Christopher Nuttall - Axis of Evil

The industrialists were generally tried for high treason. Companies that had funded the rebellion were stripped of their leaders and stock was sold to the workers, provided that all traces of segregation were removed.

Finally, the foot soldiers were generally offered conditional amnesty, with the exception of those who had committed crimes while they held the centre of Washington. The ‘condition’ was a long period in a punishment battalion in the war; many of them would go on to distinguish themselves in the long war against fascism.

Although some Southern fire-eaters talked of a second secession, their position was hopeless and enough were realistic enough to see that. This was not 1861, when the South had been reasonably united behind the CSA, but a small cabal of leaders attempting to use the loyalist factions to save their own hides. Once the coup had collapsed, their control collapsed rapidly in the midst of thousands of people settling scores of one kind or another.

Once the United States had declared war on the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the new Congress passed a series of amendments to the Constitution, intended to prevent such a situation from arising again. The most important elements were, in essence, the duty to bear arms, a law banning discrimination on racial or sexual grounds, a law banning any attempt to prevent people from voting and finally a law obliging the government to provide free contraception for everyone. A number of supplemental measures, adopted during the Truman administration, further cemented the reforms, although it was years before the dream of colour-blindness was realised.

For the heroes of the rebellion, there was a general amnesty, although it included the warning that further criminal action would result in the amnesty being withdrawn. The members of Black Power, for example, received amnesty in exchange for ending the campaign of terror. Although a handful continued to seek revenge, the majority accepted the amnesty and ended a bitter chapter in American history.