Assassination of President John W. Daniel

The **Assassination of President John W. Daniel** occurred in 1907, during the President's controversial third year in term.

## Background

### Election Controversy

President Daniel was already a controversial figure in Confederate politics. His first election had been a highly contested one; specifically, the Southern Democrats were on a spur of popularity following the non-consecutive two-term presidency of Stonewall Jackson, and it was highly expected that the Southern Democrats under John D. Richardson would win big again in 1896. They, however, did not.

The 1896 race tipped the other way entirely. The Loyalist candidate, John W. Daniel, pulled through with an electoral college landslide. Many, including the Southern Democrat candidate Richardson, began calling out the legitimacy of the election, but the new Confederate President reassured them with administrative statistics that the election was not a fraud. The opinions of the people simply shifted at the last second.

Whether or not this claim was legitimate was not important. The last leg of the first Daniel administration had actually done a lot of good in recovering from the Cotton Diplomacy Crisis in revitalising the Confederate economy and pushing them towards industrialisation to match the north. It was enough to secure him a second legitimate election in 1900.

### The Confederate-Mexican War

The electoral controversy did not end there. In 1904, he opted to run again, for the third time in a row for the Loyalists. His approval rating was high amongst Loyalists, but middling amongst Southern Democrats, and in the 1904 election, they gave it everything they got. Surprising to most, however, is that the Loyalists did choose President Daniel as their candidate again. But it was the 1905 Confederate-Mexican War that eventually tarnished his fragile image, even to Loyalists. Although no side actually won and a ceasefire was enforced, the Union had annexed Kentucky.

It was a political disaster for President Daniel, but he refused to resign. He would reap the consequences two years later.

## The Assassination

### The Two Shots

Many in the Confederate political sphere would have argued that the President had gone arguably insane. He began stuttering ramblings on another war with the Union, and singing old Confederate folk songs in his sleep. Many stated that he waddled around the White House like a penguin and looked aimlessly at whatever his eyes could see. He was going cuckoo.

His last days came in 1907. With public resentment for the President, he went outside the White House to try and calm their fears. He even exclaimed that he would run for President again in 1908, stating: "I will fix it for you, if you give me a diddly-darn-'nother go at it!" The President was making a mockery of himself and his security team knew it well.

A few days before, they had plotted with the Vice President, John Sharp Williams, to have the President 'put down'. Through secret funding, they hired an assassin. When the assassin showed up and fired at the President, he missed his first shot. The second shot, however, struck the President in the head, and rendered him unconscious. The assassin was arrested by the security personnel as part of the plan, and the President dragged back inside the White House.

President Daniel was pronounced dead two hours later.

## Aftermath

### The Loyalists Tarnished

The assassination of the President highlighted not only the continued political violence amongst the Confederate populace, but the extent of Machiavellian political corruption that existed from within the President's own inner circle. Although basically universally hated, John W. Daniel's assassination was still treated with much alarm, and when fingers began pointing at the new President Williams for orchestrating the assassination, the Southern Democrats launched a campaign to tarnish the Loyalist foundation.

In 1908, John Sharp Williams ran against Southern Democrat Oscar Underwood, a more progressive and anti-racial candidate. Out of bitter hatred for the Loyalists, Underwood was elected - although he too would be assassinated only 3 years later.