To a citizen of another country,
It’s hard to say that one event decided the fate of my world. A thousand tiny things could have happened to shape our destiny, now imperceptible after centuries of distance. In both our histories, the American Revolutionary War was almost won by late 1781. Cornwallis sulked in Yorktown like a wounded lion, surrounded by the armies of Washington and Lafayette, firing artillery in indiscriminate desperation. In your world, maybe one gunner would shift his grip. Maybe one cannonball would land a few yards short of Washington and his chaplain as they inspected the battlements. Maybe George Washington and his chaplain would only get sprayed by sand. Maybe neither man would get hurt, and neither man would die. Maybe that man spared by history would go on to lead a country united from one ocean to the other, standing like Ozymandias over a world in awe. The chaplain Israel Evans would move to dust the sand from his cap, but Washington would stay his hand and say, “Mr. Evans, you had better carry that home and show it to your wife and children.” And they’d smile, because soon they’d both be coming home soon. Chance was kind to your Washington and cruel to mine. In my history, that cannonball pulped Washington’s head in an instant, and it wasn’t sand covering Evans’ cap.
Even Washington’s death couldn’t turn the war around for Britain. His loss didn’t shatter American morale, but instead inflamed them against Cornwallis. Nathanael Greene took Washington’s place as the Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army, but Yorktown was Alexander Hamilton’s moment. Greene might’ve been the head of the war effort, but he was effectively stuck defending the South with an army of only 1,000 troops. Greene had succeeded in repelling the British where so many other generals had failed, and the army feared that his removal from the South would mean their undoing.
Hamilton had been pleading to fight and win glory throughout the war. Shortly before his luck ran out, Washington finally gave him a combat command. Hamilton retained his post in his mentor’s memory. Only days after Washington separated from his head, Hamilton’s contingent snuck towards the British fort in the dead of night. He commanded his troops to unload the bullets from their guns to avoid a single stray shot that might give away their position, then led a charge against Cornwallis’s bristling defenses. Hamilton himself was among the first to breach the breastworks, and subdued a British officer at the end of his bayonet. The newspapers lauded his victory at Yorktown alongside the country’s.
Cornwallis himself was too sick to tender his surrender, and few soldiers were celebrating in Yorktown’s wake. The British defeat meant the capture of their largest army on the continent. History would call it the climax of the war, but history had yet to inform the Continental Army. The American forces were still lying in wait for a final battle that would never come. The next year passed with almost 10,000 American soldiers drilling every day outside of Newburgh, New York. By 1783, peace talks were dragging along and the troops were in dire straits. Both sides were riven with political instability and desperate to make peace without revealing the fragility of their position. Back in the old world, the British Prime Minister Lord North had been defeated and replaced with Lord Rockingham and his coalition opposed to the war. Then Rockingham went ahead and died, and the mantle passed to Lord Shelburne, his unpopular Irish subordinate.
Meanwhile, the former colonies were close to unraveling. Congress continued to prove incapable of paying its soldiers. Even before the Battle of Yorktown, Nathanael Greene described a starving army clad in loincloths. Hamilton complained that the impotence of Congress had prolonged the war by several years, but there was little that they could do to summon up the funds. The Articles of Confederation had become an albatross about the government’s neck. The Congress was unable to demand money from the states, only to request it. They’d requested $3,000,000 in 1781, but only received $39,138.
Robert Morris was one of the Revolution’s chief financiers, and he became the Superintendent of Finance only months before the Battle of Yorktown. Morris was unenthusiastic about the job. He knew it would wreak havoc on his reputation. He predicted in his personal journals, “A vigorous execution of the duties must inevitably expose me to the resentment of disappointed and designing Men and to the Calumny and Detraction of the Envious and Malicious.” Despite his reluctance, his post made him one of the most powerful men in the country. His detractors accused him of using his position to fill his coffers. Meanwhile, he personally funded the Battle of Yorktown along with Greene’s efforts down South. After Yorktown, Morris struggled to invest Congress with the power to pay its debts. He campaigned for the passage of an impost, the equivalent of a national tax the states would be obligated to pay. The impost was long-discussed and long overdue. He adopted Hamilton as his protégé and the two worked briefly as de facto tax collectors in New York. The effort was an abject failure. Morris commented to Hamilton, “The several states and many of their public offices have so long been in the midst of boasting superior Assertions, that what was first an Assumption has advanced along the Road to Belief, and then to perfect Conviction; And the Delusion is now kept up by the Darkness in which it is enveloped.”
Robert Morris, "Financier of the American Revolution."
Any kind of national tax was a form of political suicide. The war was not yet won, and already their own government was trying to levy the same taxes they’d resisted under the British. The nation sorely needed the impost to get on its feet, but in truth, there was no nation. The Thirteen Colonies had been bound together by war and convenience, but the idea of an American identity was foreign to them. There were no Americans – only Virginians, New Yorkers, Pennsylvanians, Georgians, et cetera. The state governments had no intention to grant Congress the powers it fought to remove, even for the sake of a nation.
