Krall
Banned
His/Her Continental Majesty Emperor/Emperess Doesn'thaveanamebecauseIhaven'tworkedthatoutyetsorry. I seriously haven't worked out the names of any of the monarchs or any of the Royal Family beyond King Christian I, I'm afraid.
I like to know I'm better than other people, even if it is in a way that's entirely useless.
And here's the link to its page on DeviantArt, complete with the original backstory. The backstory I wrote on there may change/may already have changed, though, so some of it won't make it into the final canon, though the initial PoD and some of the details (e.g. Washington retreating from Maryland into Virginia) are going to stay in place.
However, it is nice to see that map again. So thanks! Funny story, my GF actually bonked me on the head once for looking at that on my Ipad when I was at a party.
Silly girlfriend - maps are more important than people!
I think I might know why - state capitals aren't marked. Neither is the federal capital, now that I think about it, but that's mainly because I wanted it to be moved from Philadelphia to somewhere further west towards the centre of the nation, but I couldn't be bothered to think up a history for the move or a name for the new capital.
May I just say that I hate, loath and despise all scenarios where the US is not a republic and that that map is so awesome I like it anyway. (No offense to any monarchist-US map makers
I'll make a monarchist out of you yet, boy! Even though I'm not a monarchist myself, I'll do it!
1. On the issue of the monarchy/republic flip-flopping: The original American republic was structured much differently than the later Kingdom was. Whilst many statesmen in America, as well as most people in Europe, believed that the failure of the original American republic was a failure of their "Republican Experiment" there was always a sizeable minority who believed that a more centralised republic would work - indeed it was a hard decision to make America a Kingdom instead, if only because it was believed that the larger states could impose their head of state on the others (which was unacceptable) and because many American politicians, as well as many Europeans, would have ridiculed the system claiming that they needed a monarchy instead. In addition to this the monarchy was in no way a traditional one - the King had clearly defined powers and his power was strictly checked and balanced by elected bodies, which even had the power to remove the powers of the King and hand them over to a Regent if needs be.
However, as the Kingdom became more powerful people in the North came to associate with and like the monarchy more and more - the monarchs of America were generally rather liberal, pro-industry and anti-abolitionist (though they were tactful enough not to say that in public), whereas elected officials were seen as more corrupt and unreliable. They came to believe that the monarch was a more reliable and progressive because they didn't have to worry about re-election, and because they didn't have to be swayed by the opinions of "uneducated southern farmers".
Conversely, the people of the South saw the monarchy's liberal tendencies as a betrayal, and they saw the elected congress as corrupt and in the pocket of the North, as the North had grown greatly in population in comparison to the South. Similarly the conflict over slavery was as prominent in this timeline as it was in ours, only compromises between Free and Slave States were much fewer as the North was generally more powerful, and the federal government was more abolitionist due to the influence of liberal monarchs. This meant that powerful plantation owners were rallied against the monarchy and the current centralised form of government, and many people saw the powerful federal government as infringing on states' rights and wanted a more devolved form of government. The monarch was a symbol of centralised government under the control of liberals, abolitionists and the North.
There were various reasons why the people of the West (the states of Oregon and Washington IOTL) were generally in favour of a republic. Many European republicans had settled there after the Napoleonic Wars, and prior to its official annexation into the Kingdom the region was ruled by a provisional government, like it was IOTL, which was republican in nature. The cities of the West Coast were known for their universities and attracted many political thinkers, the region also attracted richer (and better educated) immigrants who could afford to reach the area by boat, whilst poorer settlers generally settled on the East Coast or in the Great Plains. This pool of educated thinkers, so far from the concerns of the states east of the Rockies, produced many left-leaning thinkers who were not pro-monarchy, and would rather have a centralised government without a monarch at its head (much like the USA of OTL). Their pro-republican works were distributed amongst the South and were misused and misinterpreted in order to further the cause of states' rights and slavery.
Whilst the South viewed their war as one for states' rights and decentralised government - which had become synonymous with republican governance - the West viewed there war more as one for a republic of any form. Admittedly there were many people who saw the King in Philadelphia as being too far removed from the interests of the West Coast, and so favoured greater decentralisation or even independence, they mainly fought merely for a republic. Republicanism was popular in the West, but most people did not favour armed revolution - many were content with fighting for a peaceful change to the constitution, including many amongst the intelligentsia. Businessmen in the region also saw the war, greater decentralisation, and independence as bad for business, and so continued to support the centralised government. As a result of these factors the rebellion in the West was generally unpopular and was quickly put down once a force could be raised in order to deal with them. The war in the South was much harder fought, especially in Virginia whose high population and relatively high number of abolitionists caused a great difference of opinion between its people, as their high population gave them greater political clout in the federal government than most southern states, and the abolitionists obviously supported the North in order to bring in a government that would abolish slavery.
So the reason for the flip-flopping is because many didn't believe the original decision to become a monarchy was a good idea, and because the main reasons for the Civil War IOTL - slavery and states' rights - became intertwined and synonymous with republicanism.
2. On the "Rupertsland Purchase": First, I know that region doesn't contain all of Rupertsland, but it's the simplest way of referring to the region.
There were numerous factors behind Britain's selling of the region to America. The one I have already mentioned is to "get in America's good books" and bring them into the Glorious Regime as a secondary power. It was also a follow-up to Britain's about-face on its rivalry with America during the Civil War, in order to show them that Britain was now fine with America's independence and would not continue to antagonise them. Britain's rivalry with America was seen as a threat to British North America, since America could easily achieve an advantage in numbers on land, even though Britain's navy was superior.
Britain's main reason for expanding across North America was to secure a trade route from the East Coast to the West. They did technically achieve this, but America had used its local dominance on land to threaten Britain into conceding more of Oregon than it did IOTL, and they had also secured Vancouver island as their territory, meaning that the British trade route was unpopular in comparison to going through American territory. America's greater concentration of railroads and the fact that they built a transcontinental railroad before Britain could added to the decline of western British North America as a trading outpost.
In addition to this British fur traders were facing great competition from American traders in the area, as well as Russian traders to a lesser extent. Russia's North American colony was also more heavily populated and more profitable than IOTL, due to the earlier discovery of gold in the region and the Russian government's support of the colonisation of and immigration to the region. Russia was seen as a threat to the gold mines of the Yukon, and to Canada in general. America was viewed in a similar way, but if the region had been sold to Russia then America could easily have taken it back, whereas if it was given to America then Russia could not muster a local force large enough to take it. In addition to this Britain was actively in conflict with Russia over trade in China and the rest of East Asia, so the opinions of British politicians were generally against Russia, whereas they had fewer issues with America.
I'd also like to note that being imperialist and giving away territory is not hypocritical. The British don't want direct control over more territory; they want more effective control over more trade and political/military clout. Having their opinion being worth something to a great power and having that great power on their side in any real war is worth a lot more than ruling over a lot of snow (apologies to all the Canadians out there!).
I'd also like to note that the Imperialists were not necessarily imperialist. Their defining features are that they are pro-monarchism, pro-federal government, left-leaning and abolitionist. Whilst many Imperialists were patriotic imperialists, Imperialists were not necessarily imperialists. They're called Imperialists because they support the monarchy, and "Royalists" wouldn't make sense, considering they advocated (and succeeded in) renaming the King to the Emperor. I suppose "Monarchist" would have been a better term to use, especially considering they were fighting against republicans. Bugger, I wish I'd thought of that at the time!
3. In conclusion:
(Apologies for the huge post.)
