Caser Shaft

*"We'll drain their swamp and aim at their hoods!"*

**Caser Shaft** (/ˈkeɪzər/ July 12, 1813-April 29th, 1882) was an American politician, lawyer, businessman, merchant, industrialist and empresario from Texas and Louisiana, who served as the senior United States senator from Texas between 1850 to 1882. He also served as Attorney General, Senate Minority Leader, and founded the Knights of the Golden Circle and the United States Golden Circle (Trade) Company. He died on April 29th, 1882. Caser Shaft's ghost currently haunts the Taft family estate.

After the American Civil War, the scion Shaft; who up until that point was just a lawyer who recently received a massive inheritance from his uncle (his father would die shortly after, leaving him more), first used his money to try to finance a filibuster invasion of Mexico to reclaim Texas, which had been lost to Mexico. His hawkish tendencies towards Mexico faded out after Texas was returned, though he would later fund and even lead a successful invasion of Central America after aligning himself with the Central American elites. Serving as a "rather incompetent" attorney general, he resigned to successfully run as the US Senator from Texas, where he'd remain for almost the rest of his life. As a senator, he took economically Laissez-Faire positions. He also aligned himself more moderately on social issues than the rest of the Democratic Party, while also remaining remaining firmly pro-states rights for his entire delegacy.

Early on, he was allied with people who were allied or apart of the Klan, but later on, his views against the Klan soured, leading him to author the Klan Ban Bill. Around this time, he switched to Federal-Republican due to his support of his friend William Frederick Sarge, months before the 1/6/1865 attack incited by the Candidate William F Burr, as opposed to joining the Constitutional Liberals. He would later join the Liberal-Union Party as a result of a merger that he opposed, meaning that he'd join the more Classical Liberal "American Party". He'd finally join the Liberal-Union Party again months before his death, as a gesture to announce his retirement from politics. He died on his son-in-law's ranch on Saint Lewis Island, 1882.

In 1880, he ran for Vice President of the United States with former President, longtime friend, and ideological opponent William F Sarge. Letters between the two imply that the run could've been sparked by a joke between the two before Sarge even became President. The two failed to make it on most ballots, except in Texas and California.

In recent years, his legacy has been posthumously criticized for supporting democracy and Laissez Faire capitalism in the USA while turning around and being a dictator-like leader of a plutocratic monopolistic regime in Central America, causing a revolt his son had to deal with. A member of the Democratic Party, Shaft was nominated as the Democratic Vice Presidential nominee for the 1856 election, and served as United States Attorney General of in the administration of John C. Calhoun. Later on, he split with the Democratic Party little before it's collapse on the issue of Sarge, mostly because Sarge had been tough on the Klan in a time where Democrats relied on the Klan vote.

However, his legacy has also been praised for several reasons. Shaft was popular among Texans especially due to his services. He campaigned to reclaim Texas from Mexicans, and sold Texans, among other states predominantly in the south (and California) guns for a relatively cheap price. He also founded an insurance agency which he passed on to his (illegitimate) nephew Hannkin Shaft. His family's several services, along with his own statesmanship proved him popular among the people. He also drew praise from radical republicans for his Laissez-Faire attitude to economics, but especially for authoring the Ban-the-Klan Act, which was likely due to growing anger with the Klan (which he once aligned himself with) for causing instability, property damage, and blatant loss of life.

In later years, he spent more time on his trade company that grew out of the Knights of the Golden Circle, the (United States) Golden Circle (Trade) Company. With American charter, the Golden Circle Company was ironically granted a monopoly on trade with the region of the Golden Circle, which was de-facto and de-jure dissolved by his son, Aurelian Shaft.

## Personal life

Caser Shaft was born in Texas, apart of the Shaft Family, a planter class family with a fortune. His family can trace it's roots back to John Bolling. Shaft was the eldest and only surviving son of Henry Shaft and his wife, Josepha Cruz-Shaft, besides illegitimate brothers who Shaft later cooperated with. Henry Shaft was an empresario living between Texas and America, usually Louisiana. Henry would sell cheap land to Americans, while also working his own land there. Due to free trade and loopholes that got around tariffs, along with slavery, the Shaft business was lucrative. He also was involved in the slave trade due to Texas' laid back restrictions on slavery, dealing and using slaves for his own benefit. Caser Shaft would grow up as a child in Texas during the Era of Good Feelings as a scion. He was tutored at home, and grew up comfortably for the time.