The troops drilling in Newburgh mourned Washington, but their grief could not mask their anger or their desperation. In 1783, a group of soldiers began to plot against the Congress in an incident now known as the “Newburgh Conspiracy.” Their headsman was Horatio Gates, Washington’s most dangerous rival now free from his long shadow. Gates was no friend of Morris and Hamilton, and neither man wished to see him succeed, but they attempted to use his movement for their own purposes. The duo planned to use the conspiracy to force the impost through Congress through sheer terror, but it spiraled out of control. Morris offered them covert financial support while Hamilton lobbied for their cause in Congress, but there was little to be done. Gates called the group to vote in favor of a mutiny against the government. A panicked Hamilton invited them all to his own meeting, scheduled only days before Gates’ vote. Given his prior support, they expected to have Hamilton on their side.
The plotters miscalculated. Almost five hundred officers attended, but Hamilton came armed to disarm them. His first weapon was an impassioned speech to struggle and survive against the odds, just one blazing streak of oratory among his many others. His second weapon was a pair of Washington’s fake teeth, which he held aloft and, tears streaming down his face, proclaimed, “Gentlemen, I hold before you a piece of the great man who gave his life for Liberty! In the name of our Common Country, as you value your own sacred honor, I proclaim my utmost horror and detestation of any man who would overturn the liberties of our Country, any man who would wickedly endeavor to open the flood Gates of civil discord and deluge our rising Empire in Blood.” The legitimacy of the famous dentures have been debated ever since. Hamilton claimed he’d received them from Martha Washington, but his story has never been confirmed nor denied. Some sources erroneously state that Washington entrusted them to Hamilton as part of his will, but most modern historians surmise that Hamilton simply procured a pair of teeth for the occasion.
After a few moments of stunned silence, Hamilton’s tears inspired tears throughout the audience. They were all mourning over Washington, but there had yet to be a moment of closure after his death. Hamilton’s emotional speech gave them an opportunity to vent their pain without resorting to force, and disarmed Horatio Gates once again with its reference to the “flood Gates of civil discord.” After Hamilton’s address to the soldiers, Henry Knox took the stage. Knox was the Army’s chief artillery officer, and as he found his own agenda intertwining with Hamilton’s, the two became close friends and collaborators. “As the present Constitution is so defective,” Knox said, “why do not you great men call the people together and tell them so? That is, to have a convention of the states to form a better constitution?” The crowd dispersed along with the Continental Army itself later that spring, but the threat of military coup still hovered overhead. Though Hamilton was confident that the former colonies could survive their independence, he acknowledged that the odds were stacked against them. They’d managed to thwart Gates’ attempt to seize the reins of government, but Hamilton admitted to Knox, “The seeds of disunion are much more numerous than those of union. I fear we have been contending for a shadow.”
Horatio Gates, nemesis of Washington, hero of Saratoga, and fraidy-cat extraordinaire.
The dithering Congress voted to provide all officers full pay for five years of service instead of half-pay for life, but there was no money to pay anyone anyway. The soldiers returned home with imaginary pensions and a hostile public. Newspapers throughout New England painted them as bloodthirsty parasites eager to pillage the civilian populace. Hamilton and Knox spearheaded the Society of the Cincinnati, with a motto invoking Washington’s memory: “Omnia Reliquit Servare Rem Publicam,” or, “He gave everything to serve the republic.” Hamilton took charge as the Society’s first President-General. He and Knox designed the Society to be an international organization in support of Revolutionary War veterans, whose membership would pass on to their eldest sons in perpetuity. Despite its charitable mission, radical republicans criticized the society for its hereditary structure and its iconoclastic leader. In my history, it would become a prescient critique. For Morris, The Conspiracy and its aftermath was the last straw. His best efforts to pass the impost had come to nothing. He agreed to pay all former members of the Army for three months out of his own pocket, almost bankrupting himself even as his critics dragged his name through the dirt. Once he’d done all he could do, he resigned his post, declaring, “I will never be the Minister of Injustice.”
With September came the Treaty of Paris and the end of the war, but only the work of John Jay prevented an ignominious peace. The American diplomats had been instructed by Congress to make no peace without French accord. Then-President of the Congress Samuel Huntington warned them, “undertake nothing in the negotiations for peace or truce without their knowledge and concurrence.” Compliance with the French meant compliance with their Spanish allies as well. The Americans found little room to navigate their own fate while squeezed between the two powers, and they were in dire straits as it was. Besides the death of their most prominent leader, the diplomats themselves were looking worse for wear. John Jay had only been sent to the peace talks in Henry Laurens’ absence. The British captured Laurens at sea and had only recently released him from the Tower of London in exchange for Lord Cornwallis. John Adams was too busy begging money from the Dutch to help in the negotiations. Thomas Jefferson was supposed to be part of the negotiations, but his wife Martha died in childbirth less than a year after Washington’s demise. She made him swear never to marry again, saying she couldn’t bear another woman raising her children. Jefferson spent his days taking long carriage rides down isolated country roads with his daughter Martha, named for her mother. She later called herself the “solitary witness to many a violent burst of grief.” Benjamin Franklin was America’s closest tie to France, but he was aging and gout-afflicted, so the burden rested on Jay’s shoulders.
