Southern-Less USA 2.0: A Nation Torn Apart

Thing is, New England colonies/states would not just consist of only 6 OTL New England states. At that time, there were loads of New England settlers in Upstate New York and many other Midwest regions like Northern Ohio, Northwest Pennsylvania, Michihan. New England would push for the possession over these places.
Very well depends on what the other states try to do.
 
Last edited:
The
If anything they would probably be the most loyal to Great Britain and try to not contest any potential land claims.
By that time the Brits no longer had claims in those lands. If anything, Britain would likely support New England, which is more likely to maintain a friendly trade relation than other states, in claiming most of them.

However, New England voluntarily returning to the British Empire is just a trope, given the fact that they had been politically at odd with the Crown for centuries and republicanism was strong there.
 
Last edited:
The
By that time the Brits no longer had claims in those lands. If anything, Britain would likely support New England, which is more likely to maintain a friendly trade relation than other states, in claiming most of them.

However, New England voluntarily returning to the British Empire is just a trope, given the fact that they had been politically at odd with the Crown for centuries and republicanism was strong there.
I didn't necessarily mean loyal as in return to the crown. I meant the most pro-England and most likely to respect the territorial wishes of the crown.
 
Chapter One: Constitutional Convolution
Chapter One: Constitutional Convolution

640px-Scene_at_the_Signing_of_the_Constitution_of_the_United_States.jpg

Originally planned to begin on May 14 at the Pennsylvania State House, the convention had to be postponed when very few delegates were present. Hence, it did not begin until May 25 when a quorum of seven state delegations had arrived. New Hampshire delegates would not arrive at the convention until July 23, while Rhode Island refused to send any delegates to Philadelphia at all. The first thing done was unanimously electing George Washington unanimously elected to be the president of the convention and James McHenry as its secretary. In its governing rules, each state delegation received a single vote corresponding to a proposal that aligns with the majority opinion of the delegates. This helped keep the smaller states at the table. States did not cast votes when they were evenly divided on any given motion or if too few of the delegates were in attendance. Unlike the other states, Connecticut and Maryland allowed a single delegate to cast their vote, while New York required all three delegates to be at the table. This would come back to haunt Alexander Hamilton later on in the Convention. It was agreed upon that all discussion and voting would be done in secrecy and not revealed to the public until the meeting concluded, even going so far as to nail the windows of the hall shut in spite of the summer heat. James Madison provided the most complete set of notes accounting for the events.

In general, the meeting was almost a disaster. The initial outlook was promising, though. Before the convention formally began, James Madison created a proposal that was strongly nationalist in nature known as the Virginia Plan. The plan was modeled on the state models and had fifteen resolutions, including replacing the unicameral legislature with a bicameral one, with one of them being elected by the people. It did, however, lack a system of checks and balances between the branches of government despite calling for a more supreme national government. On May 29, Virginia governor Edmund Randolph presented the Plan. The convention also agreed, the next day, that the government should have legislative, executive, and national branches, with there being one single executive (determined on June 1). The Virginia Plan called for both chambers of Congress to have representation based on population because Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts, the most populous states, were unhappy with having one vote per state in Congress. On the other hand, the small states were opposed to changes that decreased their influence, with the Delaware delegation threatening to walk out without equal representation. On June 7, it was decided that state legislatures would choose Congressional senators. On June 15, William Patterson introduced an alternative to the Virginia Plan called the New Jersey Plan, which called for a unicameral Congress, each state having one vote, and plural executives among other things.

The two plans were inherently at odds. On June 19, the delegates voted whether to proceed with the New Jersey Plan. With the support of Connecticut, Georgia, and the Carolinas, most of the larger states defeated the plan by a 7-3 vote. Maryland's delegation abstained. The delegates found themselves in a stalemate for days. Before a compromise could be found, Delaware and New Jersey walked out of the convention in July. Thus, the Virginia Plan prevailed. When it seemed like the Articles of Confederation were going to be tossed aside, two of the New York delegates walked out as well. Another issue the Constitutional Convention had to face was slavery and the Atlantic slave trade. Dating back to a proposed amendment to the Articles of Confederation in 1783, one of the most popular proposals for the representation of slaves for Congress was three-fifths of a person. While southerners wanted slaves counted so they could have more seats in Congress, many in the north viewed them as property hence they should not count at all. It looked like three-fifths would be the accepted ratio. However, several delegates from New England offered to raise the ratio to two-thirds in exchange for an abolition of the slave trade. All states except Georgia and the Carolinas had officially abolished it and with North Carolina, it was de facto abolished. Georgia and South Carolina threatened to walk out if the motion passed, which it, unfortunately for them, did. Withdrawing from Philadephia, the issue of slavery was settled.

