The court challenges ultimately went nowhere, and on May 1, 1876, President Littlefield boarded the specially prepared USRC train, dubbed “The Union Limited,” setting out for St. Louis, stopping through Indiana and Illinois on the way. From there, the president travelled up to Calumet, the growing city on Lake Michigan that straddled the Illinois/Indiana border (a source of continued jurisdictional headaches at the time), and then trekked back to Franklin by May 21st. From there, the presidential train headed east, following the First National Road to its eastern terminus in Cumberland, Maryland, stopping through Ohio and Appalachia along the way, and arriving in Cumberland on June 5th. The tour then headed north, following the Second National Road up to Boston, where he arrived on June 8th, and slowly trekked back through New England, arriving in Brooklyn on June 19th. On June 21st, President Littlefield addressed thousands in New York City, declaring his support for establishing Manhattan as a unique federal district with sufficient funding to properly complete the city's rebuilding - and committing to seeing legislation through Congress that would achieve this goal by the end of his presidency. 

After spending several days in New York City and Brooklyn, and then visiting New Jersey, the president arrived in Philadelphia on July 1st and would remain there through Independence Day, celebrating the nation’s 100th birthday in the city where the Declaration of Independence was signed. In his address, Littlefield told the crowd in front of Independence Hall, “One hundred years ago, our founders gathered at this place to break the chains of kings from across the sea, bringing about the greatest experiment in mankind’s long and illustrious history. Since that time, we have continued their vision, breaking the chains of human bondage on our own shores, and striving to live up to the great words that all men are created equal.” The president went on to praise American ingenuity and technical progress, before ending his address by saying, “One hundred years from now, when our children’s children gather in this city in the year 1976, may they look at this coming century that we are about to enter with pride - not in mere patriotism and hero worship of the founders, but in honest admiration of the progress that we will continue to make as time marches forwards. The work of America is not finished; it can never be finished. The Spirit of 1776 continues ever forward.” 

Following the July 4th celebrations, the President set out southward, on the most controversial part of his tour, ultimately planning to follow the Third and Fourth National Roads into the South. The Presidential Guard had tried to convince the president to skip going into the South, or at least the coastal South, saying that he should have returned to Franklin and St. Louis, and followed the Sixth National Road down to New Orleans. Littlefield wouldn’t be deterred. Privately, he is said to have remarked that he didn’t fear southern assassins, thanks to Vice President Bailey - if they killed Littlefield, Bailey would become president, something they could not have happen no matter what. On July 10th, the President met with Virginia’s governor, Alexander Jennings, in Richmond. By July 30th, the President was in St. Augustine, Florida, where he toured the old Spanish fort and was feted by Florida’s governor, Timothy Olden. The crowd sizes might have been a bit smaller and a little less enthusiastic than they had been in New England and the midwestern states, but plenty of people were still curious to see the spectacle of the president coming to town. The president and his “residence on rails” followed the Fourth National Road along the Gulf Coast, making big stops in Mobile and Biloxi, before arriving in New Orleans on August 15th. 

The celebration in New Orleans was the biggest of the southern leg of the tour. Vice President Bailey also made the trip, and tens of thousands of people greeted the two leaders. The main public speech was given at the Place d’Armes, with St. Louis Cathedral standing as backdrop. The visit coincided with the dedication of a statue honoring Joshua Black, the ex-slave who led the 1860 Mississippi uprising that hastened the collapse of the Slaver Union. “Commander” Black, now retired from government, attended the ceremony.. 

Following New Orleans, the President made the trek back north, following the 6th National Road back to St. Louis. Initially, the plan had been for him to return to Franklin, but after the train arrived in St. Louis on August 22nd, Littlefield made a surprise announcement: the Union Limited was going west, all the way to Astoria. Again, there was grumbling from the Presidential Guard - and opposition leaders in Congress - but the president would not be persuaded to change his mind. On August 25th, the train headed west. It arrived in Fort Calhoun on August 29th, and then began the trek across the plains and on to the Rocky Mountains. The special express drew in large crowds as it made stops across Washingtonia and Clark territories - small in comparison to the big cities back east, of course, but wildly enthusiastic, as this unexpected leg of the journey had captured the imagination of the whole country, and it was headline news in every newspaper from sea to sea. 

