This is the Fifth part of my hypothetical universe in which each state gets two senate districts to elect their senators, rather than statewide races. Gerrymandering is also banned to make it more interesting. I had to pick a new 2020 Republican as I only want candidates to be able to run in one senate area. Pennsylvania will be the next state I will make, and then the list goes as follows: Maryland, Arizona, Nebraska, California.

Others in this series:

Postwar

1880s-90s

Abolition Era

Post-Progressive Era

1980s

filegarden wont let me upload anymore catbox randomly deletes its images every now and then and imgur is blocked in the uk which i know people would hassle me about if i went with it so in other words no mobile image dont ask

Get out and vote if you know what I mean.

New England is the occupied northern 6 counties in this scenario

constituency changes from OTL

Alt caption: what actually would have ACTUALLY happened in Bukharin was the leader of the USSR instead of Stalin

SCHWARZENBERG has been described by academics and popular culture alike as the “Founding Father of Germany”. The implied comparison is unflattering to his American counterparts, but fair: His 1850 constitution, hazed out in smoke-filled rooms by cigar-chomping bureaucrats and shellshocked royal dignitaries rather than revolutionary idealists, could only be considered a triumph by the most pridefully timid Anglophiles and the most exhausted democrats. It is far more conservative than the provisional constitution (roughly the OTL 1849 Frankfurt constitution). For example, the provisional constitution freed education from clerical oversight; the 1850 constitution does not, and implies education is largely left to the states. The states surrender important powers over diplomacy, customs, currency, and military affairs, but the central bureaucracy is still small, and the Imperial Diet is left to build national institutions and harmonize administration itself. In practice the Reich's legislative reach often outran its administrative capacity, leaving imperial law in the hands of officials who answered primarily to the states. The Reichsgericht (supreme court) quickly became the central institution for settling disputes between the Reich and the states. The languages and cultures of “non-German speaking peoples”  are constitutionally protected, but how far that protection goes is left open.

The Volkshaus is elected via secret ballot using a single-member, two-round absolute-majority system: a candidate needs >50% in the first ballot; otherwise the top two go to a Stichwahl (runoff).

Suffrage is initially restricted to men aged 25 and over, with the Reichswahlgesetz having a provision along these lines: “The franchise belongs to every male citizen of the Reich who has completed his twenty-fifth year, is of unblemished civil standing, and possesses economic and civic independence (wirtschaftliche und bürgerliche Selbständigkeit).”

A separate provision excludes those under guardianship, in active bankruptcy proceedings, receiving public poor relief, or deprived of civil rights by criminal judgment.

It does not explicitly exclude wage earners. Instead, the Schmerling government's first electoral regulations instruct officials to regard men in a relationship of personal or economic dependence as lacking Selbständigkeit. This initially includes most servants, apprentices, dependent journeymen, ordinary wage laborers and adult sons working within their fathers' households.

This is a post-Prussian-crisis revival of a principle previously defeated at Frankfurt. The “definition” of Selbständigkeit is gradually broadened over subsequent decades due to constant legal battles, because the number of adult men that live by wages drastically increases, making their exclusion increasingly silly. By the 1870s the electorate has drastically increased, but universal manhood suffrage has still not been achieved, with governing liberals increasingly fearful that further expansion would primarily strengthen the Socialists and conservative-clerical parties.

Confidence works like this:

• The Minister-President and ministers are appointed and dismissed by the Emperor.
• Imperial ministers are responsible for the exercise of executive power, and major imperial acts require ministerial countersignature.
• The government need not obtain an affirmative parliamentary investiture.
• The Volkshaus exercises binding legislative and budgetary authority.
• A government defeated on a major matter may remain in office, but a clear parliamentary withdrawal of confidence eventually requires resignation or dissolution.
• The Emperor retains the right to dissolve the Volkshaus and seek a new election, subject to safeguards against indefinitely circumventing Parliament.

Additionally, in 1858 the FP passed the crown jewel of its achievements: A package of reforms including a permanent budget committee with access to detailed ministerial accounts, requiring ministers to respond to questions from deputies, annual publication of comprehensive imperial accounts with an independent auditing institution, and pretty robust powers for committees investigating misconduct. This basically guaranteed that the Imperial Diet couldn’t be made toothless.

