As the politicians gathered in Philadelphia to draft the new Constitution, the rest of the country grappled with the immense task of rebuilding. The economy was in chaos. The war's final months saw the British and Confederal navies effectively shut down trade with the Southern states, making many places feel the true pinch of the war for the first time. The collapse of plantation agriculture deepened the economic turmoil. The upheaval began haphazardly during the slave revolts in Mississippi, Louisiana, and Alabama, which dismantled the old system piecemeal, but it accelerated sharply after the surrender of the Southern Union. The Joint Military Command, operating under a joint directive from Brandt and Portman, was tasked with liberating the remaining enslaved population. All through the winter of 1860 and spring of 1861, military detachments systematically visited plantations in Georgia, Florida, Arkansas, Jefferson, and the Carolinas, announcing the emancipation of slaves. In many cases, this was met with jubilant celebrations among the freedmen. However, there were also violent confrontations, as armed plantation owners refused to comply, leading to several deadly skirmishes between local militias and federal forces.
A great demographic shift was also underway, further eroding the Southern economy. Tens of thousands of freedmen migrated to territories controlled by the Army of New Africa, flooding into Louisiana, Mississippi, and, to a lesser extent, northern Alabama. At the same time, many white citizens of those states were trying to get out, some moving to the East. Many more headed West, either to Jefferson or further out, into the Upper Louisiana Territory, or in some cases into the Texas Federation - which, for the time being, still allowed slavery. A handful of plantation owners smuggled their wealth and enslaved people to Cuba or Brazil. This mass movement of people left many farms untended, reducing crop yields to drastically low levels. Entire regions in the Deep South reported famine-like conditions, as food crop shortages drove up prices and worsened hunger for displaced whites and freedmen alike. Churches, freedmen’s associations, and Northern charities struggled to provide relief. Northern states such as Ohio and Pennsylvania organized “grain trains” to send food south, but the effort often fell short.
The Northern states were hardly immune to economic hardship. Though food supplies were more stable, prices still rose due to increased demand from the South. Northern manufacturing, which had pivoted to wartime production, now faced a difficult transition back to peacetime goods. Many factories closed or reduced their workforce, at the same time as some volunteers in the Free Army began to return home. Luckily, occupation duty in the South would delay the inevitable flood of returning veterans for a few years, but there were still more people than jobs. The destruction of New York City, which had served as the nation’s financial hub, further complicated the recovery. Three separate battles had reduced Manhattan to a hollowed-out ruin, and the New York Stock Exchange lay defunct. Now that the fighting had ended and it appeared as though the Union would pull itself back together, institutions were beginning to coalesce in Philadelphia, centered on that city’s stock exchange and one of the main branches of the Second Bank of the United States, all located on Walnut Street - a name that would eventually become synonymous with the heart of American capitalism.
Compounding these challenges was the cumbersome dual-government arrangement. Until a new constitution was ratified, the Confederation of American States refused to dissolve, forcing Brandt to coordinate with Portman in Montpelier. This dragged out major decisions as the two leaders and their respective legislatures and cabinets worked to make economic recovery plans and handle the South's military occupation. This deadlock slowed plans to organize the western territories. Counties in the west of Oregon Territory had sought statehood before the war, but the fighting and political paralysis delayed their application. Similar plans to finally divide up the rest of the Upper Louisiana Territory into smaller territories that could start organizing for statehood were similarly stymied. This situation began to improve in the fall of 1861 when the final Confederal states ratified the new constitution. On November 1, Rhode Island, the last holdout, proposed a motion in the Confederal Congress to dissolve the Confederation and rejoin the Union. The motion carried unanimously. Chancellor Portman telegraphed Franklin that evening with the news, and the following morning, the Confederal’s blue-and-white-striped flag was lowered in Montpelier, and the Stars and Stripes returned for the first time in four years.
Some in Congress, and in the Acting President’s cabinet, felt that the existing - even if expanded - Free State government currently occupying Franklin should avoid making any major decisions and wait until the 1862 elections for the new constitution to be fully in force. Brandt, however, disagreed and had enough support from both Democrats and Federalists to begin what he called “real work” once the new constitution had the requisite 19 states in approval. In late September, even before the Confederation officially dissolved, Brandt sent a letter to House Speaker Jacob Longhill of Illinois to have the House appoint its first Secretary General. Some in Congress were still wary about implementing the new constitution before new elections could be held, but ultimately, Speaker Longhill agreed to open the floor to the issue. Some representatives thought that the Speaker should also be the Secretary General, while others thought that might give the new position too much power. Although Longhill was nominated, he lost almost 3 to 1 against representative Alexander Trent of Iowa. Also, following the precedent that Brandt had set, the House appointed Trent as the acting Secretary General. Trent was sworn into his new post on October 12th. A week later, the House also approved Brandt’s appointment of Gregory Powell of Appalachia as the nation’s first Secretary of the Interior. Powell began meeting with territorial representatives from Oregon and Upper Louisiana, as well as from Kanasaw and Gigadohi, to discuss reorganization and possible statehood measures, which he would personally oversee and help guide through Congressional approval in 1862. He also began coordinating with Treasury Secretary Wallace Moore on economic recovery plans for the acting president to present to Congress.
As the final states began to ratify the new constitution and the nation’s focus began to turn in earnest to the upcoming elections in 1862, Acting President Brandt had two priorities: start binding the nation’s economic wounds and finalize a peace agreement with the British to properly repay them for their assistance in winning the war. Powell and Moore suggested that the government should launch a massive new public works campaign, greatly expanding the national road and rail network, in an effort to create new jobs across the country. Powell also proposed new programs in the South to educate former slaves to make them more useful in the national workforce and to work on programs to help revitalize agriculture in the South now that plantation farming had come to an end - this included land grants for those wishing to move West, and new plans on what Powell called “joint-ownership farming,” where several freedmen families could collectively own and operate larger sections of land (often from former plantations where the owner had, for one reason or another, vacated ownership). Meanwhile, Moore proposed that the Second Bank of the United States be reorganized and expanded, essentially nationalizing much of the banking industry to ensure it stayed stable and better regulated. Most of these proposals would take some serious negotiating and wouldn’t come to a vote until mid-1862. One, however, did make it to the floor of Congress by the end of the year: Powell’s plan for a Freedmen’s Bureau, an office that would oversee education efforts for former slaves, as well as financial assistance and farm planning. Representatives and senators from Virginia, the Carolinas, and Kentucky all balked at the idea, but there was enough support from the rest of the congressmen that the proposal passed, giving the acting president a much-needed domestic win.
Meanwhile, Brandt’s newly rebranded Secretary of the Exterior, Oliver Yates of Indiana, had been working on negotiations with Britain since the spring of 1861. By the time the Confederation dissolved and Brandt felt free to act, the Department of the Exterior had drafted a proposal that the British would support: America would pay for the construction of at least one canal linking British-controlled territory around Lake Michigan with the Mississippi River and grant free, unobstructed river traffic from British North America along the Mississippi River; the United States would agree to lease at no cost at least three naval bases on U.S. soil to the British for 99 years, with the option to renew; and Britain would be granted “favored nation status” in trade relations, and not be subject to future tariffs or other trade restrictions. The Yates Treaty was presented to the Senate on December 1st and was approved on December 19th, giving the Brandt Administration yet another win to cap off the year. The acting president would enter 1862 on a high note, with eyes on the 1862 election. Some thought he should stand aside and allow a fresh face to take the reins now that the war was over. Others felt that Brandt's leaving office now would be leaving the job of reuniting the country unfinished. If the Union were truly to be restored, Brandt had to remain in office to see that the job got done properly.