United States Emperors
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The Emperor of America was a secret shadow-office created in the country's infancy by a group of people high in the government who were growing increasingly tired of dealing with the pitfalls of democracy.
Surprisingly enough, the ringleader of this bloodless coup was then-President George Washington, who initiated the plot in 1796.
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[edit] Background
At first, Washington had made an honest attempt to freely use the Presidency at whim, but it was seven years in when he realized it just wasn't working; the President had to be ceremonial. Gathering together a select number of Congressmen from the 4th Congress who agreed with him, they set about creating a new office: Emperor.
[edit] Conspiracy
The President would do all of the dignitary business and put on quite the show, while the real ruler of the nation, the Emperor, a life-long ruler, would focus on the actual affairs of foreign policy and state. Thus, the President and the entire Executive Branch's purpose was not to wield power, but to draw attention away from it. Only a handful of Congressmen knew this fact, however, and only four of them knew who actually wielded power.
These men were:
- John Adams, Vice President
- Henry Tazewell, President pro tempore of the Senate
- Jonathan Dayton, Speaker of the House
- Rufus King, Senior Senator from New York
As part of the plot, they appointed Associate Justice William Cushing to the position of Chief Justice of the Supreme Court for ten days, during which time the conspiracy was legally finalized by a covert amendment made to the Constitution, rendering all decisions made by the President null and void and giving an expanded version of the Executive Branch's powers to the office of Emperor.
Cushing then, in an Anglican ceremony, anointed George Washington to be America's first Emperor, to serve for life in a role many desired but few would dream of. Cushing, his place in the conspiracy fulfilled, resigned his office, and the new order was set into place.
[edit] Successors
After Washington retired from the Presidency, he made a few decisions from his farm in Virginia, but not enough to count.
In the throes of his last illness, late in 1789, he invited former political rival Aaron Burr to his plantation, where he revealed everything to him. After telling Burr that he had always admired him, he then confessed:
| All that I have, all that I've learned, everything I feel... all this, and more I... I bequeath you. You will make my strength your own, and see my life through your own eyes, as your life will be seen through mine. I have always had faith in my countrymen. They can be a great people, Aaron, if they wish to be. They only lack the light to show the way. For this reason above all, their capacity for good, I will send them you... my only heir. |
Washington then took a pitcher of warm water and anointed Burr as second Emperor.
[edit] Aaron Burr
Burr, now Emperor, informed the other conspirators of the coronation. Then president John Adams, realizing what this meant to the country, met with Burr where he reassured him that the Presidency would continue to be a useless office, and that Burr would be America's true leader. Unfortunately, that information was not given to incoming president Thomas Jefferson before his inauguration little more than a year later, and so Burr, having run for the marginally-useful office of Vice President, was forced to relinquish most of his duties, as Jefferson began to take his new office seriously.
Some historians conjecture that the reason for this was Burr's casual regard for politics, and that he didn't act aggressively enough. Jefferson was tight-lipped in private about Burr, so his reasons are still not entirely clear. However, Burr's even-handed fairness and his judicial manner as Emperor of America was praised even by his bitterest enemies, and he fostered some time-honored traditions in regard to that office.
Finally, in late 1836, Aaron Burr, now living in England, was near death. Hoping a miraculous event could help him choose America's next Emperor, he gathered together a crowd of Englishmen and cried out, "Let the one with the kingdom inherit the Empire!"
At that, Isambard Kingdom Brunel pushed his way out of the crowd. Shouting, "As you will, sir!", he lowered his head on bended knee toward Burr's makeshift bedside. Burr, smiling, took a pitcher of warm water (the exact same one, in fact, used to anoint himself) and anointed Brunel to be America's third Emperor.
[edit] Isambard Kingdom Brunel
Brunel's glorious 23-year reign was filled with peace, although no one in America paid attention to his policies and very little was done to assert his Imperial authority.
Sadly, he was assassinated at his palatial summer home in Devon, England, just as his era was entering its golden days, by the renegade Californian military officer Joshua A. Norton, who, in a mad quest for power, subsequently returned to the United States to be anointed by Chief Justice Roger B. Taney as the fourth Emperor.
[edit] Joshua A. Norton
Norton's reign was one of unprecedented war and terror, brought about by his noted collection of hats, his commitment to racial hate and his willingness to personally educate raging mobs how very easy it was to not betray their neighbors, an approach of such simplistic idiocy that it has never been repeated by another reigning monarch.
Norton, however, eventually grew popular, though he was still feared and hated by some. Towards the end of his reign, he cracked down more on dissidents, which may have led to his rather untimely death.
