Well before Beck even arrived in Franklin, there was heated discussion in the press and in private political meetings that the constitution needed to be amended to prevent the sort of poitical mess the country found itself in. Not since 1797 had a president taken the oath of office with a duly elected vice president that wasn’t of the same party. A myriad of different proposals floated around in those early days as possible fixes. Some suggested a simple abolishment of the Vice Presidency, saying that it was a “vestigal organ” of a bygone era. The pushback on idea came from all the parties, though was loudly championed by a representative from Jefferson, a Democrat by the name of Milton Cargill. Another suggestion to get a lot of discussion was the proposal by James Fraser, the senator from the District of Washington, whereby the Electoral College would be given 50 extra “at-will” delegates who would be free to vote for whomever they chose, with the hope that those extra votes could prevent future deadlocked elections. While popular with some Federalists and big-city Democrats, Republicans and western Democrats pushed back hard on this idea. Senator Albert Moore of Connecticut proposed that, in the event of future contingent elections, Congress should meet in a special joint session, and vote for a full ticket, president and vice president together. Additionally, each representative and senator would vote on their own, not as part of a state delegation. More fringe ideas that gained some limited traction included abolishing the Electoral College and using just the national popular vote, or the creation of a national run-off election, but these ideas didn’t get more than a few days discussion in the press, with few taking them seriously.

The so-called “Moore Proposal” quickly gained traction, and would be presented to Congress as the proposed “Second Amendment” on April 28th, 1893. President Beck and Vice President Towns both supported the measure, and by June, both houses of Congress passed the amendment and sent it to the states. It would require 31 states and districts to approve the amendment, which took some time - some of the southern states resisted, as they feared that these changes might further hurt their preferred party’s candidates from winning in the future. But, by the late summer of 1894, the amendment passed, officially becoming the Second Amendment to the 1861 Constitution:

While the election amendment issue matriculated through Congress and the state legislatures, Beck quickly turned his attention to other issues. Eager to keep up the momentum of progress, the president turned to the structure of government itself. Over the previous half century, since the War Between the States, a multitude of bureaus and offices had been created—often piecemeal and haphazardly distributed under the existing departments. Some fell under the Interior Department, others under Treasury or War, depending more on administrative convenience than coherent policy.

Beck believed that the republic’s executive branch had become a tangle of overlapping responsibilities, and that modernization was overdue. In a message to Congress in early 1894, he called for a comprehensive reorganization of the federal cabinet. “The machinery of government,” he said, “must evolve with the nation it serves. The departments of our fathers cannot carry the burdens of our sons.” This would be the first change to the cabinet since the adoption of the 1861 Constitution gave concrete definition to the presidential administration, and although that document outlined the five existing members, Article III, Section 2 did include this specific clause that would allow President Beck to do what he wanted: “Additional departments may be established by the President and Cabinet with the advice and consent of the House of Representatives.”

The President’s proposal outlined three new cabinet-level departments: Health, Education, and Transportation. The first would consolidate the work of the National Health Bureau—established during the Drake Administration in the wake of the Italian Flu epidemic—along with several public welfare offices then operating under the Interior Department. The second would elevate the Federal Office of Education, first established by President Quincy, into its own department with authority to coordinate educational policy among the states. The third would unify oversight of the nation’s railways, roads, and ports—functions then divided between the FBI, USRC, and several smaller bureaus—under a single Department of Transportation.

There were also murmurs in Congress of adding a combined Department of Labor and Commerce, but Beck and his advisors felt the nation was not yet ready for such consolidation. Still, the idea would linger and return in later administrations. Additionally, Beck would pursue other pro-labor movements, including the push for full legalization of unions by the end of his term, which would pass in the Spring of 1898.

The legislation creating the three new departments passed in stages throughout 1894, amid general bipartisan support. Federalists largely praised the effort as a practical extension of Beck’s “Engineer President” philosophy, while many Democrats—especially from the western states—welcomed the promise of clearer oversight and improved coordination for infrastructure funding. By the end of the year, the Department of Health, the Department of Education, and the Department of Transportation were all formally established, marking the first major expansion of the cabinet since the mid-century.

With these reforms accomplished and the Second Amendment now fully ratified, Beck turned his sights to a more ambitious goal: the extension of suffrage to women. The idea had gained steady traction since the 1870s, particularly in the western states, New England, and the Midwest, but no serious constitutional measure had yet made it through Congress. Beck resolved to change that.

Working closely with a coalition of Federalist legislators, the President threw his support behind a proposal introduced by Senator Elias Sanders of Rhode Island—a respected Federalist known for his measured but progressive instincts. The proposed Third Amendment to the Constitution of 1861, soon nicknamed the Sanders Amendment, declared that “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.”

The measure’s path through Congress was long and contentious. Debate began in earnest in 1897, following a series of public rallies and petitions that reflected the growing strength of the national suffrage movement. Despite opposition from many conservatives, primarily in the Republican Party but also with some in both the Democratic Party and the Federalist Party, Beck’s administration shepherded the amendment through committee debates and onto the floor of both chambers. In the summer of 1898, Congress approved the amendment and sent it to the states for ratification. It would take two more years—until 1900—before the Sanders Amendment was fully adopted, granting women the right to vote nationwide.