On September 12th, the presidential entourage arrived at the bustling seaside town of Astoria, Oregon, and President Littlefield became the first sitting president to see the Pacific Ocean. The chief executive and his party would spend the next few days touring the coast and holding brief meetings with representatives of the Canadian government before heading back inland along the Columbia River. The president stopped in New Boston and met with Oregon’s governor, Reginald Peters, and several leading state legislators and local businessmen, before making the trek back east. On October 1st, the Union Limited arrived back in Franklin to excited crowds. The arrival had been timed to align with the formal dedication of Franklin Crossroads Station - the first unified depot for both the national and private rail lines that serviced the nation’s capital. Pulling in just before noon, Littlefield greeted the crowds gathered at the station and spoke of the beauty of the country he had seen, as well as the need for even more rail investment to ensure that the whole nation was accessible to anyone with a rail ticket. It would take the better part of his administration to finally accomplish, but several major rail and communication reforms became the president’s pet project as a result of the Centennial Rail Tour, legislation that had been floated but had languished for one reason or another and may have waited another decade without such a dedicated champion in Washington House. It is also likely that the president’s tour helped bolster Federalists in the first midterm election of his presidency, giving Secretary General Nathaniel Attenburg, a solid Federalist from Boston, a true majority in the House. 

After the bustle of the Centennial Rail Tour in 1876, 1877 was a quieter year for the administration—though not without symbolic significance. On March 19th, President Littlefield presided over the rededication of Mount Ida Cemetery, twenty years to the day since the First Battle of Boston, which had marked the beginning of the War Between the States. The site, originally an informal burial ground for war dead, was formally renamed the National Memorial Cemetery, complete with a new monument honoring soldiers from the Free States and the Confederal alliance who had fought to preserve the Union. The ceremony was attended by many notable figures, including former President Hugo Brandt and Ulysses Portman, the former president of the short-lived Confederation of American States. However, the commemoration sparked some controversy. Southern congressmen from Georgia, Virginia, the Carolinas, and Florida protested that Union Army dead were not mentioned in the memorial. They proposed inviting a former Union general or a surviving Hawthorne son to represent that side of the conflict—though James Hawthorne himself remained in exile in Spain. President Littlefield, backed by Secretary General Attenburg and members of both major parties, rejected these proposals outright. National monuments, he insisted, could not memorialize those who had fought for the Slaver Union. Local communities were free to honor their own war dead, but federal recognition would not be extended to those who had taken up arms to defend slavery.

In August 1877, Congress passed the National Collegiate Standards Act, formalizing an agreement reached during the Kinder Administration to establish standard requirements for common degrees at all colleges. The new law established the National Collegiate Council, which would be responsible for setting and enforcing these standards through a certification process. The law stipulated that colleges and universities failing to obtain certification from the NCC would be ineligible for federal funding. In the coming decades, the NCC would prove fundamental in helping the Federal Office of Education begin the widespread standardization of education requirements for tertiary and secondary schools. 

That fall, another significant milestone occurred, this time out in the western territories. In September, both the territories of Washingtonia and Clark passed legislation granting women the right to vote in all territorial elections, a first for any state or territory in the country, and it created quite a stir. As a rule, the Democratic Party - which held an overwhelming majority in both of the territorial legislatures, and tended to be the dominant party west of the Mississippi - did not support women’s suffrage at the time, but local leaders felt that such a move might help encourage further migration to those territories and specifically lure more women and families, to help balance the genders in those two rugged, male-dominated jurisdictions. This also caused quite a stir among Federalist Party leaders, who suddenly felt that they were falling behind the times. While many in the party agreed with their Democratic colleagues that women shouldn’t have the vote, the pro-suffrage wing of the party was growing, led by many former abolitionists who saw female equality as the next great cause. Vice President Bailey was also a supporter of the suffragist cause, to the quiet consternation of President Littlefield.  

The Women’s Suffrage Movement, of course, had been a slowly growing concern since before the War Between the States, dating back to the Northampton Convention of 1847. Organized by Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Augusta Wilder, the 1847 gathering had passed the now-famous Declaration of Equal Standing, calling for women to be granted legal equality to men, which would include the right to vote. Before the war, the women’s movement had successfully seen property law reforms as well as the expansion of educational opportunities across many of the New England and Midwestern states, with tacit approval from many Federalist leaders and grudging acknowledgement from the more progressive Democrats. These reformist women had also been involved in the abolitionist cause, and when the war ended and slavery was abolished, they began to reorganize their network of reformers to focus more on suffrage and other aspects of the long-term goals outlined in the Equal Standing document. As the 1870s unfolded, their calls for the vote became increasingly forceful, and Mott, Cady Stanton, and Wilder made it clear that they intended to push for the Federalist Party to adopt a plank in its platform calling for women’s suffrage, setting the stage for a showdown. 