Franz Joseph did not begin his reign as a constitutionalist. A deeply conservative young monarch, he accepted Schwarzenberg's settlement largely out of necessity, and initially regarded many of its limitations on imperial authority with deep resentment. Over time—and with a great deal of patience from Minister-President Schmerling—he became an exceptionally capable constitutional monarch, though never a liberal. He remained a highly active participant in government, particularly in ministerial appointments, military affairs, and diplomacy, but gradually came to understand that openly exercising his authority could sometimes weaken it. Stubborn and occasionally prone to misjudging the Imperial Diet, he nevertheless learned to pick his battles, preferring private negotiations, quiet interventions, and ministerial influence to public constitutional confrontations he was unlikely to win. His political influence was substantial, but his public partisan footprint was small. He cultivated the image of a dignified, dutiful functionary who stood above ordinary party politics, and consequently enjoyed real personal respect even among republicans. Republicanism remained a significant political movement, but few considered the actual abolition of the monarchy a realistic prospect during his lifetime. 

His formal powers remained relatively constant, while the conventions governing their exercise changed considerably. By 1880, organized parliamentary parties had accumulated enough influence that the Emperor possessed much less practical freedom than he had in 1850, even though the constitution granted him essentially the same authority.

"If Germany were proclaimed a republic tomorrow, we would elect Franz Joseph its first President the day after—and grant him powers he would never dare exercise as Emperor." 

- Robert Blum, 1871

Political Parties:

Social Democratic Workers’ Party (Sozialdemokratische Arbeiterpartei, SDAP)

• BOO!

Free-Minded Radical Democratic Party (Freisinnige Radikaldemokratische Partei, FRdP)

• Offshoot of the FP and DVP following the FP becoming “elitist” and the DVP becoming “Prussian”. Formed in opposition to the policies of an RLP–FP coalition government in the 1860s, it massively gained popularity after the RLP’s 1870s electoral collapse and subsequent electoral alliance with the FP.
• Situated to the left of the Progressive Party. Supports Republicanism, Free Trade, legal unions, cheap bread, free schools, deputy salaries, Universal Suffrage, and Laïcité. Opposes colonialism.
• Everybody knows they’re Republicans, but they’re rather lowkey about that part.

Progressive Party (Fortschrittspartei, FP)

• Liberal-reformist party, formed shortly after the 1850 election by independent liberal legislators. Wants more Parliamentary control, universal suffrage, proportional taxes, state oversight of church schools, and a bunch of other liberal reforms.
• Eventually entered a permanent political alliance with the RLP in the 1870s.
• Has a smorgasbord of achievements but was completely unable to achieve universal male suffrage, full parliamentary responsibility for ministers, or comprehensive secularization of education.
• Support for universal suffrage became much less enthusiastic over time, until it became a priority again following electoral defeats. Their “universal suffrage” would still have a two-year residence requirement, which would quietly re-exclude the mobile young workers the household franchise already shuts out, among other friendly sounding restrictions.

Imperial Liberal Party (Reichsliberale Partei, RLP)

• Initially the natural party of government. Descendant of the Casino faction. At first an enormous network of respectable constitutional liberals, officials, lawyers, professors, businessmen and local notables who rally around the new settlement.
• Liberal-Conservative, Habsburg Loyalist, and Pragmatic. 
• Really liked calling themselves “the Whigs” and the Conservatives “the Tories” for the first few years until they realized everyone thought it was weird and lame and it wasn’t catching on.

Free Conservative Party (Freikonservative Partei, FKP)

• A Conservative Party that split from the German Imperial Party over the DRP’s relative apathy towards Austrian domination. Disproportionately Protestant compared to the DRP. Economically liberal and suspicious of paternalistic state intervention.
• The whole party initially accepts the Empire's protectionist tariff regime as a practical necessity, but develops a powerful free-trade wing during the 1850s and 1860s. The two wings are Freihändler (economic liberals, bourgeois, commercially oriented, disproportionately northern/Protestant, more committed to strong national institutions but still suspicious of Austrian domination) and Schutzzöllner (agrarian and provincial conservatives, protectionists, a bit insular, increasingly receptive to clerical and paternalist conservatism)
• Considers the development of a massive overseas empire to be financially ruinous and largely pointless. The British will defend German investments anyway.

German Imperial Party (Deutsche Reichspartei, DRP)

• Conservative Party, which represents the traditional political establishment and landlords. Generally leans Catholic. What unites them is hierarchy, landed property, monarchy and suspicion of continued revolutionary reform.
• Not really a “party” yet during the 1850 election, but a very embryonic caucus of conservative legislators.
• Still thinks the mild quasi-endorsement of an 80 year old Metternich means something.
• Reluctant to act like a proper mass party. Eventually becomes a bit of a joke, filled with old weirdos elected via traditional patronage, until it's absorbed into the CKP.
• It holds on a bit better in the Staatenhaus.

