Richmond Agreement
From Turtledove
The Richmond Agreement arose from the efforts of Confederate States President Jake Featherston to regain CS territories lost to the United States at the end of the Great War, specifically Sequoyah, Houston and Kentucky, and to facilitate the remilitarisation of the Confederacy. After several months of Freedom Party-led riots in the three states, which in turn caused great political divsions in the United States, U.S. President Al Smith agreed to meet Featherston in Richmond in June 1940.
Featherston obtained a promise from Smith for plebiscites in the three states -- provided the latter won the election of November, 1940. 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. After defeating Robert Taft and Wendell Willkie, Smith called for a plebescite to be held on January 7, 1941. Kentucky and Houston voted to return to the Confederacy; Sequoyah remained in the Union.
Instead of allowing 25 years to pass before sending Confederate troops and barrels into Kentucky and former Houston (now once again western Texas), Featherston broke his promise in 25 days. Freedom Party Stalwarts blew up a police station in Frankfort, Kentucky, and blamed it on pro-USA terrorists, inventing an incident for Featherston to use as an excuse to place the Confederate Army on the banks of the Ohio River. He also demanded the remaining territory that the U.S. possessed. With the Richmond Agreement shreded, Smith refused to negotiate with his Confederate counterpart and mobilized the U.S. Army.
While failing to avert the war, and providing the Confederates with the strategic territory of Kentucky from which the war was launchned, the Richmond Agreement also served to make clear to the complacent US population war was completely unavoidable and that the Confederacy was in the wrong, helping stiffen American resolve to carry the war through to total victory.