In late 1782, Jay sat down over a map with Count Aranda, the Spanish minister. Aranda drew a line down from Lake Erie and claimed everything West for the Spanish Empire, but Jay could not abide this arrangement. Though Jay was known as a voice of reason among so many radicals, his moderation never deterred him from decisive action. He’d initially opposed even the Revolution, favoring a peaceful negotiation with the British crown. When the war began, most of Jay’s compatriots were sure he’d become a Loyalist. Jay remained an ardent supporter of the cause, and had even served as President of the Continental Congress. When Aranda revealed his terms for the peace, he countered by running his finger down the Mississippi River. Jay could smell the Spanish Empire rotting, and had no doubt that his people would control the interior. He wrote in a letter to Huntington, “The Americans, almost to a man, believe that God Almighty had made that river a highway for the people of the upper country to go to the sea.” In Jay’s mind, the Mississippi border was inflexible. British restrictions against American settlers moving West had been one of the initial catalysts of revolutionary thought, and Jay was loath to let it slide. He woke Ben Franklin from his sickbed in the middle of the night and gave him an atypical display of melodrama. Jay chucked his clay pipe into the fireplace, declaring that the time had come to disobey the Congress for the country’s sake. In order to secure American interests, they would have to negotiate a separate treaty with Britain without consulting France or her allies.
John Jay, one of the least known and most important Founding Fathers in both our countries.
It was Jay who led the negotiations from then on, and he insisted that the country’s independence and its Western border were one and the same. Britain was always happy to give France the finger. Prime Minister Shelburne had long opposed the war, and envisioned a harmonious, lucrative future between the colonies and their former overlord. In the end, Jay got exactly what he wanted. Even decades later, John Adams would maintain that Jay was “of more importance than any of the rest of us, indeed of almost as much weight as all the rest of us put together.” Jay’s triumphant return only added fuel to the fire of his growing fame. After five days in New York, the Congress offered him a position as Secretary of Foreign Affairs. Jay’s frustrating term as President made him into one of the country’s most devout nationalists, and Congress had turned him into one of the most powerful men in the country. Prior to Jay’s accession, the states offered little in the way of a unified foreign policy. Congress offered Jay sweeping powers to organize the country’s diplomatic affairs just as they had asked Morris to organize their finances, and just like Morris, his seat of power was an ejector seat.
Now that the world recognized American ownership of the interior, the states would have to agree on how to divvy it up. Virginia held the largest share, but like most places West of the Appalachians, their claims were infested by land speculators. These speculators made their own treaties with Native American tribes without government assent. They undermined the state’s authority and limited legitimate settlement by buying up vast tracts of land and flipping them a profit. For years, Virginia refused to surrender turn the Ohio County over to the Congress until they agreed to void all treaties between land speculators and Indian tribes, among other stipulations that would ensure Virginian primacy in the new territories. Though Congress never agreed to enforce Virginia’s terms, the state nonetheless agreed to cede its lands to the Congress. It seems like a bizarre break from character, especially in retrospect, but you always find the truth when you follow the money. The Virginia delegates predicted that the new lands could be sold off to pay the public debts even without an impost. Because of his absence from the peace talks, Jefferson himself was available to draft the delegation’s principles regarding the Western territories. They proposed, “The Territory so ceded shall be laid out and formed into states...[and] the states so formed shall be distinctive Republican States and admitted members of the Federal Union, having the same rights of Sovereignty, Freedom, and Independence as the other states.” Though Jefferson would blanch at the term “federal” only a few short years later, his proposal defined the future of American expansion. The Ordinance of 1784 relied on the natural migration of American settlers to populate the interior without government intervention, and ensured that the Western lands would not exist under Eastern occupation. Instead, all territories would be mere cocoons out of which equal states would hatch, each full of equal citizens.
The Ordinance of 1784’s bi-partisan optimism had a short shelf life. Jefferson was brilliant, but his idealism extended beyond the bounds of reality. He believed that families would naturally pour over the Appalachians and settle down wherever their hearts led them, and he even suggested that the land be given away for free. Though Jefferson’s maps of North America were the envy of the world as his geographical expertise was unmatched, his understanding of the situation on the ground left something to be desired. Jefferson’s “diffusion” plan would spark a running forest fire of Indian wars throughout the territories. Such violence was already happening in Virginia’s Western reaches. The future state of Kentucky was under attack from all sides by bandits, vigilantes, and Native Americans fighting for their ancestral lands. The territorial government was forbidden to act against these threats without explicit consent from Richmond, and over 1,000 Kentuckians were killed by delay and miscommunication.
To avoid an epidemic of violence, the Ordinance of 1784 was quickly replaced by the Ordinance of 1785. This new Ordinance espoused a policy of “progressive seating,” bringing an end to unfettered migration of the past in favor of a controlled flow of settlers under federal management. It broke the Western lands into townships that would each be surveyed then sold at a minimum of $1 per acre, and finally settled once the surveyors had moved on to the next plot. Most of the settlers came from New England, a fact well-known and thoroughly distrusted by the Southerners. Even if it was willing to divide the West into equal states, Virginia still fancied itself first among equals. Virginia was by far the most populous of the former colonies. With almost 750,000 total people living within the state (both free and enslaved), Virginia was almost twice as large as the next largest state. Even Pennsylvania was dwarfed by Virginia, with a population of over 400,000. Nearly 300,000 slaves were kept in Virginia, larger than the total population of South Carolina. Virginia politicians foresaw a future where the dominion of the “Old Dominion” stretched far beyond its borders. They were not happy to see Yankees usurping the land they’d given over to Congress so graciously.
