List of fictional United States presidencies of historical figures (C–D)
The following is a list of real or historical people who have been portrayed as President of the United States in fiction, although they did not hold the office in real life. This is done either as an alternate history scenario, or occasionally for humorous purposes. Also included are actual US Presidents with a fictional presidency at a different time and/or under different circumstances than the one in actual history. C. Dewitt Clinton. George Garley's novel "The Canadian Enemy" is set in an Alternate Twentieth Century in which  Canada is much stronger than in actual history, is in control of the whole of the Great Lakes and having both Detroit and Chicago as major Canadian cities, and with constant tensions and bickering between the US and Canada being exploited by the Soviet Union during the Cold War. In the backstory recounted in the third chapter is it told that in the Presidential Elections of 1812, the most closely contested until then, Dewitt Clinton carried Pennsylvania and thereby won the Presidency against James Madison. Having been strongly supported by anti-war forces, upon election Clinton sent diplomatic feelers to  the British, seeking to terminate the War of 1812 in whose initial year American forces did not perform very well. American diplomats discreetly pointed out that a British undertaking to refrain from impressing American sailors to service in British ships would enable the President to end the war, whereupon the Royal Navy would be able to return its squadrons from North American waters back to Britain's unfinished war against Napoleon. Eventually, peace was concluded on these lines; however, Clinton had to accept that Fort Detroit and Fort Dearborn (Chicago), lost in the early phases of the war, would remain  in British hands; also, the US had to confirm Tecumseh's confederation of Native American tribes in full possession of their lands. The ending of the war brought angry reactions in the places where the war hawks were strong, and in Baltimore the President was burned in effigy. However, for most Americans the lost territories were distant frontier outposts, and "there was plenty of other land, free for the taking, elsewhere in the West". Moreover, the President blamed the losses on the previous administration which had "started an unnecessary war and went into it woefully unprepared", and asserted that, had  the war continued, the US might have sustained far greater territorial losses. Most Americans accepted this view. In his own time, and for most of the 19th Century, Dewitt Clinton was regarded as a moderately successful President. However, in the 20th Century, the increasingly difficult relations with Canada retroactively made his Presidency a hotly controversial issue. In the 1960's, Americans stridently demanding that Canada give the US access to the resources of the Great Lakes argued that, had Madison been elected, the US might have continued the War of 1812 and eventually won it - and therefore, the election of  Dewitt Clinton had been a disastrous setback for the US; had Madison won in 1812, Detroit would have belonged to the US and its car industry would have been an American industry rather than a Canadian one. An opposing camp pointed out that, should the Cold War turn hot, Canadian Alaska might be the first territory invaded by the Soviets, and therefore the US and Canada needed to close ranks and avoid divisive quarrels. These tended to praise Dewitt Clinton for having ended an unnecessary war and freed British warships to the task of defeating the tyrant Napoleon. List of