While the suffrage battle defined the later years of Beck’s administration, his presidency was also marked by steady Federalist gains in the legislature. The party performed strongly in both the 1894 and 1896 midterm elections, expanding its influence across the industrial Midwest and the newly urbanizing West. Newspapers frequently referred to the period as “The Beck Ascendancy,” and even many opponents conceded that the Federalists had become the party of efficiency and reform - a marked improvement from two decades before, when the reformers in the Federalist Party had nearly walked out to form their own separate political entitity.

In the midst of this popularity, Beck advanced another legacy project dear to his heart: the creation of the District of Dearborn, a new federal district encompassing the twin cities of Calumet, Illinois and Calumet, Indiana—his longtime home. The President argued that the divided jurisdiction of the two municipalities had long impeded growth and planning, and that combining them into a single, federally administered city would both honor their shared heritage and serve as a model for cross-state cooperation. Congress approved the proposal in 1896, establishing the District of Dearborn as the nation’s third federal district, alongside the District of Washington and the District of Manhattan.

As the decade drew to a close, the Beck Administration entered its final two years amid relative stability and continued public optimism. The Federalists remained the dominant force in national politics, buoyed by the president’s popularity, the recent ratification of the Sanders Amendment, and a steadily expanding industrial economy. Yet beneath the surface of prosperity, new political and regional divisions were beginning to form.

The Election of 1898 would bring these tensions sharply into focus. President Beck, having completed his six-year term and constitutionally barred from seeking re-election, declined to involve himself directly in the nomination process, though his influence within the Federalist Party remained considerable. When the Federalist convention met in Boston that July, the delegates swiftly coalesced around Governor Alexander Fleak of Pennsylvania, a former senator and a prominent ally of Beck’s reform agenda. Known for his disciplined demeanor and technocratic approach to governance, Fleak campaigned as the natural successor to the “Engineer President.” His running mate, Senator Peter Landon of Alabama, a respected orator and veteran of the Freedmen’s Party, became only the second African American in American history to be nominated for the vice presidency.

The Democratic Party, still reeling from a decade of Federalist ascendancy, nominated Senator Chase McIntire of Missouri, a populist who sought to reunify his party’s fractured northern and southern wings. His running mate, Governor Oscar Kent of Minnesota, was chosen to appeal to the Western states. There had been some talk early on of having Vice President Richard Towns, the controversial winner of the contingent election in 1893, lead the Democratic ticket in 1898, but Towns’ health had taken a downturn starting in 1897 and he had largely remained out of the spotlight, and would later pass away in early 1899. Meanwhile, the Republicans, weakened but persistent, gathered in Richmond and selected Benjamin Norton of Georgia, a firebrand champion of “states’ sovereignty,” with Henry Hobbs of Florida as his vice-presidential partner.

The campaign that followed was one of the most contentious of the late nineteenth century. For the first time since the War Between the States, open debates over race and citizenship dominated the national conversation. In the Coastal South—Virginia, the Carolinas, Georgia, and Florida—reactionary legislatures had begun enacting laws that formalized racial segregation in public facilities and curtailed the voting rights of Black citizens. Federalists condemned these measures as betrayals of the ideals of liberty and equality, while Democrats and Republicans in those regions, for different reasons, either defended them as local prerogatives or avoided the issue altogether.

President Beck, though officially neutral, made clear in several late-term addresses that such policies were “an affront to the moral progress of the republic.” His words bolstered the Federalist ticket but inflamed southern opposition. In the North and Midwest, however, the electorate was far more concerned with economic growth, the expansion of education, and the promise of continuing reform—all areas associated with Beck’s administration and Fleak’s campaign platform.

When the votes were tallied that November, the results were among the closest in the nation’s history. The Democrats and Republicans split much of the vote across the Midwest and portions of the interior South, allowing Fleak to secure a narrow plurality of the popular vote and a slender lead in the Electoral College. Some newspapers initially predicted another contingent election in Congress, but late returns from Illinois and Iowa confirmed the Federalist ticket’s victory by the slimmest of margins.

The outcome reaffirmed Federalist control of Washington House but also underscored the fragility of national unity at the dawn of the new century. As Beck prepared to leave office in March 1899, the Franklin Observer summarized his administration succinctly:

“President Beck has given form to the modern republic—its departments organized, its rights extended, its cities bound together by iron and law alike. Yet even as he departs, the question of whether this progress can endure a changing century remains unanswered.”

On March 4th, 1899, Alexander Fleak took the oath of office as the 33rd President of the United States, with Peter Landon as Vice President, marking both continuity and change. Beck returned to private life in the newly-minted District of Dearborn, widely regarded as one of the most successful reformers in the nation’s history—the engineer who had, quite literally, rebuilt the machinery of government.

The Election of 1898