The Ordinance of 1785 resolved the glaring inadequacies of its predecessor, but reignited the sectarian battle between North and South. A peaceful Westward expansion required the states to put aside their petty differences and act as one, but that proved an impossible task. Some feared that the West would soon break off entirely from their Eastern counterparts, and pessimism reigned supreme over the states. Congress was a Frankenstein’s monster built only to win the war. With the end of the Revolution, Congress had little reason to cooperate and little ability to enforce their will. They’d given Jay powers they had no ability to back up. From the start, Jay assumed his position entitled him to more importance than he ever received. When he first asked the state governors to send all correspondence on foreign affairs his way, all of them refuse. Only a few even bothered to reply. Jay himself admitted, “I have come into the Office of Secretary for Foreign Affairs with Ideas of its Duties and Rights somewhat different from those which seemed to be entertained by Congress.”
Jay’s reputation continued to degenerate over the course of the year. The Treaty of Paris was already breaking down as each side failed to honor its commitments in full. British troops were still garrisoned in forts across the Canadian border. When Jay demanded the British soldiers’ evacuation, they countered with America’s own violation of the treaty. The states had yet to pay their prewar debts as promised. They still owed almost 4,000,000 pounds to the British government, and over half the debt belonged to Virginian planters. Furthermore, the American delegation had promised that Loyalists in the country would not be punished for their politics, but their possessions were being seized throughout the continent. Jay compelled Congress to obey the terms of the treaty to stave off imminent conflict with the British. Though the Congress itself was happy to listen to Jay, they were powerless to enforce his advice. All Jay managed to do was to supply his opponents with ammunition against him.
The rise and fall of Jay would revolve around the Mississippi Question. In 1785, Spain closed the Southern Mississippi to American trade. Jay had always spoken of an American Mississippi and the inevitable death of the Spanish Empire, but he knew his country was still too young and vulnerable to battle the established power. Jay negotiated a settlement in secret that surrendered control of the Southern Mississippi for a limited period of 25 years. Jay recognized that the river was destined to slip from Spain’s hands. He figured there was no harm in signing over navigation rights to the river before the American settlers had even reached it. Jay proposed his treaty to Congress in early 1786, and it destroyed his career as Secretary of Foreign Affairs. The Northern States applauded Jay for his political acumen, but the South turned against him entirely. Charles Cotesworth Pinckney of South Carolina predicted that American settlers throughout the West would bend the knee to Spain, an idea the Kentucky settlers were already flirting with. His secret negotiations further poisoned his intentions in Southern eyes, and many delegates began to suspect a Northern conspiracy against their interests. James Monroe, only recently elected to the Virginia House of Delegates, wrote a letter to Patrick Henry calling John Jay, “a minister negotiating expressly for the purpose of defeating the object of his instructions, and by a long train of intrigue and management seducing the representatives of the states to concur.”
The Virginians had already grumbled at Jay’s insistence that they pay off their debts. His collusion with the Spanish was the final nail in the coffin. The vote on his treaty became a symbol of the growing schism between North and South – though all seven Northern States voted in favor of the treaty, all five Southern States rejected it. The Articles of Confederation required at least nine states to approve a treaty, and Pinckney warned Jay that, “if you proceed, we shall consider you as proceeding upon powers incomplete and unconstitutional.” Jay accepted his irrelevance with an appearance of grace that masked his inner turmoil. He had always believed that his country was divinely ordained to come together, but his faith had been shattered. He revealed his despair in a letter to his friend John Adams, “Our affairs seem to lead to some Crisis, some Revolution, something that I cannot foresee or Conjecture. I am uneasy and apprehensive, more so than during the war. Then we had a fixed Object, and though the Means and Time of attaining it were often problematical, yet I did firmly believe we would ultimately succeed, because I was convinced that Justice was with us. The case is now altered, we are going and doing wrong, and I therefore look forward to Evils and Calamities.”
The states were in desperate need of unified leadership, but no one seemed fit for it. Washington was dead and Gates’ reputation would be forever tarnished as an enemy of the martyr. Franklin was beloved throughout the country, but death was at his doorstep and it was plain to see. Morris and Jay had both been discredited after their brief liaisons with power. Hamilton was too young and too impulsive, while Madison was too quiet, too scholarly, and ultimately too provincial. Great figures populated the former colonies, but their interests only rarely extended beyond their home states. Those few nationalists in the country lacked the popular support to make their vision a reality. Only Greene seemed to have the potential to unify the bickering republics, and nationalist thinkers began to hover over his name. Though he’d entered the Continental Army as a mere private, he left it as Commander-in-Chief. His record was unblemished by failure. Where so many generals had failed to eject the British from the South, Greene succeeded in pushing them back into the ocean. Though he was born a Yankee from Quaker stock, the citizens of Georgia offered him land within their state as a token of their gratitude. Thus, he had one foot in either half of the country. He was a modern Cincinnatus, retired from the military to pursue a simple, agrarian life. History had other plans. Though he’d survived a brutal war, he was ill-suited for Georgia’s humid climate. That spring, the country would be forced to mourn another war hero when Nathanael Greene died of sunstroke. His death resonated with the death of every brave soldier who’d fallen for the cause, which now seemed close to death itself.