Most Georgian and South Carolinian delegates, with a notable perception of Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, walked out. There were only seven states represented: Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. New Hampshire would show up on July 23, while Rhode Island refused to commit any delegates regardless of the outcome. The convention soon favored legislative impeachment in the event of executive removal from office. It was also decided that the Senate would approve new federal judges. In late July, the committee delegations voted to submit the Constitution and proposed amendments for approval. Through drafting and modification process took place through August and September. The Constitutional Convention departed on September 17 after signing the document, with the air much cooler and calmer than in May. Pennsylvania, Connecticut, and Massachusetts were the first three states to ratify the Constitution. With controversy ensuing, Maryland followed in spring 1788. New Hampshire (with influence and pressure from Massachusetts), Virginia, and New York ratified it later that year. North Carolina and Rhode Island would only ratify it with a guaranteed Bill of Rights. Once the latter state ratified the Constitution on August 31, 1790, after reaching a quorum of nine states, Georgia and South Carolina declared independence, and Delaware and New Jersey split off into the Federation of Delaware Bay. Tough times laid ahead for the United States of America.
 
Last edited:
Note: From here on, I will be doing one update for each of my timelines in a rotational manner. So, after I update my other timelines once more, I will come back to this one.
 
Map of North America, 1790
Here is a map of OTL United States circa 1790

USA Map 1790.png


Turquoise = United States of America
Light Turquoise = Northwest Territory
Green = Republic of Vermont
Beige = Federation of Delaware Bay
Dark Teal = Republic of South Carolina
Gold = Republic of Georgia
Orange = Spanish Possessions
Red = Territory Disputed by Spain and Great Britain
 
As of right now, I am in the beginning phase of planning for the next chapter, which should be about what happens to the United States once the Consitution is ratified. It should be ready either by next weekend or the week after at the very latest.
 
The new chapter should be ready momentarily. I actually found the direction to take this difficult at first before finally finding my footing with it. Enjoy.
 
Chapter Two: Rebellion On the Frontier
Chapter Two: Rebellion On the Frontier

1634514680545.png

August 31, 1790 changed the history of North America. The day Rhode Island voted to ratify the Constitution, it became the law of the land. Predictably, Rhode Island was the last of the nine states needed to ratify the Constitution. Being the first to declare state Independence in the Revolutionary War and the only state not to send any delegates to the Constitutional Convention, one would understand opposition ratification had in the state, especially with the approval of the Virginia Plan. With pressure from other New England states, it reluctantly approved to join the Union three months later. Once word got out about the ratification in Rhode Island, Georgia and South Carolina petitioned to secede from the Union, claiming it was valid as neither ratified the Constitution. The two soon became close allies and their own states, with their constitutions fully counting slaves for representation and expanding the slave trade (the latter much to the disgust of their northern neighbors). Not much later, Delaware and New Jersey announced their secession on the same grounds as Georgia and South Carolina. Pennsylvania effectively sealed off from Delaware Bay, began raising an army but could not get support from any other state. With that, Delaware and New Jersey unified into the Federation of Delaware Bay. Despite this, the United States hoped to get things rolling. There would be a bicameral legislature with representation based on population and slaves counting as two-thirds of a person at the expense of the slave trade.

Near the end of September, the process of organizing the new government began. The Continental Congress passed a resolution on October 19, 1790, to put the new Constitution into effect. The new federal government began operations on March 4, 1791, when Vermont joined the Union, after the initial elections began on November 8. As the heroic leader of the Continental Army during the American Revolution, George Washington was unanimously elected by the Senate as the first US president and he was inaugurated in Philadelphia on April 30. Early in his presidency, Washington had initially hoped for Robert Morris, a Philadelphia merchant and a financier of the Revolution, to be the Secretary of the Treasury but he declined so it went to Alexander Hamilton of New York instead. With support from Washington and opposition from Thomas Jefferson, he convinced Congress to pass a far-reaching financial program to fund debts from the American Revolution and set up a national bank and a tariff and tax system. New England especially favored them because of the inability to directly ship goods to Philadelphia. Most Southern and Appalachian Americans opposed the plan because they repudiated their debt and their farming-based economies resisted centralization and subordination to the mercantilist North. The plan came into effect in mid-1792 and the Bank of the United States was created in spite of objections from rural Appalachian and southern Americans like Thomas Jefferson.

