The Qing Dynasty is about to end

Chapter 680 This is so American!
1859 October.

The summer evening in Washington was stiflingly hot. The back of President Buchanan's shirt was soaked through, and sweat was dripping down his temples onto the letter that had been delivered from Sacramento by horse and then train at the fastest speed.

The news in the letter was so terrible that President Buchanan could hardly believe its authenticity.

"Mr. President!" Secretary of State Lewis Cass almost broke down the door of his office. The nearly 70-year-old politician was panting, with beads of sweat hanging on his graying temples. "California. A general strike has broken out across California! The Irish Workers' Party and the Chinese Labor Association have joined forces to paralyze the railways, docks, and mines!"

It turns out that the U.S. State Department also received an express letter sent by the California Secretary of State!
Secretary of the Army John B. Floyd followed closely behind, his boots clacking heavily on the floor. He threw the express letter he had just received from the California Union Army on the president's desk: "The damn mob in the streets of Sacramento shouted to establish a 'California Workers' State'! This is a blatant trampling on the sanctity of private property!"

Buchanan's fingers trembled unconsciously. He thought of the tragic scenes of the Civil War in Kansas, the burned plantations, and the abolitionists hanged on the roadside. Is this scene going to happen again in California? No, the situation in California seems to be even worse!

After all, the question of whether one person can become the private property of another is debatable. California did not have slavery, and if a so-called workers' state were to be established in California, it would be a complete destruction of the cornerstone of the American nation - the principle that private property is sacred and inviolable!
"Convene an emergency cabinet meeting immediately!" Buchanan loosened his bow tie and took a deep breath of the hot air. "Notify the Vice President, the Secretary of the Navy, and the bipartisan leaders of the Senate and the House of Representatives. Everyone must gather in the West Wing Conference Room of the White House within two hours!"

The West Wing of the White House was already brightly lit when Vice President John C. Breckinridge and Secretary of the Navy Isaac Tosi hurriedly arrived.

Navy Minister Tosi took out his pocket watch and checked the time. It was already 8:30 in the evening. Then he closed the pocket watch that had accompanied his grandfather in the American Revolutionary War. He felt very heavy-hearted!
It's only been three generations, how did the United States become like this? Some people actually imitated the Europeans and established a workers' state. These are no longer ordinary rebels, they must be struck hard!

"According to Section 7 of the Anti-Insurgency Act."

Before the Navy Secretary suggested a heavy blow, Army Secretary Floyd was already waving an urgent report from the Army Department and shouting, "I suggest that the 5th and 7th Infantry Regiments be immediately dispatched to the West Coast, and the Navy please send the Pacific Fleet to blockade San Francisco Bay."

Before he finished speaking, leaders from both the Senate and the House of Representatives had already pushed open the door. Democratic Senator Stephen Douglas waved a telegram: "The Senate Armed Services Committee has agreed to an emergency appropriation of at least two million dollars!"

"Republicans support sending troops to suppress the rebellion," said Congressman Thurlow Weed, who rarely stood on the same front as his political opponents, "but in addition, we also demand that the fleet be authorized to seize any ship flying the Taiping flag that sails to the west coast of the United States!"

Looking at the rare bipartisan consensus before him, Buchanan suddenly realized that he might really become the first wartime president in American history to suppress a workers' revolution.

the next day.

On Capitol Hill, in the House of Representatives chamber, Speaker William Pennington counted the number of people and thought that most of the members had arrived. He was about to strike the gavel, when California Democratic Congressman William Gwynn stumbled in. The slavery leader's wig was askew, and the express mail in his hand rustled:

"Latest news! Governor Weller announced that the so-called revolution was a rebellion instigated by the Chinese! There is no such thing as a California workers' state. Everything is a conspiracy by the Chinese. Governor Weller has announced that the Chinese in California have committed the crime of rebellion."

The venue exploded instantly!

Although the United States has passed the Chinese Exclusion Act, it does not grant state governments the power to confiscate Chinese assets at will - confiscating Chinese assets involves the issue of infringing private property! Moreover, Chinese assets are mainly concentrated in California, and the benefits of confiscation also belong to the California dignitaries.

You California elites are eating up the Chinese people's property, and making the masters in other states of the United States risk having their private property confiscated. This is so un-American!
America practices case law!
Therefore, the government must not set a precedent by confiscating private property without a court ruling! Even if it is a "special case", it is not allowed!

Patrick O'Sullivan, an Irish Republican congressman from California and an ally of Senator O'Connor, stood up with a sneer and said, "So if we want to confiscate the property of the Chinese now, we need to first label them as rebels?" He deliberately raised his voice so that it echoed throughout the hall. "Gentlemen, today it could be the Chinese, but tomorrow it could be the Jews? What about the day after tomorrow?"

The seats where the southern congressmen gathered suddenly fell into silence. Preston Brooks of South Carolina, the extremist who had knocked out an abolitionist congressman with a cane in the Senate, turned pale. He thought of the black slaves worth $100,000 on his Charleston plantation. If the property of the Chinese was confiscated with a random label, what about the black slaves on the southern plantations? Isn't "abolition" more noble than confiscating the property of the Chinese?

