The Federal government quickly secured a confession from Vice-President Freemon on charges of promoting an armed insurrection against the government. The confession specified that his family, who had also been arrested, were not aware of his treason, and had no part in it. He named other co-conspirators though, and federal arrest warrants quickly rounded up many more politicians throughout Virginia. Some managed to cross State lines to request asylum from political persecution, where they questioned the very nature of the confessions. They denied the charges and claimed that the Feds had threatened to hurt Freemon’s family if he didn’t confess and name co-conspirators. The Feds dismissed the charges as obvious conspiracy theories and continued to hunt for and arrest political enemies linked to the previous administration throughout Virginia and beyond.
Vice-President John Jefferson Freemon returned to his western Virginia home to a heroes’ welcome. His friends and family loved him. The long-term patients he had cared for in his doctor’s practice loved him. Those who had donated or taken part in his campaigns for decades loved him. He was the most popular person in Lexington, even before the new President sent the FBI to arrest him and his family on charges of armed insurrection. They arrested or investigated anyone with any connection to Freemon, and denied Freemon’s attorney the ability to speak with his client. The FBI even convinced Virginia to disbar him, and then arrested him on charges of passing Freemon’s messages to other insurrectionists. Combined with the attempted arrest of President Lopez in Texas, the obvious persecution of political rivals simply made Freemon even more popular in western Virginia and beyond.
The States of Dixie grew immensely powerful and rich in the years leading up to the Second Civil War. Their factories armed the American military, and most of the military bases were in those States, or States friendly to them. Most of the fuel and food that fed them came from Southern States as well. Even the President and Vice-President were Southerners, coming from populations labeled “oppressed minorities” by previous political generations. So when President Samuel Mateo Lopez, and Vice-President John Jefferson Freemon were Impeached, the States of Dixie did not take kindly to the act. They may have even told the new President to perform certain impossible anatomical acts when he demanded that they bend the knee to him. His reaction is why Dixie calls it the Second Civil War, rather than the Second Great Depression as most of the American States do.
The States that make up the Confederation of Dixie were always a breed apart from the other American States. Many of them seceded during the First Civil War. The richest families of that Old South had been the pinnacle of a society built on slavery, and they fought to the very end to protect their way of life. That society had faded away in the two centuries following its defeat, and the South that rose again during the Second Civil War was an entirely different civilization. It was built on the greatest concentration of industrialized capacity in America, and home to First World education systems that had graduated generations of educated citizens. They didn’t secede when the Federal government went mad. They simply refused to follow the mad orders, and that was enough to earn the ire of those who still thought they ruled America.
John Jefferson Freemon was the hometown hero in the western Virginia Blue Ridge Mountain town of Lexington. He had been the captain of his high school football team. He continued to play football for the local Washington and Lee University and led them to multiple championships. He became a successful doctor after graduation and saved many lives. He served in the Virginia legislature, and then in the United States House of Representatives. And finally, he won election to become the Vice-President of the United States of America. He was the most famous face in Lexington, Virginia, and his friends and family loved him for it. His patients loved him. He was a genuinely nice man, and the only people who hated him were his political enemies. They hated him enough to Impeach him, and he returned home to a heroes’ welcome.