Nathanael Greene, Savior of the South. If only someone thought to give him some goddamn lemonade.
The country had already weathered the threat of a military coup after the Newburgh Plot, but a new kind of threat was brewing. Massachusetts had famously severe taxes, and many farmers felt the new government was representing them no better than the old. Disaffected veterans refused to pay taxes, and even started attacking courthouses and tax collectors. Greene’s death came an even decade after independence, a grim reminder that the Spirit of ‘76 was in danger of fading away. The disorganized anti-government forces coalesced into a group that called themselves the Regulators, though the public called them “Shaysites” after one of their leaders, Daniel Shays. In truth, the Regulators had no head. With just over 2,000 soldiers serving under 20 captains, they were a loose but formidable organization. Most of their members had served in the Revolution, and they emulated the old symbols of their native country. They adorned their caps with sprigs of evergreen just as they had against the British. Even their name was taken from an ancestor of the independence movement. The first Regulators fought in protest of the Carolinas’ aristocratic colonial government throughout the 1760’s. Their struggle presaged the Revolution, and it took almost a decade for the British to subdue them. The new Regulators saw themselves in the same situation they’d been in on the eve of the war for independence. When they made their way for the Springfield Armory, Congress was still too broke to mount a defense. The state of Massachusetts was forced to fend for itself, but it wasn’t up for the task. The state militias were underfunded, undermanned, and disorganized. The panicked atmosphere of a world without Washington enhanced the Shaysites’ numbers and stymied Massachusetts’ attempts to protect itself. In your history, the state militias were enough to repel the Regulators, but in mine, they broke through the Armory’s defenses. Though the Shaysites now controlled an impressive cache of weaponry, their leaders could not control some of the rabble serving under them. The defenders that could not escape the attack were massacred, even as the rebel commanders ordered their troops to stop.
Springfield’s capture struck terror in Northern hearts. With the Continental Army decommissioned, most worries about a military coup had been dispelled, but the Shaysites inflamed new fears and exposed new vulnerabilities. The Northern states realized they were in danger not only of military coup, but a civilian overthrow. The idea of a democratic coup seemed almost more loathsome than a military junta. The Yankee distaste for democracy took even deeper root as the Southern states grew to distrust their aristocratic attitudes. As the Regulators reorganized and rearmed, federal forces scrambled to prevent a takeover of Boston. Each side had only a ragtag army. Neither wanted to strike prematurely and lose the advantage. Neither could be sure of the other’s position or preparation, and the fate of the state hung in the balance. If Massachusetts fell, who knew where this new Revolution would lead? Would the entire Continent spend its life revolving from one regime to the next?
In the midst of the chaos, a small number of delegates met up in Annapolis. Congress had approved the Convention earlier in the year, before the Shaysites took Springfield. The Convention was a vision of the failures to come. The states still levied trade barriers against each other. It was one of the most prominent signs that the idea of an American nation was nothing more than an illusion. Hamilton and people like him were determined to make that illusion a reality by breaking down those trade barriers, and that was the goal of the Annapolis Convention. Unfortunately, it was afflicted with the same curse that crippled Congress – absenteeism. Only five states sent delegates at all: New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Delaware, and New Jersey. North Carolina, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island had intended to send delegates, but they arrived too late to participate. The rest didn’t bother to send anyone at all, including Maryland, where the Convention was taking place. There weren’t even enough delegates to make any formal decision. All they could do was reschedule. Hamilton took it a step farther. He spontaneously announced a new Convention in Philadelphia on the second Sunday of the coming May. His aims for the Philadelphia Convention were higher than in Annapolis. Hamilton dreamed of a Convention that would purge the country of the Articles’ faults and replace them with a new Constitution.
The delegates left Annapolis as the Regulators began to realize that time was not on their side. New soldiers were still flocking to their banner, but they were impossible to organize and Boston would be a tough nut to crack. The longer they spent gathering their powers, the longer Congress had to bolster the state militia with federal troops. Hamilton caught word of Springfield's capture shortly before the Convention, and it made him furious. Now that his duties as a delegate were over, his duties as a soldier began anew. Before returning to New York, Hamilton headed to Boston as a volunteer. As President-General of the Society of the Cincinnati, he implored American veterans to join him in defending the country once more. A small battalion of Cincinnati served behind him. The Shaysites rallied in January of 1787. They descended on the city of Boston to siege and finally conquer it, but by now they were well-equipped to defend themselves with soldiers from across state lines. Hamilton’s reaffirmed his bravery in a reprise of his performance at Yorktown. It was a harrowing battle, but the government forces were more disciplined, more numerous, and had the home advantage. The Regulators scattered in the wake of their defeat, along with the federal army. Now it fell to Massachusetts to mop them up, but this time, their militia was enough to get the job done. Though most of the rebels were pardoned or served commuted sentences, their leaders were killed in battle or captured and hung by the neck. As the Northerners celebrated, the Southerners sharpened their suspicions about their neighbors. To them, New England was starting to look a lot like the old one.