By the time he was ten, that would change. President Times was impeached, and after the devastating Battle of DC, the Great American War would begin.

Life during the war wasn't comfortable, but Shaft still continued his education considering he was a scion. He also began helping out his father make deals with both sides, especially selling weaponry (to both sides) and dealing slaves. Once he was 17, the war ended.

## The Civil War and the Texas Affair

> "...*Behold! On our side will be the undivided people of America; on the other side, the enemies of the liberty. Let the people of Christ and the men of liberty, and have the followers of Libertas, or in shorter words, Americans, finally strike down the enemies of liberty and succeed in manifesting our destiny, the will of Tiu!"*
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During the Civil War, which began when Shaft was 24, the end of slavery threatened the Shaft business greatly, Thus, anticipating the end of the Civil War, they shifted from the slave trade and instead focused on arms dealing throughout the war. They were selling arms to both sides, but when Mexico elected to declare war on the south in order to retake Texas and The Vanderbilt Territory, a slave revolt beginning in Dixie, things went south. While they continued their business, many properties were seized by Mexico, and it took significant lobbying and negotiations for the Shaft business to not be completely destroyed.

Caser Shaft thus moved from business a bit and went to politics (though the two would mix when the Golden Circle was founded). He called for an invasion of Mexico, though not conventionally. Shaft began recruiting American supporters of the manifest destiny doctrine in order to launch an invasion of Mexico. He commissioned 3 ships, and recruited around 5.7k men, mostly vagrants in the south, many of which were Civil War Veterans.

Shaft thus organized an expedition directly tied to the rebels of the Yucatan and the Mormons. All of this culminated into the Mexicans selling their northern territories to the US in the Great California purchase of January 1847, colloquially known as the 'Great Theft'.

## Business Life

### The White Scare

The White Scare was a time of great uncertainty for the freedmen. Reconstruction was near it's end, and the future looked dark for anyone who wasn't a white protestant in the South. Caser Shaft viewed this environment as one that could be capitalized upon, and began mass selling arms to minorities targeted by the Klan at reasonable prices to get a one-up on competition. These arms were created largely by the use of industrial "slaves", that being the use of convict leasing, debt bondage, and other forms of peonage as slavery.

### Feud with MJE

Mark James Edmunds around this time prohibited Shaft from buying land in Oregon, due to these acts of slavery and his previous acts of filibustering.

> *"The President (John C Calhoun) is a fraud, a hack, a slave of the rich and powerful; he imprisons our men, he crushes our attempts at equality, and allows men such as Caser Shaft to wreak havoc upon the Mexicans, and enslave the free men of colour.”*
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After this condemnation by Edmunds, Shaft was reportedly quoted as saying "Mark J Edmunds is a god damned mother-fucking, bastardly son-of-a-bitch".

### Western business ventures

To compensate, Shaft began the Texas Land Company, a continuation of previous empresario efforts, and began selling land. Around the same time, he became more of an industrialist and sped up the industrialization of Texas. He then, with the remains of the militia he formed to invade Mexico, created the insurance agency the "Gilded Bulwark", later known as Agency Bulwark. Around the same time, he began investment in the west (with the Pope family), and started the Western Mining Company.

Around this time, during the industrialization of Texas, Shaft also continued to perform cattle drives. The Bulwark then expanded to the west due to the abundance of gold rush criminals in California.

### Expansion to the South

Using precedent from the White Scare, Shaft expanded his industrialization to the south, buying several acres of land in three states (Alabama & North and South Carolina) along with peons to create factories for his companies. This expansion would then continue to several states in the Dixieland region. Price wars would soon follow, and jobs would be created.

Around this time, reconstruction would end, and Shaft had dollar signs in his eyes when he checked the news one day in 1853. Shaft would begin a heavy commercial campaign in the south, holding rallies all in order to advertise his products, such as weaponry and insurance.

Due to Shaft's rapid expansion, he would then create/centralize Sellsword Industries (now Sellsword) in order to manufacture, advertise and sell his weaponry. Sellsword would compete with the Knoxville Armory with a price war.