Christian Conservative Party (Christlich-Konservative Partei, CKP)

• In the early 1860s, the RLP–FKP coalition formed around what they both considered “modernization”. The Schutzzöllner wing of the FKP hated this, because abstract complaining about excessive government intervention suddenly became concrete policy, and pissed off. They don’t want to join the DRP, because it's kind of embarrassing and crusty. So a new party is formed.
• This party is monarchist, protectionist, agrarian, clerical-friendly, anti-socialist, corporatist, and suspicious of liberal secularization.
• This is an interconfessional conservative coalition with a disproportionately Catholic clerical/aristocratic core and a substantial Protestant agrarian wing.
• Favors an aggressive colonial policy with state-led territorial expansion, because of protectionism and missionaries.

German People’s Party (Deutsche Volkspartei, DVP)

• Begins as a broad radical-democratic party containing urban republicans, anticlerical intellectuals, revolutionary nationalists, artisans, peasants, early socialists. Republican, anti-clerical, democratic, revanchist against Prussia (though many want Bohemia and Slovenia to be independent), and opposed to standing armies.
• The Social Democrats pull the organized working-class left away. The Progressives and eventually the Radicals pull respectable constitutional democrats away. Republicanism itself becomes less urgent as generations grow up under a functioning constitutional empire, except for a lot of Protestants that distrust the Habsburg Monarchy. What’s left is a portion of the radical nationalist, anticlerical, highly educated urban/professional wing, and a lot of people who couldn’t vote in the first place.
• Was at its lowest in the late 1860s/early 1870s, where it occasionally failed to win any seats despite having a lot of members and a downright comical level of organization. At this point it's kind of an incoherent, directionless revanchist party pissed off about things people already came to terms with. 1848 members holding onto their seats on personal reputation retire/die, people in its clubs vote RLP/FKP or just can’t vote, and the vote is thin and scattered.
• Could still technically be construed as just militant anti-clerical democrats until the Long Depression. The subsequent CKP-BNP-KNP coalition pisses them off even more due to minority protections and clericalism. And some Jewish conspiracies on the side.
• Ideas of every citizen being in a militia transformed into an obsession with the “nation in arms” and universal conscription to fight back against the French, Prussians, Danish, Russians, reactionaries, whatever. Gymnastics clubs and rifle clubs make it semi-paramilitarized. “Germany must produce its own Bonaparte.”
• Not pro-universal suffrage. Too many citizens have foreign influence, so favors kind of draconian suffrage restrictions.
• Theoretically not anti-parliamentary as of 1880, still insists parliament should be sovereign, though parliament itself may or may not become the problem if Catholics continue to win elections.
• Leader since 1874 is Georg von Schönerer.
• A lot more old-school statist than it is corporatist.
• In 1878, a book titled Die Königinhofer Lüge: Wie Rußland die Tschechen erfand ("The Königinhof Lie: How Russia Invented the Czechs") was published. The book declares Czech a false identity invented by Russian-funded professors that handed them a largely forged history and invented language, and goes on to detail a vast conspiracy begun in 1712 by Peter the Great. The DVP believes 100% of it.

Bohemian National Party (Böhmische Nationalpartei, BNP)

• Broad Czech national coalition advocating recognition of Czech, restoration/protection of the constitutional rights of the Bohemian Crownlands, and extensive federal autonomy. Its leadership leans liberal, but in 1850 it has a very big tent that includes Catholic conservatives.
• Still hasn’t managed to create a Bohemian state by 1880 lol.
• Later the Free Conservative Party peels away a lot of its Conservative membership. “I don’t want Prague lawyers running everything,” says the Czech peasant. Because the FKP develops Czech-speaking local organizations and remains officially non-confessional.

Slovene National Party (Slovenska narodna stranka / Slowenische Nationalpartei, SNP)

• Wants all Slovene-majority territory consolidated into an autonomous Slovenia within the German Empire. Liberal and secular in nature.

Catholic National Party (Katholische Nationalpartei, KNP)

• Slovene party that split from the SNP because it’s too secular/liberal
• Integralist, a bit more accepting of Habsburg rule and German influence than the SNP
• Hates the other Slovene parties more than it hates the other Catholic-conservative parties.
• Still kinda cares about Slovene autonomy/rights but integralism makes them massive bootlickers willing to sell out.

Istrian Party (Partito Istriano, PI)

• Successor to the Candidati nazionali italiani, a loose band of Italian town notables who had sent a few deputies from Trieste, Istria and Fiume since 1850. It finally organized as a real party in 1876–77, once the 1875 franchise statute put thousands of Croat and Slovene villagers (*retch*) on the roll.
• “Istria”, in PI usage, runs from Gradisca to Fiume; it sounds friendlier than “the Julian March”.
• Wants an autonomous Istria with its own Diet (for affluent Italians), (Italian) schools, and self-government (for the coastal towns). It’s very much in favour of Istrian self-government, as long as Istria is self-governed by the people who already govern it (That’s the self part). 
• Liberal, secular and anticlerical, which puts it firmly against the CKP–BNP–KNP coalition. Wins the runoff due to German voters and its massive political machine.

