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    3. What were the main issues in US politics from it's founding to when slavery became an important issue/the Civil War and what were the 2 parties of then about?

      ~humanities.history Ask
      Admittedly that's 90 years of history but I've always wondered about what was the politics of the US back then, because I've never really known about them. The parts I'm most interested in are:...

      Admittedly that's 90 years of history but I've always wondered about what was the politics of the US back then, because I've never really known about them.

      The parts I'm most interested in are:

      Why did it take until 1832 for the state legislatures to reach a consensus on how to elect people to the electoral college? I know states' rights are a big theme in US politics, but it seems really strange that it would take them 55 years to figure out how to pick the president, even if early on, that role was a lot less powerful.

      Why were there so many parties before the US settled on the Democratic and Republican parties (although they have changed plentifully thanks to the US's 2-party political system where everyone needs to bundle up into 2 large coalitions or risk turning the US into a 1-party state.)

      Why did they switch so often? From my count there are:

      4 main parties being:

      The Democratic-Republicans vs the federalists

      The Whigs and National Republicans vs the (Jacksonian) Democrats

      3 3rd parties being:

      The anti-masonic party

      The know nothing party/cult according to wiki apparently

      The free soil/anti-slavery party

      (Also in 1820 there was effectively no election, in 1824, 4 people of the same party all ran for president at once, in 1836 the same thing happened and 4 Whigs ran at once, but with Democratic opposition and 3 actually won votes while one just coasted off south Carolina. Why?)

      Why were there so many large parties and what were all these parties about?

      5 votes

    5. What do you think of alternate history?

      ~humanities.history Ask (survey)
      I tend to watch AlternateHistoryHub, WhatIfAlthist and occasionally Monsieur Z (but less so since the guy somehow got a far-right audience) so I've always been interested in the idea of alternate...

      I tend to watch AlternateHistoryHub, WhatIfAlthist and occasionally Monsieur Z (but less so since the guy somehow got a far-right audience) so I've always been interested in the idea of alternate history.

      However, there's more than that. There are books and writers (I.E Harry turtledove), 3 subreddits (r/historywhatif, r/historicalwhatif and r/alternatehistory), many games (HOI I, II, III and IV, civ 1-6, Vicky 1-3, etc), a forum and according to Wikipedia, people have been speculating about history since before the year 0.

      So what do you think of it?

      7 votes