating, Jefferson

during this time Jefferson attempts to purchase the Louisiana territory, offering to support Hamilton's national bank in exchange. the Federalists refuse to go along with the measure while Hamilton is recuperating and then the Southern states rebel when it is suggested that part of Louisiana might be made into a state to be governed by indigenous populations, as they fear this will result in the West becoming a land of runaway slaves. the opportunity passes and Louisiana is returned to the Bourbons, to which Louis XVIII banishes Phillip Egalite to act as Governor in his eponymous city, New Orleans. ironically this will preserve the Orleans name from the worst associations of the Restoration, and when Charles X is run out of Paris during the July days it will be Louis Phillip of Orleans, Governor of Louisiana, who is called to the throne. when he himself is overthrown in 1848, it is as the newly created Archduke of Bourbon America that he returns to exile, as he has remained popular in his American colonies, as the French Bourbons were able to win the loyalty of the ex slaves in San Domingue by counter signing the orders of Napoleon who had attempted to sell Louisiana to finance a campaign against Haiti to reimpose slavery.

in this way the French monarchy keeps a beachhead in the Americas, and while many of their island holdings declare independence the royal house Bourbon commands much respect among the descendants of free slaves and First Nations. in New Orleans the Duke incorporates the leadership of First Nation elected and hereditary chiefs in his House of Peers.

when the civil war comes, part of it is an attempt by the Confederacy and later the expansionist in the Union to annex Louisiana, Cuba, Texas, Central America and British Columbia.

Consuls rotate monthly, taking turns presiding over the Congress and presiding over the Cabinet. either Consul may veto a law (subject to override by two thirds majority of a referendum by the state legislators, later changes to plebiscite). either may veto the executive orders of the others, including blocking the dismissal of a secretary or appointment of a replacement. to resolve gridlock within the Consulate, a practice of voting within the cabinet to determine executive policy is usually informally observed, and a law is passed enabling the cabinet to over-rule the orders of a consul is passed and then struck down by the supreme Court. a similar measure, along with the power of the Congress to unilaterally appoint secretaries and nomines to the supreme Court, is later reintroduced during the civil war following the incapacitation of Lincoln and death of Seward, leaving President of the Senate Andrew Johnson the soul Acting Consul for several months, until he is replaced by Grant and Butler, who are happy to let the Radicals in Congress run the show.

the dual consulate alters the formation of the parties and coalition politics. for a generation the consuls are elected one from the Radical and one from the Liberal wing of the Republicans, until the betrayal of 1888 when the Liberals enter into a coalition with the Conservative Consul Grover Cleveland.

following the civil war single term Consuls are the norm, though non consecutive terms are permitted. Cleveland resigns his second term during the 1890s so his vice Chair of the Conservative Party, Adail Stevenson who represents the Silver Conservatives, a bloc which includes the remnants of the Democratic party (illegal in the former Confederacy).

within the Republican coalition, a divide emerges between the soft Reconstructionist liberals, who favor redistributing Southern property to the federal government and from there auctioning it off to Northern elites and the Radicals who favor redistributing property to the freemen, Union soldiers, and working class whites. to fuel this redistribution many liberals favor expanding the revolution by waring against Bourbon Louisiana and the Plain Indians as well as expanding into the Caribbean, recognizing and incorporating Freemen Republics like Haiti into American capitalism.

an offshoot of the Radicals are the Socialists, who break off into three camps: the Confesionalists, who are popular among ex slaves in the south and Utopian agricultural communities in the North, who combine religious collectivism from Christianity with the mystical movements of Spiritualism and Indian and African diaspora influences; the Materialists, or Marxists, who are popular among German emigres who include a number of civil war generals and organized labor, and Sovereignists, an anti colonial movement favored by the First Nations, including the Hotonoshone, who governor much of interior England, being traditional supporters of the Anti-Jacksonian Federalists, Whigs, Orleanists, and the Bourbon Liberals, who favor business friendly relations with Louisiana and are popular among the descendants of Africans freed earlier than the civil war who own businesses or are trained as professionals. (the first Black Consul elected is a Bourbon Radicals, a faction which favors strong Federal enforcement of civil rights and property rights in the South.)

Teddy Roosevelt breaks the coalition between the Liberals and Conservatives by being elected as a Radical Consul, threatening to use his bloc to elect William Jennings Bryan of the Confesionalists or even Eugene Debs of the Marxists as his Consular colleague, but this is a bluff. Instead joined by Radical-leaning Liberal Henry Cabot Lodge (party affiliation even by this period is still somewhat fluid because someone who is a Liberal at the state level may well have more in common with the Radicals at the federal level.

the Radicals are the farthest Left faction to support entry into World War 1.