Even with the Regulators crushed, an atmosphere of dread prevailed over the states. Two attempted coups in three years did not bode well. When the First Philadelphia Convention convened in May according to Hamilton’s to schedule, it was a far less impressive affair than your history’s Constitutional Convention. Without Washington to lend legitimacy and draw delegates from across the political spectrum, attendance was as slapdash as any session of Congress. Out of 70 delegates invited, 55 attended your Constitutional Convention, but only 45 attended mine. Neither of our Conventions resembled a unitary process – delegates came and went at different times, so the debate was always shifting. Rhode Island refused to send any delegates at all, just as it had refused to attend the Convention at Annapolis. Other states sent delegates largely to protest of the Convention. In your history, most of the conservative opposition boycotted the Convention, thus eliminating their voice from the discussion. In my world, those states were too suspicious of the secret proceedings to risk a boycott. Instead, they sent Anti-Federalist delegates to prevent what they viewed as a federal coup.
Hamilton, Jay, and Madison organized the Convention, but no member of the Trinity had much in the way of bi-partisan credentials. Jay presided over the Convention in hopes that his calm and moderation would rub off on the debate, but he was still despised in the South for his failed treaty with the Spanish. Madison was both a Virginian and a nationalist, but his politics were not half as radical as the other members of the Trinity. His problem was the opposite of Hamilton’s or Jay’s. When it came down to it, his politics were more provincial than national, and his ultimate allegiance belonged to his state. Though his fellow Southerners trusted Madison, many of the Northern delegates did not. They were convinced that his regional politics would make any union subservient to the Virginian Dominion. Madison was always the best-prepared for an argument, but he was short, unassuming, and unequipped to take control of the Convention.
Though Hamilton had many supporters, he also had a gift for making enemies. He monopolized the conversation with his radical ideas, spouting multi-hour diatribes that alienated the opposition. The times would soon catch up with him, but for now, Hamilton’s views were too forward thinking to be accepted. Those delegates on the fence found themselves forced to pick a side, but Hamilton’s antics lent his whole cohort the radical stink. Governor George Clinton was one of Hamilton’s fiercest rivals, and his power over the state of New York was unmatched. As an opponent of the Convention and of Hamilton in particular, George Clinton loved to make Hamilton’s life more difficult. Though Hamilton was New York’s loudest voice in the Convention, he was outnumbered by Anti-Federalists in his own state.
Alexander Hamilton. There's a million things he hasn't done, but just you wait, just you wait...
Each issue discussed only aggravated old wounds. A debate that could’ve been shaped by faith and compromise was shaped instead by paranoia. The Convention stumbled on for months, but the only result was a growing resentment between the delegates. They could hardly agree on a single issue. Each rift further divided the states between the North and the South. No one could decide what to do with executive powers. The Congress had proven unable to deal with the responsibility, and the separation of powers was already a popular idea. Still, there was no one figure that everyone could trust. Some delegates argued for a triumvirate or even an executive council of governors, but they all seemed like risky propositions little improved from the previous system. Election was an even more contentious issue – how would members of the new federal government be elected? Many radical minds supported popular election, but Shay’s Rebellion was still fresh in Northern minds. Direct democracy was a dangerous idea. Most nationalists conceived of a union representing each of the states, not the huddled masses. Even Madison was skeptical that “the people” existed as a cohesive group at all. This dispute was mirrored in the debate over representation in the legislature: to elect an equal number of delegates from each state, or to represent the states proportionately by population. This cornerstone of the Convention was as much of an impasse as any issue. The Revolution itself had been fought for the cause of just representation. Neither side was willing to trust the other. No one would sign away their hard-won rights if they felt those rights were threatened.
Perhaps the largest stumbling block to Union was the inclusion of a Bill of Rights. Many Southern and Anti-Federalist delegates refused to sign any Constitution without one, but the Federalists were strongly opposed to it. Even Madison considered them unnecessary, if not actively harmful. He looked to his own state’s Bill of Rights as evidence that any such document would only enshrine abuses. Virginia’s Bill was full of loopholes that were constantly exploited. After the end of the Convention, Hamilton would write, “It has been several times truly remarked, that Bills of Rights are in their origin, stipulations between Kings and their Subjects, abridgments of prerogative in favor of privilege, reservations of rights not surrendered to the prince. Such was Magna Carta, obtained by the Barons, sword in hand, from King John…they have no application to Constitutions professedly founded upon the power of the people, and executed by their immediate representatives and servants. Here, in strictness, the people surrender nothing, and as they retain everything, they have no need of particular reservations.” In other words, if they wrote out a Bill of Rights, anything not included by accident or by intent could be used to restrict the rights of citizens. Without an explicit Bill of Rights, their implied rights would be immune to abridgment. Both sides were determined to safeguard their countrymen’s rights, but their opposing methods led to bitter conflict.
