franklin d. roosevelt served the most terms as president of the united states.
franklin d. roosevelt served the most terms as president of the united states.
who served the most terms as president of the united states?
franklin d. roosevelt
bullet::::- in harry turtledove's alternate history novel "" as part of the southern victory series, al smith was elected as the 32nd president in 1936 after defeating democratic incumbent herbert hoover and his running mate william edgar borah. after upton sinclair and hosea blackford, he was the third member of the socialist party to hold that office. president smith's first act was to normalize the situation in utah, putting an end to military rule and returning control to civilians. he then removed the military garrison in houston and disbanded the kentucky state police. however, he did nothing overt to deal with the country's economy, although he did permit the country's continued rebuilding of its military, albeit at a relatively slow pace. throughout smith's first term, his counterpart in the confederate states of america, president jake featherston, had demanded the return of territories the cs had lost to the us during the great war, implying that the c.s. was prepared to retake those territories by force. smith, wanting to avoid another war, while realising that the american people were tired of the troublesome former confederate states, finally agreed to meet with featherston in richmond, virginia, the confederate capital. the result was the richmond agreement. featherston obtained a promise from smith for plebiscites the three former states in houston, kentucky and sequoyah, provided smith won the 1940 election. in turn, smith extracted from featherston a promise that the plebiscites would be held in a fair atmosphere, that blacks would be allowed to vote for self-determination, that featherston would not to ask for any more territory, and that any state that changed hands would be demilitarized for 25 years. while featherston paid the richmond agreement lip service, in truth he had intended to break its terms immediately. based on his success in concluding the richmond agreement, smith was re-elected in 1940. the terms of the agreement, including plebiscites, were carried out early in january 1941. instead of allowing 25 years to pass before sending confederate troops and barrels into kentucky and houston (now once again western texas), featherston broke his promise in 25 days. freedom party stalwarts blew up a police station and blamed it on pro-usa terrorists, inventing an incident for featherston to use as an excuse to place the confederate states army on the banks of the ohio river. he also demanded the remaining territory that the united states possessed. with the richmond agreement shredded, smith refused to negotiate with his confederate counterpart and mobilised the united states army. featherston continued to issue ultimatums until june 1941. when smith refused to cave in to featherston, the confederate states president initiated operation blackbeard, the csa's war plan for a quick overwhelming victory. by throwing all the offensive units into one army, the confederacy pushed through ohio cutting the usa in half. confederate forces reached sandusky, a town on the shore lake erie, in the first week of august 1941. after the usa was cut in two, featherston demanded the usa surrender, offering terms such as a cs occupation of the us frontier and a reduced us military. president smith angrily refused, much to featherston's surprise, and ordered us counterattacks against the confederate salient while preparing for an offensive in virginia that autumn. while the virginia attack was not wholly successful, the continued fighting in the salient robbed featherston of the short war he needed in the face of superior us resources. while smith had appeared naive in dealing with featherston, he nonetheless ordered his war department to begin building a uranium bomb early in 1941. the project was managed by assistant secretary of war franklin d. roosevelt. the war took its toll on smith. while he was able to keep the country unified and fighting, many questioned his policy in dealing with the confederacy prior to the war. smith was killed in the powel house, the presidential residence, in 1942, during a confederate bombing raid which damaged the building. in response, united states bombers targeted the gray house, the confederate states presidential residence. smith was succeeded by his vice president, charles w. la follette, who eventually led the united states to victory over the confederate states and its allies on july 14, 1944. in spite of this, la follette lost the 1944 election to the democratic candidate thomas e. dewey, who became the 34th president. smith's legacy is viewed in mixed terms. some have argued that his decision to deal with featherston diplomatically rather than militarily from the outset very nearly proved to be the country's undoing. others have argued that in the situation smith inherited (a weak economy, a weak military, restive populations who didn't want to be citizens), smith probably made the best choices available to him.
list of fictional united states presidencies of historical figures (s–u)
bullet::::- in the first southern victory series novel "how few remain" by harry turtledove, james g. blaine was elected president in 1880, the only republican other than abraham lincoln to hold that office. blaine was elected by maine as a republican to congress in 1862, a major accomplishment in a year when the confederate states of america had won the war of secession (1861–1862) with the support of the united kingdom and france, gaining its independence, and the republican party was being made to pay. he served for the next seven terms, earning a reputation as a fiery orator and debater in a minority party. as the people of the united states grew tired of the conciliatory stance the democrats took towards the confederate states, the republicans soon began regaining seats. in the 1878 elections, following democratic president samuel j. tilden's unpopular decision to remove the twelve stars representing the states of the confederacy from the flag of the united states, the republicans regained the congress. blaine's star rose dramatically, and in 1880, he was the republican party's nominee for president. he won on an anti-confederate platform. blaine was immediately put to the test. the confederacy recoiled at the return of a "black" republican to the presidency. moreover, confederate states president james longstreet had been counting on the democrats' indifference to successfully purchase the states of sonora and chihuahua from the second mexican empire in 1881. president blaine, backed by the popular will and anger of the american people, moved to block the purchase by threat of war. longstreet, confident in his country's alliances with the united kingdom and the french third republic, defied blaine and the second mexican war began. it soon became clear that blaine and the united states were out of their depth. the united states army was woefully unprepared, suffering setbacks on multiple fronts. when washington, d.c. came under confederate artillery fire in late 1881, blaine evacuated the seat of government to philadelphia, pennsylvania, where he established his residence in the powel house. he was the final us president to use the white house as his official residence. while washington, d.c. remained the "de jure" capital of the united states and continued to be used for official functions such as inaugurations and state funerals, philadelphia was the "de facto" capital from 1881 onwards. benjamin harrison, the grandson of the whig party president william henry harrison, served as his secretary of war and consequently shouldered much of the blame for the united states' military failures during the war. after over a year of bloody fighting, the united states sought an armistice. the confederate states successfully took possession of the mexican states. for the second time in a generation, the united states had lost a war while under republican leadership. further humiliating blaine at a personal level, the only territorial concession the united states made was northern maine, his home state, which was annexed by britain into the canadian province of new brunswick. the republican party had split in 1882, with most of the conservative members following benjamin butler to the wayward democrats while former president lincoln's supporters joined the socialist party, which soon replaced the republicans as the nation's second party. ironically, president blaine, in his military defeat, had laid the foundation the united states' eventual victory in the great war (1914–1917) through two acts. firstly, on april 22, 1882, blaine declared a holiday to commemorate the united states' defeat called remembrance day. this day soon birthed a political ideology which the reinvigorated democrats adopted as their own. secondly, blaine formed political ties with the german empire, which eventually led to the alliance known as the central powers. he later went on to lose the 1884 election in a landslide, retiring to obscurity. only truly die-hard republicans revered him. president blaine's defeat marked the beginning of 36 consecutive years of democratic control of the powel house which only came to an end with the election of the first socialist president upton sinclair in 1920.
list of fictional united states presidencies of historical figures (a–b)