In the 1878 midterm elections, the Federalists remained the largest party in the House, but lost their absolute majority they’d enjoyed during the “Centennial Bump” of 1876, dropping from 347 seats to 292. There was a brief attempt by some Southern and Midwestern Democrats to oust Secretary General Nathaniel Attenburg from his position, but they couldn’t convince enough of their own party members to agree with anyone that the Republicans would support in order to get enough votes to make the ouster. Instead, House Speaker Reginald Court, a Federalist from Ohio, was replaced by Democrat James McCord. Also of note, Ernest Owen, the grandson of Robert Owen, the utopianist who’d settled New Harmony, Indiana, was elected to the House. Caucusing with the Federalists, Mr. Owen was a member of the Social Progressive Alliance, the forefather of the modern US Communalist Party. 

1879 was another relatively quiet year for President Littlefield, who was nearing the end of his term with an eye on securing his legacy and having a peaceful retirement. On February 22 - George Washington’s Birthday - he presided over the opening of the Museum of the United States, which was dedicated to preserving the history of the republic. Its core exhibit included artifacts from the early founding, including an original copy of the Declaration of Independence and copies of both the 1787 and 1861 Constitutions, along with items belonging to several former presidents. The central atrium, known as the Great Hall of the Republic, contained several of the most famous works of patriotic American art by artist John Trumbull, including Declaration of Independence, Burning of the Federal City, and Victory at Yorktown. The three-story domed building was constructed across the street from the University of the United States, just east of Congress Hall in Franklin. It would work closely with the UUS to promote historical research nationwide. There was a growing interest in preserving narratives from the late 18th century and early 19th century, as well as documenting the recent war. The museum was an outgrowth of the Smithsonian Research Institute, which had initially focused on all aspects of academic research and education, but was shifting more towards sciences under its new director, Peter Talbot, who had worked closely with both the UUS and Congress to secure the establishment of the new history museum and to see that history of the republic have its own dedicated organization separate from his own. 

In September of 1879, Washington House announced that the Canadian Prime Minister, James Crawley, had extended an invitation for President Littlefield to visit Canada the following year to mark twenty years since the end of the War Between the States and the forging of the friendship between the United States and the then nascent Canadian Dominion. Littlefield told the press that he intended to accept the invitation, which would mark the first time a sitting US president had ever traveled to foreign soil. Similar to the Centennial Tour, talk of the “Northern Excursion” captured the nation’s imagination and became a topic of considerable debate. Was it even lawful for a sitting president to leave the country? Some political opposition to the visit did build in Congress, but Speaker McCord refused to entertain any formal debates on the topic, and no one could quite find the proper grounds to bring a legal suit against the administration in order to stop it. By the end of the year, the Exterior Department announced that the president, his wife, their two eldest sons, and Exterior Secretary Elias Benjamin would travel first to Niagra, where they would take in the falls, before crossing over into Canada to be greeted by Prime Minister Crawley and then escorted to the Canadian capital at newly renamed Toronto. 

While those preparations were underway, Littlefield’s last full year in office opened with much more activity. On the legislative front, two key pieces of the president’s agenda finally made it out of committee and onto the debate floor: the Telegraph Standardization Act and the National Time Zones Act. The former, a cornerstone of President Littlefield’s reform agenda, brought sweeping order to the fractured world of commercial messaging. Although the United States Post & Telegraph Office already controlled the national trunk lines, the act established a binding federal framework to govern interoperability, standardization, and access. It introduced a tiered licensing system—Class A carriers receiving full trunk privileges, Class B limited to regional operations—and mandated uniform message formatting, routing protocols, and automated switching equipment at all federal exchanges. After early negotiations with the “big four” companies broke down, President Littlefield publicly floated the possibility of full nationalization of the telegraph industry—a provocative signal that shifted the calculus. Pacific Signal Company welcomed the bill as a means of leveling the playing field; both Continental Telegraph & Wire and Southern Wire accepted it reluctantly but constructively. Only Atlantic Signal & Dispatch mounted firm opposition, accusing the administration of regulatory overreach. The bill passed the House on February 12th, 1880, by a vote of 402 to 249, and cleared the Senate 40 to 30 eight days later. Littlefield signed it into law on February 24th, with executives from PSC, CTW, SWC, and the USPTO in attendance; Atlantic Signal boycotted the ceremony and, three days later, announced plans to challenge the law in court. The case reached the Supreme Court the following year, where the Lincoln Court upheld the law in full, affirming the federal government’s authority to regulate national communications infrastructure. With that decision, the USPTO was firmly established as the nerve center of the country’s fast-modernizing information network.