There was a host of problems plaguing the Congress, but the greatest debate remained unspoken for months. Even the most radical delegates knew that the deep roots of slavery in the South had grown into the greatest barrier between the twin American cultures. As the debate raged on, the issue finally started to crop up. Gouverneur Morris of Philadelphia was the first to speak against the peculiar institution in early 1788:
“Compare the free regions of the Middle States, where a rich and noble cultivation marks the prosperity and happiness of the people, with the misery and poverty which overspread the barren wastes of Virginia, Maryland, and the other States having slaves. Travel through the whole Continent and you behold the prospect continually varying with the appearance and disappearance of slavery. The moment you leave the Eastern States and enter New York, the effects of the institution become visible; Passing through the Jerseys and entering Pennsylvania, every criterion of superior improvement witnesses the change. Proceed Southwardly, and every step you take through the great regions of slaves, presents a desert increasing with the increasing proportion of these wretched beings. Upon what principle is it that the slaves shall be computed in the representation? Are they men? Then make them Citizens & let them vote. Are they property? Why then is no other property included? The Houses in this city are worth more than all the wretched slaves which cover the rice swamps of South Carolina. The admission of slaves into the Representation when fairly explained comes to this: that the inhabitant of Georgia and South Carolina who goes to the Coast of Africa, and in defiance of the most sacred laws of humanity tears away his fellow creatures from their dearest connections and damns them to the most cruel bondages, shall have more votes in a Government instituted for protection of the rights of mankind, than the Citizen of Pennsylvania or New Jersey who views with a laudable horror, so nefarious a practice. He would add that Domestic slavery is the most prominent feature in the aristocratic countenance of the proposed Constitution. The vassalage of the poor has ever been the favorite offspring of aristocracy. And what is the proposed compensation to the Northern States for a sacrifice of every principle of right, of every impulse of humanity. They are to bind themselves to march their militia for the defenses of the Southern States; for their defense against those very slaves of whom they complain.”
Gouverneur Morris. No relation to Robert Morris, despite the resemblance.
Gouverneur Morris could not let loose such scathing invective without provoking a response. Southern delegates leapt to the defense of slavery, and Hamilton’s fellow New Yorkers followed suit, feeling equally insulted by his description of their home state. In your history, Hamilton was determined not to bring up the institution. Even with his impassioned blabbermouth, Hamilton knew better than to open up that can of worms. In my history, he could not stand idly by as the conversation went South. His first priority was political advancement, for his own sake and for the sake of his beliefs, but the First Philadelphia Convention was a different animal entirely than the Convention of your history. By this point, most of the delegates were already sick of arguing with no end in sight. Hamilton unleashed his own tirade in support of Morris and against the Southern culture. Maryland delegates Luther Martin and John Francis Mercer denounced Hamilton, the Federalists, and the Northern states. They called the Convention a conspiracy organized by prospective tyrants before walking out of the Convention. In my history, their actions were the straw that broke the camel’s back. A flock of Southern delegates trailed behind them over the coming days. The Convention collapsed within a week.
The delegates who' attended the First Philadelphia Convention were sworn to secrecy at its debut, but after its failure, all bets were off. Those who opposed the Convention or its results slandered the meeting throughout the states. As word spread, Jefferson returned from France to rejoin his countrymen. He’d been sent to replace Ben Franklin as Minister to France, or as Jefferson himself put it, “I succeed [him]. No man can replace him.” Congress gave him the post in part because they feared for his health. He was still reeling from the death of his wife. Some of his compatriots worried he was at risk of suicide, and they thought that a sojourn in France would boost his spirits. The plan worked. He came back to Virginia full of his usual bluster, as eager to condemn the Philadelphia Convention as he was to remodel his country home. Jefferson quickly became one of the most important voices in the South. Martin’s brief fame was capsized by his own obnoxious affect and Mercer sunk along with him, but the walk-out they led inflamed a new fervor. There was a growing sentiment that the Southern states had not won their independence just to be dominated by Northern interests. Their neighbors felt the same way in the opposite direction. Hamilton’s own words must’ve been ringing in his ears: “The seeds of disunion are much more numerous than those of union. I fear we have been contending for a shadow.” Just like at Newburgh, the country was in danger of falling apart, but Hamilton was unwilling to give up on his vision.
Hamilton blamed their failure on ignorance. He was certain that the reason more people didn’t support the only way forward was that they didn’t understand it. He felt this problem was most egregious in his home state, where George Clinton had a stranglehold on the mechanisms of power. Together with John Jay and Gouverneur Morris, Hamilton wrote a series of essays in favor of Federalism and a new Constitution under the collective nom-de-plume of “Publius.” Hamilton’s initial focus didn’t extend far beyond New York, and the early opponents of Publius were also New Yorkers. Anti-Federalists began to publish their own essays against the Federalist Papers under their own pseudonyms, such as Robert Yates’ “Brutus” or George Clinton’s “Cato.” The essays volleyed back and forth over the course of the year, with new anonymous authors popping up each month. The Federalists made their nest in the North as they always had, while the Anti-Federalists gained power in the South. Though the Southerners acknowledged that the Articles were defunct, they suspected that Federalism was nothing more than a new mask over the old face of monarchy. They had yet to offer any kind of alternative solution, but they decried Federalist attempts to centralize the country and urged another way. Ultimately, Hamilton’s supporters were better organized than their opponents, with more material and more cohesive arguments. Though New York’s Governor was a leading Anti-Federalist, the press had a decidedly Federalist slant. By early 1789, public opinion in New York turned sharply against the current governor, and John Jay replaced George Clinton in the election that year.