So it’s best not to open the door to confiscation of property! “Under Article 5 of the Constitution,” O’Sullivan held up the U.S. Constitution, “no person shall be deprived of his property without due process of law!”

"That's right, although we advocate anti-Chinese sentiment, Chinese people are still human beings!"

"Yes, Chinese are also human beings, and Article 5 of the Constitution applies to them as well!"

At this time, the Chinese are human again!

At this time, Republican Speaker William Pennington also felt that California Democratic Governor Weller had gone too far. If you California wealthy families want to steal Chinese gold coins, you can use judicial persecution to do it one by one, but how can you declare all Chinese to be rebels? If you can do that, then when a Republican becomes president, can he declare that all black slaves in the southern slave states of the United States are rebels and should be arrested and sent back to Africa?

At the same time in the White House, Buchanan stared at the latest urgent telegram with a frown on his face. Vice President Breckenridge said softly, "Mr. President, this precedent cannot be set. If the government can arbitrarily declare a group of people in rebellion to confiscate property, the southern states will bear the brunt."

The vice president himself is a southern slave owner! If the Yankees were elected president and wanted to confiscate his slaves, he would also rebel!
Secretary of the Army Floyd also echoed: "The vice president is right. Even if the government wants to set this precedent, Congress will not be able to pass emergency funding. Even if the Chinese in California really launched a rebellion, in the eyes of the southern states, it was a rebellion caused by California's anti-Chinese sentiment, and the purpose of California's anti-Chinese sentiment was to seize Chinese property."

Navy Secretary Tosi also nodded and said, "Yes, in the eyes of the southern states, rebellion to protect their private property is justifiable. This is completely different from a revolution that tramples on the sanctity and inviolability of private property."

"But Weller has already declared the Chinese in California a rebellion. How should the federal government respond?"

The US president is really in a dilemma now! On one side are the Southern Democrats who are always on the alert for others to confiscate their black slaves, and on the other side are the California Democrats who want to confiscate Chinese property every day. The Democratic Party is going to have an internal conflict!
"Wait!" Vice President Breckenridge said, "There is no reason for the federal government to spend money and send troops if the big shots in California want to get the money of the Chinese in California, right? This is their internal affairs in California."

"But," Navy Secretary Tosi reminded quietly, "Chinese people in California do not have American citizenship."

"So what?" The President of the United States looked at the Secretary of the Navy who was hesitant to speak.

"They are all citizens of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom!" said the Navy Minister. "Will the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom send troops to protect the overseas Chinese?"

The summer capital of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, Mount Lu.

Luo Yaoguo's fingers moved slowly on the drawings of the "Glory" class ironclad ship. The set of "Glory" class drawings that Rinko got for him couldn't be more real!

However, having the blueprints does not mean that it can be built, otherwise the "Glory" class would not have been delayed until now without the keel being officially laid.

"Mr. Besmer said that it will take another two months to debug the two latest 1858-type rolling mills of Armstrong," Xu Shou, general manager of Jiangnan Arsenal, reported the progress of the project in a low voice. "Trial production can begin in November, and the monthly output of armored steel plates is expected to reach 2 tons. As for the power of the ship, Mr. Brown, chief engineer of Jiangnan Arsenal, suggested the use of horizontal reciprocating steam engines and John Brown's 11-type boilers. The total design power is 80 horsepower and the speed is 1857 knots."

Wang Yan, the Minister of the Navy, took over the topic and said, "The Armstrong 70mm breech-loading gun imitated by the gun factory of the Jiangnan Arsenal in Shanghai has a measured firing rate of two rounds per minute! In addition, the 90mm rifling lathe used to produce 90mm caliber breech-loading guns has been shipped from the UK. If the first ship of the imitation "Glory" class is scheduled to be delivered in the eleventh year of the Tianli calendar, the Navy recommends using 30 90mm breech-loading guns as the main guns. If the teacher wants the first ship of the imitation "Glory" class to be delivered in the tenth year of the Tianli calendar, then only 36 70mm breech-loading guns can be used, and the firepower is slightly weak."

At this moment, Maria, the host of the Tianjing God Worshipping Temple and the deputy leader of the True Covenant Sect, suddenly walked into Luo Yaoguo's large office at the Lushan Headquarters with a telegram in her hand: "Your Highness, urgent telegram from Shanghai! It's news from the True Covenant Sect in North America!"

"What?" Luo Yaoguo was also stunned. He quickly took the telegram copy handed over by Maria, looked at it for a few seconds, and his face changed. After a pause, he turned back to Xu Shou and Wang Yan and said, "Imitate the No. 1 ship of Glory and use 36 70mm breech-loading guns! The construction period is compressed to 14 months, and it must be delivered before the end of the tenth year of Tianli!"

(End of this chapter)