The National Time Zone Act also caused some pushback, but to a far lesser degree than the Telegraph Law. “Railroad Time” had been emerging since before the War Between the States, with several regional variations of the concept existing by 1857. During the fighting, Acting President Brandt had directed the USRC to adopt a standardized timing convention in 1859 after a tragic collision of two troop trains was caused by train conductors having time from different zones on their watches, killing nearly 100 soldiers. After the war, USRC “Standard Time” became formalized throughout the country—at least for the railroads—in 1865, when the federal railway company adopted five standard time zones for all railway operations. In the intervening 15 years, many localities had begun to adopt railroad time instead of using local solar time, which led to increasing confusion when trying to answer the question, “What time is it?” for any given part of the country. By 1880, four states—Oregon, Missouri, Ohio, and New York —had all adopted railroad time as their legal standard. The new law proposed by the Littlefield Administration would adopt the five railroad standard time zones (Eastern, Central, Plains, Mountain, and Pacific) as the official civil time throughout the country, and require all communities and government agencies to use standard time. Those in opposition came from two camps - one that balked at the idea of life being tied to “the whims of the railroad,” while the other group wanted to redraw the time zones to be more scientific, complaining that the railroad time zones had been created for political and commercial reasons, and not scientific ones. In the end, the five zones were adopted, in a vote of 494 to 157 by the House and then 57 to 13 in the Senate. The president signed the law on March 12th, and it was scheduled to take effect on May 1st. 

On April 7th, 1880, Littlefield, his wife Augusta, his sons Michael and Henry, and the exterior secretary and his family arrived at Niagara Falls, New York, and crossed Peace Bridge to Niagara Falls, Upper Canada. At the midpoint of the span, they were met by Canadian Governor-General Sir Benjamin Heath and his wife, Princess Victoria - the second daughter of Queen Charlotte - along with Prime Minister James Crawley, his wife Beatrice, and the Canadian Minister for Continental Affairs. Once formal greetings and photographs were complete, the party crossed over into the Dominion of Canada to the cheers of the thousands who had turned out to witness the historic occasion. American, Canadian, and British flags were waved wildly by the onlookers as the dignitaries left the bridge and took in the natural splendor of the falls. At Table Rock lookout, the President, Governor-General, and Prime Minister had a private moment to talk, reportedly discussing border crossing issues and the possibility of Canada also adopting the new “standard time” that the United States had just implemented. A reception was held that evening at the Niagara Hotel, where toasts were made to “the two greatest democracies in North America.” 

The following day, the “special entourage” began its journey to Toronto, capital of the Dominion at that time - the great debate on where the permanent capital of Canada should be was still years from being settled at this point. Rather than take the train straight to the city, the dignitaries spent a few days touring the surrounding towns, where the president visited with Canadian veterans of the American conflict, thanking them for their aid in America’s time of need. On April 12th, they arrived in Toronot to great fanfare, making the crowds in Niagara pale in comparison. President Littlefield was given the honor of briefly addressing the Canadian Parliament, where he spoke of the common purpose of the two nations in spreading from East to West across the continent, and of the bravery shown in the liberation of New York and at the Fall of Atlanta two decades before. 

On April 18th, the last night of the visit before Littlefield would return to the United States, Prime Minister Crawley presented the American executive with a special gift on behalf of the Canadian people: a maquette of a statue by Canadian sculptor Philippe Hébert and British sculptor Sir Joshua Boem titled “Freedom Triumphant.” The piece depicted a woman clothed in robes, with one arm raised to hold a lantern and the other arm holding a sword at her side. Crawley announced that the Canadian and British governments intended to gift this statue, in full size, to the citizens of the United States, to be built in New York City to commemorate the joint struggle to liberate one of America’s great cities from tyranny. British engineer Sir Benjamin Baker, an up-and-coming talent in that field, would oversee the construction of the statue’s interior structure. The presentation reportedly brought tears to the president’s eyes. 