Czecho-Slovak National Party (Česko-slovenská národní strana, CSP)

• Disagrees with the notion of the “Bohemian crown being an ancient and autonomous political entity within the German constitutional” blah blah blah whatever the other party says. Thinks German rule over Czechia is illegitimate. Split from the Bohemian National Party over its coalition with the CKP.
• Also frustrated by the little headway made by the “collaborationist” BNP, and by a nationalist Austrian state government actively rolling back protections.
• Has a considerable Russophilic element

Low German Party (Niederdeutsche Partei, NDP)

• Agrarian party that advocates for the interests of “Low Germans”, whatever that means. Like 99% Protestant. Wants more Federalism, protections for Protestants, and the Low German language protected. There are a few strands:
  • Low German federalists, who want more autonomy for Low German states. This is the vast, vast majority of them.
  • Low German separatists, who want an independent “Low German” (usually Hannover, Oldenburg, and Holstein. Occasionally other stuff) state. This eventually gets squashed as the NDP becomes more mainstream. Contented by a long term demand for a unified Low German state.
  • Prussian unionists, who want to secede and join Prussia. This faction is pretty quiet for a while, and is content advocating for peaceful relations and reunification.
• Uses a very unique black-white-red flag, until the Prussian associations of the black-white part cause them to scrap it in favor of the blue-white-red Schleswig-Holstein flag with a Sachsenross in the middle.
• 1849–54: After its humiliation, the restored Prussian regime increasingly insists that Prussia is not merely a failed claimant to Germany but a distinct historical state with its own political destiny. At first this is mostly dynastic and constitutional, not linguistic.
• 1853–58: Reuter/Groth-type literature becomes more politically charged in Hanover, Oldenburg, Holstein, Hamburg/Bremen, etc. This is still primarily a cultural movement at first.
• 1857–60: A royal commission standardizes a written form based on East/Brandenburg Low German and related northern forms; school primers, patriotic songs, army publications, and some local administrations begin using it. The state calls it Preußisch, while Germans outside Prussia mockingly call it things like “Staatsplatt.” Initially a bit of a novelty, this becomes a very conscious state-building project once Otto von Bismarck comes to power. Apart from the obvious benefit of shutting pro-German Liberals up, the logic is sound: If the Low Germans of the Empire accept “Prussian” as a distinct identity, they drift towards Prussia. If they recoil and accelerate the construction of their own “Plattdeutsch” identity, they have stopped treating “German” as one obvious nation. All Bismarck has to do is keep a friendly face to keep most of the resentment aimed at Vienna/Frankfurt, and it's a win-win.
• 1860–64: Imperial northern Protestants increasingly resent both Habsburg/Catholic dominance and Prussia’s attempt to monopolize Low German identity. Local electoral leagues appear first, then the party in 1865. Adopts a broad policy of detente towards Bismarck’s Prussia, despite being annoyed to death by Staatsplatt.
• Late 1860s: Standardized “Prussian” becomes compulsory or semi-compulsory in primary schools and expands into local administration/army life. High German remains important for diplomacy, higher education, and interstate business for a long time. The backlash hardens the NDP’s support for its own “Plattdeutsch” language.
• 1872–74: Following considerable pressure, Wilhelm I dismisses Chancellor Bismarck, ending the détente between Germany and Prussia. After the 1873 Vienna crash, Bennigsen’s FKP shares the blame, and its Protestant voters across the Low German countryside go over to the NDP, which more than doubles its seats in 1874. 
• 1880: Talks to bring the NDP into Hohenwart’s government almost fell through, because nobody likes their stupid language and people would rather deal with a minority government than with Platt. Got a few concessions, though.

Prussian National Party (Preußische Nationale Partei, PNP)

• Far-right party that advocates for the secession of “Low Germany” into Prussia. It is illiberal, militaristic, authoritarian, and admires the reactionary Prussian state.

Source maps:

German Confederation: HGIS Germany 

German Administrative District Boundaries: https://hgl.harvard.edu/catalog/harvard-germany-admin-1890 

Austria-Hungary: GISta Hungarorum 

Czech lands: Czoernig's dataset, which is sourced from Karel Kuča's CZ_RETRO project 

Demographics were estimates, loosely based on census figures.

I will post the tools and graphics stuff I built to make the map/posters/simulate results soon on github after I clean it all up, but don’t expect it to be useful for much. HTML is the worst thing I've ever learned.

Also ignore munich having a random straight line through it or Vienna looking like abstract art thank you