The death of the Convention meant the birth of Kentucky. Virginia formally controlled the territory, but the settlers themselves had grown to detest the government in Richmond. The Virginians had failed to protect their people in the interior, who were constant victims to war and lawlessness. They’d applied for statehood almost a dozen times, but each time they were delayed by one thing or another. The last time they submitted their proposal to Congress, they were only denied because of the possibility of a new Constitution – after all, why board a sinking ship? After the Convention’s failure, there was no reason to leave them out. If anything, Congress was worried that if they rejected Kentucky’s bid, the citizens would have no choice but to seek protection under the Spanish. That was Senior Army Officer James Wilkinson’s suggestion. Though a major figure in early Kentucky and an opponent of the late Convention, Wilkinson’s allegiance lay beyond the Americas. After his death decades later, his private correspondence would reveal his true nature. Wilkinson had been a spy for the Spanish government almost from the start. In reality, few Kentuckians supported Spanish vassalage. They were concerned about their independence and autonomy under one government or another, but the Spanish government was not high on their list of choices. Even being accepted into the union didn’t mean much. Kentucky was de facto independent after separating from Virginia. In truth, by 1789, any union of the states only existed on paper.
Having one of their own in charge of New York State changed the game for the Federalists, but the rest of the country was in a downward spiral. By the time John Jay became New York’s new governor, the Congress might as well have fallen into a black hole. The Articles of Confederation were a zombie document. Their ability to influence the states had been tested time and time again, yet each time it came up short. Each state had been printing their own currency, but counterfeiting debased each one beyond repair. Some states passed laws to ban debased copper, and some even banned all copper coinage, but it was little use. By 1789, the market was drowning in illegal, useless copper, and the nation’s credit was down the tubes. The Panic of 1789 burned away the last shred of confidence the former colonists had in Congress and the Articles. At the height of the crisis, the inflation rate for copper reached over 430%. Continental Dollars had already devalued into toilet paper, but now even metal money was worthless. They were a country without a currency.
Madison had broken off his relationship with Hamilton after the Convention. He blamed him for the Convention’s failure as much as he blamed Martin and Mercer. Hamilton was still determined to forge a more perfect union. He knew the states could never stand alone, and that strong federalism was necessary to preserve what he could from Europe’s rapacious appetite. At the dawn of 1790, he and his Federalist supporters arranged a Second Philadelphia Convention. This time, they only invited delegates from states with enough common ideology to create a united front. Delegates from Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, New Hampshire, Connecticut, and Massachusetts all came to the Convention with the open intention of building a new Constitution for a new country. The Federalists and the Anti-Federalists finally agreed on one thing – neither half of the country could be trusted not to trample the rights of the other. The only hope was to scrape together what states they could and unify them under a common cause.
The citizens of the South were outraged but unsurprised. Maryland had been snubbed for their delegation’s walk-out of the last Convention. With their place on the border, they were terrified of a future war between a united North and the divided Southern states. Alongside Virginia, Maryland led the scramble for a Southern union to counter the North. Though they were loath to give away any liberties, the Southern states felt they could trust each other where they couldn’t trust their Northern neighbors. They were willing to form a Union out of necessity, but only to protect their way of life from foreign conquerors. James Madison and his mentor Thomas Jefferson spearheaded the Richmond Convention of 1791. The states of Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Kentucky all sent delegates, ready though reluctant to revise their government. Thomas Jefferson had originally planned to return to France to witness their own Revolution, but he couldn’t leave Virginia on the precipice of history. He’d been absent for the first Convention as Minister to France, but he refused to make the same mistake again.
Patrick Henry presided over the Richmond Convention, an old and venerated statesman. Henry had been one of Virginia’s most outspoken opponents of the First Convention, but the Southern delegates were confident that their rights would not be abridged under his aegis. Without Federalist influence to discourage a Bill of Rights, Henry became one of the new Constitution’s biggest advocates. Still, the Northern states beat the South to ratify a Constitution. In October of 1791, they coalesced into the Federate States of America and elected John Adams to be their first President. Hamilton was given a crucial position as the Secretary of the Treasury for his leadership and his ideas. Though Rhode Island had declined to send delegates to any of the Conventions, its leaders saw which way the wind was blowing. They joined up to avoid being swept away. Vermont was contested territory between New York and New Hampshire, but the state was accepted into the Federation by the end of the year. In early 1792, the states of the South joined together to become the United States of America, led by a Triumvirate of George Mason, Daniel Morgan, and Thomas Johnson. Each country built itself according to its ideals and prepared to enter the world stage. Your country was forged in search of a middle way, but fear and suspicion shaped my twin Americas. In my world, neither North nor South, Federalist nor Anti-Federalist, would be forced to compromise.