Upon the President’s return to the United States on April 19th, he announced that the final major legislative goal of his presidency was to see that proposed Manhattan District be established, and make sure that the city received the funding it deserved to be fully rebuilt and be home to the magnificent statue that “our cousins to the north and across the sea intend to give us.” That proposal was still somewhat controversial, which is why, despite having voiced support for the idea four years before, it still languished on the drawing board. The President pulled nearly every major favor that he had remaining in Franklin and pushed through the Manhattan Federal District Act by the end of the summer, signing the law on August 30th. The Island of Manhattan was officially declared a federal district, separate from the State of New York. It would be governed by a federally appointed administrator similar to how the District of Washington, home of the capital, is run. 

As President Littlefield saw to the remaining items of his agenda, the nation’s attention turned to the upcoming presidential race. The Democrats had a fairly straightforward selection process, with support having coalesced even before the party’s convention in Columbus around the no-nonsense Governor of Iowa, Theodore Drake. The bigger question was who would be the running mate: Alexander Pendleton of Oregon, or Beauford Scott of Pennsylvania. In the end, Scott won out, to the consternation of some Westerners. The Drake-Scott ticket promised pragmatic westward expansion, a slowing of any more federal expansion, and a more tempered approach to race and social issues. The Republicans had a similarly uneventful convention when they met in Mobile, Alabama, in September, where Jeffersonian Senator Christopher Hampton was selected as the head of the ticket, with Kevin Baxter, Senator from South Carolina, chosen for the number two slot. The real drama would be at the Federalist Convention, which opened on September 7th in Brooklyn, New York. Tensions had been building in the party since the end of the war between the more traditionalist wing, which sought to focus on strong central governance and constitutionalism, and the reformist wing that had grown in strength thanks to the abolitionist movement. That wing now wanted to embrace women’s suffrage, something that the traditionalist crowd balked at. Littlefield himself had often branded himself as a reformer, but had drifted towards the traditionalists on this issue, whereas Vice President Bailey was a vocal proponent of the suffragettes. 

When the gathering began, there was an early effort to get Frederick Bailey as the presidential candidate by the boldest of the reformers, but he quickly declined. He told those supporters that he believed the country was still not quite ready for a black man to reside at Washington House. Still, he worked with the reformists, championing the candidacy of Connecticut Senator Joshua Dalton. The traditionalists, meanwhile, joined behind Representative Jeremiah Nichols of Rhode Island. Drama unfolded even before it got to the nomination stage, however. The reform wing of the party pushed hard for a plank in the party platform that would give the party some endorsement of women’s suffrage. In the opening debate on the topic, Vice President Bailey gave his famous History Will Judge Us speech, where he famously stated: 

The first draft of the language had called for federal legislation or amendment that gave women the vote. That was quickly voted down, but the reforms thought they could garner enough support for a more muted declaration that the party believed in the idea of women’s suffrage and would work to support state-by-state efforts. This watered-down proposal was voted on by the delegates on September 8th and was also defeated, but more narrowly. This defeat caused a great uproar at the convention, and reform delegates marched out of the convention hall, abruptly ending the day's proceedings, as the convention no longer had its two-thirds quorum. There was serious concern that the reformists would refuse to rejoin the convention the next day, but in the end, some backroom dealing secured a majority to return and grudgingly accept the results of the previous day’s vote in exchange for having one of their own appointed as the vice presidential candidate. By September 10th, the Federalists had selected Jeremiah Nichols as the top of their ticket, with Elijah Cole, a senator from Mississippi and a known reformer, in the number two spot. 

Despite the selection of reformer Elijah Cole as vice presidential nominee, many Federalist reformers remained dissatisfied. State parties in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Vermont passed resolutions condemning the rejection of the suffrage plank and refused to endorse Nichols. As both he and his Democratic counterpart, Theodore Drake, crossed the country in a style reminiscent of Littlefield’s 1874 campaign (though notably neither candidate travelled as far or as often as the 17th president had), Nichols regularly faced vocal criticism from reformist Federalists who had supported Dalton’s candidacy instead. Theodore Drake, ever the pragmatist, used the votes from 1878 in the Democratic-controlled western territories of Washigntonia and Clark - both likely to become states in the near future - to allow women’s suffrage as a sign that the Democratic Party was more open to reform than people let on.  When the votes were cast on November 2nd, 1880, Drake carried 368 electoral votes out of a total of 721, giving him just over 50% of the vote and the presidency. Nichols came in second with 234 electoral votes, and Hampton received 121. Come March 4th, 1881, the Democrats would be back in Washington House. Congress, too, shifted firmly into the Democrats’ hands, gaining 119 seats and holding 44% of the House, which, with the Republicans’ 139 seats (21%), would be enough to shut out the Federalists entirely. 

The Election of 1880