AHC: Factions Claiming Legitimacy of America

I wasnt really sure on how to phrase it, but how would you get an American Civil War but instead of secession and break away states, have it so the sides, being 2 or more, are claiming the legacy or place of the true United States, basically how North and South Korea both claim to be the only Korea.

The POD can be any time after 1845, and you must have at least 2 factions claiming to be the United States, the less break away states the better, but the occurrence of a civil war it would most likely make some states break off in itself.
 
I don't know much about the ACW,but from one of my history lectures,it was claimed by the Confederates that they were leading the Second American Revolution.
 
It's tricky with that PoD, because the longer the southern states waited before succession, the worse their chances of succeeding, so the ideal PoD would push forward abolitionism in the northern states a couple decades earlier than OTL.

By the time you reach 1845, the United States is strong enough to sustain itself against any plausible outside aggression, and the only massive regional strife is North vs. South - and really, there's nothing unique to this idea to be found there.

If we can knock it back a couple of decades, it's possible to get a breakaway New England, and then have the South break away later over the issue of slavery. Three nations, each claiming to be representatives of the 'true' United States.
 
Make the 1860 election, or an analogue to it a cycle or two earlier, messier. A flawed and weak *Republican candidate. Obvious vote-rigging, voter intimidation, and violence. Multiple slates of electors trying to be seated. Eventually militias will form to pressure the Feds to accept their chosen outcome and it turns into a war. Both sides will claim to be fighting for democracy and preserving the Union.
 
Do you mean the American Civil War (the one fought OTL 1861-65) or just any sort of American civil war? Your wording seemed a little ambiguous to me, but assuming the second, the most straightforward way to do it (as I understand it) would be to suddenly knock out centralized and legitimate political leadership without a clear path of succession, allowing regional or ideological factions a chance to rise up and try to fill the ensuing power vacuum. How you go about establishing this power vacuum is a little trickier. The easiest way would be to have a sudden natural disaster (the Tunguska bolide goes a bit off-course and explodes above Washington or what have you), wipe out central leadership, but a POD on that scale would probably qualify as ASB. You might also be able do it via ordinary man-made death and violence, but killing off everyone (the President, Cabinet, Congressional leadership, etc.) with no warning is kind of tricky with pre-20th century technology. Still, the earlier the POD and less sophisticated communications are, the slower news will travel and the greater the chance for miscommunication and chaos following a successful decapitation of leadership (by whatever means), and thus the odds are better that there will be multiple 'Provisional Government of the United States' claimants by the time the actual legitimate successor government (if it exists) can reassert itself. Alternatively, you could have a situation where, despite the pre-conflict government still surviving, it is viewed as illegitimate and unrecognized by all the other claimants for any given reason (i.e., it's the result of a coup or seemingly rigged election) and so the claimant factions fight against it for betraying or abandoning the principles of American governance.

Despite its. . . other issues, I think The Falcon Cannot Hear did a good job of portraying the sort of situation OP described, where several of the major factions claim legitimacy as successors to the American government in a country-wide civil war.
 
I don't know much about the ACW,but from one of my history lectures,it was claimed by the Confederates that they were leading the Second American Revolution.

This is actually somewhat true. If I recall, the Confederacy's Constitution would admit any US state. Karl Marx claimed in an essay that it meant the Confederate States of America wasn't so much a rebellion to make an independent country, but actually an attempt at a "reorganisation" of the United States, spearheaded by the planters and others of the Confederacy.
 
Random thought I had - what if the AWI was deferred or the Americans were defeated and when the slave trade is outlawed by the UK you have rebellions in the South against the imposition of British law on the colonies, in the North due to lingering complaints over British trade limitations and expansion westwards and in Canada due to the absence of any representative governments.

Basically a three way North American rebellion occurring at the same time. Assuming the British lose, the fallout between the factions in North America could be very interesting.
 
This is actually somewhat true. If I recall, the Confederacy's Constitution would admit any US state. Karl Marx claimed in an essay that it meant the Confederate States of America wasn't so much a rebellion to make an independent country, but actually an attempt at a "reorganisation" of the United States, spearheaded by the planters and others of the Confederacy.
My history lecturer claimed at one point that the Confederates were actually following what the Founding Fathers of the US,many of whom rich old slave owners from the south,originally intended.
 
My history lecturer claimed at one point that the Confederates were actually following what the Founding Fathers of the US,many of whom rich old slave owners from the south,originally intended.

There is a strong argument to be made for that, especially if you follow the Jeffersonian logic.
 
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