On January 8, 1880, the Emperor was on his way to a state banquet, held in his honor, when a terrible assassin leapt out from behind a streetlamp and stabbed him in the chest, killing Norton instantly. A fierce mob formed and viciously attacked the murderer, ripping him to pieces; as such, the identity of the Emperor's killer will never truly be known.
At the opening of his will, it was found that his heir was to be the four-year-old son of an English brewer; as such, he was raised to follow the esoteric footsteps of the late Emperor, eventually founding his own religion. This fifth Emperor's name was Aleister Crowley.
[edit] Aleister Crowley
By the age of five, the young Emperor was a master of English language, a poet and a distinguished social critic with a wide range of studies in science.
The day he turned fourteen, the Great Revelation came to Crowley. He received a most horrible Understanding that God had changed in ways most terrible, and that he had to lay down a new path for the righteous. Afterwards, He wrote the Words of His Will as a little manual for the Guidance of Mankind.
Of course, all things must come to an end, and so Crowley died on December 1, 1947, leaving the office of Emperor to five-year-old fellow Englishman Brian Jones.
[edit] Brian Jones
Jones later went on to become a rock legend, playing for that renowned British rock band, The Rolling Stones. As time went by, however, he delved deeper and deeper into the drug underculture that was so pervasive in the '60s, growing sicklier by the day.
One day, a man came up to him as he was relaxing in his pool and shot him with a tranquilizer gun. This caused Brian to sink to the bottom of his pool, and he drowned.
The murderous creep was later found out to be former president Lyndon Johnson, who then drove to Washington, got Chief Justice Warren Burger to swear him in at gunpoint, and sat back and made bets for the rest of his reign.
[edit] Lyndon B. Johnson
Unfortunately, in January of 1973, Johnson made a bet with one of his drinking buddies that Johnson himself couldn't walk into the White House, jump up and down on President Richard M. Nixon's desk, poop in Nixon's face, and draw a loaded gun on Secret Service agents. On January 22, 1973, LBJ did so. Predictably, Johnson was gunned down, resulting in yet another dreary Presidential funeral.
There was, surprisingly, an interesting point: Soon after the funeral, Nixon found out about the Imperial title and LBJ's seizure of it. With Johnson now dead, however, Nixon was free to claim the title for himself.
[edit] Richard M. Nixon
And claim it he did; beginning on January 26, 1973, Nixon began telling his staff to call him His Imperial Majesty, and urged them to change his letterhead from "President of the United States" to "Emperor of the United States". He even convinced Chief Justice Warren Burger, who was already severely traumatized by the gun threats issued by Johnson if he didn't coronate him, to formally anoint him Emperor at the next joint-session of Congress; ironically, March 15. Needless to say, few were impressed by the bombastic display, but it did keep their minds off the recent busting of the Watergate dam -- until word got loose.
At the same time, 17 charges of child molestation by Nixon also surfaced. Reporters started to investigate Nixon in the following months, and questioning his every move. Nixon quickly began resignation proceedings to avoid justice and ran away. Soon finding out that the only way he could avoid justice was to be pardoned, he began to blackmail now-President Gerald Ford into doing the pardoning for him.
Nixon threatened to publicly release Ford's underground 1971 all-male pornographic film Not-So-Little Big Man, if Ford did not pardon him. He also made Ford swear to let him keep the powers of Emperor until his death; after that, he could banish the office. After thinking things through for about five seconds, Ford pardoned Nixon, but begged him to "please keep this between us".
But the joke was on Ford: Upon receiving the pardon, Nixon double-crossed Ford by releasing the film to all the national news stations, making Ford the laughing stock of the world and causing Carter to defeat Ford in the 1976 Presidential election.
For two long decades, Nixon brooded in solitude on his little ranch in California, dreaming up new schemes and attempting to find new ways to annoy his neighbors, all for naught.
On April 22, 1994, Nixon was watering his long-lived Venus fly-trap when it suddenly reached up and bit him on the nose. Howling, Nixon attempted to detatch it, but to no avail; the plant completely swallowed Nixon's nose, leaving a stub in the middle of the man's face.
As it was squirting copious amounts of blood, Nixon collapsed and eventually bled to death in the middle of his lawn, taking about four hours to die. Apparently, nobody really liked him that much. Thus ended the reign of Nixon I, eighth (and last) Emperor of America.
Requiescat in pace!
[edit] The List
This is a complete list of all 8 United States Emperors. It you wish to edit the list, please use a time machine and alter history; we will not do it for you.