No state was angrier than Pennsylvania, though. Anger began building up in 1791 as the state was already cut off from Delaware Bay and international tariffs imposed by the Federation of Delaware Bay had resulted in major revenue reductions for Pennsylvania. Western Pennsylvania particularly suffered from this. In 1790, the population of the region numbered 17,000 people, most of whom were farmers, with whom whiskey excises were immediately controversial when passed in March 1791. Farmers west of the Appalachian Mountains distilled excess grain into whiskey which was easier and less expensive to transport east than grain. For western farmers, a tax would make their whiskey less competitive against eastern grain. Making this worse was that many people were paid in whiskey instead of cash which was often in short supply. Opposition to the tax was particularly high in the four southwestern countries of Allegheny, Fayette, Washington, and Westmoreland. Resistance there reached the point of violence, including the tarring and feathering of tax collectors. There was also opposition to the whiskey tax in other states within Appalachia like New York, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, and Kentucky (once it became a state in June 1792). Resistance continued into 1793, with some central and eastern Pennsylvania counties now resisting as the effect of export tariffs began to be felt.

The insurrections came to their climax in 1794. That May, district attorney William Rawle issued subpoenas to over 60 tardy distillers in Pennsylvania who had not paid the tax. Under the law, distillers who received these would have to appear on trial in Philadelphia, which was beyond the means of many farmers. Federal Marshal Lenox delivered most of the writs without incident, until the evening of July 15 when shots were fired from the Miller Farm about 10 miles south of Pittsburgh, causing Lenox to retreat. The next day, 30 militiamen surrounding the fortified home of General John Neville, demanding the surrender of the marshall, unsuccessful in their demands, they retreated to Couch's Fort for reinforcements. They returned to Bower Hill on July 17 with nearly 600 men commanded by Revolutionary War Veteran Major James McFarlane, opposing a group U.S. Army soldiers from Pittsburgh under Major Abraham Kirkpatrick. Neville hid in a nearby ravine before they arrived but Lenox (and Neville’s son, Presley) was captured by the rebels. Not long after McFarlane called a ceasefire, he was shot from the house and was mortally wounded. Enraged rebels set fire to the house according to some, and Kirkpatrick surrendered and was kept prisoner with Lenox and Presley Neville. This radicalized the countryside further, with uprisings now in Ohio and Monongalia Counties in West Virginia, Hagerstown and other parts of western Maryland, and many parts of Kentucky. A storm was brewing that would be difficult to contain.
 
Last edited:
Pretty good chapter. Thanks for the update.
I like the alt-Whiskey Rebellion?
I'd like to see where this goes!
This isn't so much an alt-Whiskey Rebellion as it is OTL Whiskey Rebellion with a few stipulations, but that should soon change. I should also make clear the lack of a direct water route to Philadelphia gave New England an additional motive to support the Whiskey Tax beyond being a Federalist stronghold. And I just added that unlike OTL, New York is seeing some rebellions as well, compounded by the lack of access to Philadelphia and Delaware Bay.
 
I just had a thought: might one of the Southern nations go monarchist? I can't see it happening in the North, but establishing a formal aristocracy might appeal to the planters.
 

Deleted member 147978

I just had a thought: might one of the Southern nations go monarchist? I can't see it happening in the North, but establishing a formal aristocracy might appeal to the planters.
I frankly do not see Georgia or South Carolina going monarchist especially when both states took part in a republican revolutionary war of independence, that is to say I'm not denying that it would happen.

The most likely chance of that happening is that both states are willing to rejoin the Mother Country and her empire, and possibly be granted Dominion status sometime later down the road.
 
I frankly do not see Georgia or South Carolina going monarchist especially when both states took part in a republican revolutionary war of independence, that is to say I'm not denying that it would happen.

The most likely chance of that happening is that both states are willing to rejoin the Mother Country and her empire, and possibly be granted Dominion status sometime later down the road.
At the same time, I can't see New England - the birthplace of the Revolution - rejoining the Empire. I mean, this has been a common AH trope.
 
At the same time, I can't see New England - the birthplace of the Revolution - rejoining the Empire. I mean, this has been a common AH trope.
Not New England per se, but IRL, Vermont was very pro-British and pro-Crown. When the British occupied Vermont during the Wo1812 iotl, much of the state militia defected (and were promptly killed by the USA in 1815) and the entire British army in Northern NE was supported by Vermont irl. Massachusetts, Rhode Island, or Connecticut rejoining the British is fanciful, but New Hampshire or Vermont or both were very real possibilities iotl as well.
 
Top