Regardless of what you think of the actual constitution produced in 1787-90 (I'm including the first ten amendments in addition to the articles), what were the most insane, unworkable ideas that were at least considered at the Philadelphia convention and could have found its way into the federal political structure?
AHC most insane unworkable US constitution possible
- Thread starter Galba Otho Vitelius
- Start date
Skallagrim
Banned
It depends on what you consider insane. I personally think that Hamilton's ideas were the most insane, in that they were a certain recipe for dictatorship and ludicrous social stratification. To wit: he wanted a president for life, elected by Congress. I fact, he wanted this president for life to be officially an elected king. He wanted Senators for life, and he wanted only people who had been officers in the ARW and their direct male descendants to be eligable for Senator. He wanted the states reduced to mere provinces, and a central government essentially free to do whatever it wanted. (The clauses empowering the cental government would be far broader, and the Bill of rights -- which Hamilton didn't want -- would not exist at all.) He also wanted explicit primacy of the executive over the legislative (which would in effect make Congress a glorified advisory body to an all-powerful executive). He wanted a stong standing army, and he wanted to use it to actually start conquering stuff-- beginning with a war to take Louisiana and Florida by force. He also favoured restricting religious feedom to relatively mainstream Christian denominations, and making the USA officially a protestant nation.
In short, if Hamilton had gotten his way, the USA would be an aristocratic monarchy(-by-election), highly militarist, and way more WASP-y in every aspect of its being. It might not be literally "insane", but it would suck immensely.
(ETA: I see I have been ninja'd.)
In short, if Hamilton had gotten his way, the USA would be an aristocratic monarchy(-by-election), highly militarist, and way more WASP-y in every aspect of its being. It might not be literally "insane", but it would suck immensely.
(ETA: I see I have been ninja'd.)
My impression is that Hamilton's proposals were sort of an intellectual execise/ trolling and not seriously considered, or probably even meant to be seriously considered. I think you could get this with a POD before 1800, or find some way to make the American Revolution some sort of high Tory revolt against Whig Britain.
However, the ideas were not only perfectly workable, in fact except for the monarch being elected were pretty much in line with how European countries were governed in the eighteenth century. Actually, given that the Russian monarchy was not strictly hereditary, have the Russian Tsars decide to have an advisory Duma and you get something close to how Russia was governed.
However, the ideas were not only perfectly workable, in fact except for the monarch being elected were pretty much in line with how European countries were governed in the eighteenth century. Actually, given that the Russian monarchy was not strictly hereditary, have the Russian Tsars decide to have an advisory Duma and you get something close to how Russia was governed.
I'd also point out that from a certain acerbic point of view, the USA did in fact evolve in directions essentially paralleling Hamilton's "trolling" vision. In detail you can say "it's nothing like that!" but in effect, we have pretty well behaved as though Hamilton's notions were in force. We don't have single Kings for Life, but we do have a succession of Presidents who are constrained to narrow policy bounds and might as well be the same guy for 10 or 15 terms. We can elect persons of any social class or background we like Senators, but we in fact generally elect them from narrow class backgrounds--and a great many of them do in fact effectively serve for life! (For the record I think imposing term limits is a false and fetishistic "solution" and what we need is more effective positive democracy, the power to positively vote for a representative of one's own views and expect this vote to have effect). The states are in fact little more than provinces today. And by golly we did institute and maintain a huge standing army and did conquer vast swathes of territory and today meddle around the whole globe.
Hamilton on the whole would be pleased I think.
So someone should reach farther for "wackier" ideas I guess. Being constrained to "ideas someone brought up in 1787 at the Constitutional convention" means we need someone who is deeply read on the full details of the debates.
Hamilton on the whole would be pleased I think.
So someone should reach farther for "wackier" ideas I guess. Being constrained to "ideas someone brought up in 1787 at the Constitutional convention" means we need someone who is deeply read on the full details of the debates.
Skallagrim
Banned
This notion is accasionally raised by people who agree with Hamiltonian policies in general, but are forced to admit that his actual personal ideas were way too far out there. It's an attempt to defend his legacy from himself. the fact that he supported the views I've outlined in private correspondence as well pretty much underscores that he wasn't "trolling". He really meant it. (The idea that he was being purposely radical to force a 'compromise' that was actually in line with his real views also goes against everything we know about his usual behaviour: he was a very convinced, zealous guy who never even considered that his own views were imperfect. Not that he was the only one like that, but it rather shows that "crafty tactics to pretend to be more radical than he really was" are completely out of character for him.)
I don't think that emulating Tsarist Russia is really a good idea. "Workable", yes. "Insane", also yes. Not insane because it couldn't work, but because this was not "just the way European countries worked". Hamilton was attempting to create a more stratified, more conservative and more protectionist country-- in an era when more egalitarianism, more progressive notions and free trade economics were all on the rise elsewhere. It wasn't that his vision didn't correspond to 'tory' ideals in Europe... it's that he wanted to enforce those ideas when they were going out of fashion everywhere else. Hamilton was, in many ways, totally going against the current of history. Which doesn't mean his ideas could go no-where, but does mean that they had to be re-purposed in more moderate form, and with some of the more "tory" elements stripped out altogether.
This is a rather good point. Hamilton's biographer, Chernow, notes that "the USA itself is Hamilton's monument". He failed during his life, but his ideas (in moderated form) won in the long term. But the fact that it is more moderate in real life, and was introduced gadually, makes it far more viable.
Finally, I'd say that Hamilton getting his was 100% would have resulted in something totally alien to the OTL United States. No compromises, no gradual developments, no embedding of hamiltonian structures into Enlightenment values... just the enforced imposition of a centralist, militarist quasi-autocracy with an elitist mindset and a reactionary culture. The reason I'd call that "unworkable" is because such a USA would have its own "revolution of '48", same way European states had. Ironically, this implies that if Hamilton had won during his life-time, his legacy by the present day would be far less established (because most of it could get wiped away by popular revolution). In OTL, Hamiltonianism won in spite of Hamilton. In the ATL, Hamiltonianism may well lose due to Hamilton's complete success!
Anyway, one can also go the opposite route, and say that the anti-federalists winning would result in the most unworkable system. It would certainly feature a very under-powered government. That, too, could in the long term lead to conflicts and/or an enforced alteration of the constitution to create a stronger government. Since the anti-federalists wouldn't prevent states from running their own affairs the way they like it, however, whereas Hamilton's ideas would be forced on all states, I suspect an all-out anti-federalist victory would in the end be less likely to cause mass resistance than an all-out victory for Hamilton's ideas.
...and everything else is just in between these extremes, really. These are the most radical positions assumed at the time.
Taking the point that while Hamilton was clearly astute in the sense of discerning the actual dominant tendencies and sources of actual social power in the emerging USA, his clear mirror to the Republic was hardly welcome versus various ideological preferences people had--the elites on paper, while in truth (evidently!) acting in a more Hamiltonian way, and quite possibly the introduction of frank Hamiltonian guidelines might indeed have provoked a strong populist reaction that might have sufficed to strongly divert the social evolution of the nation...
Still, I think it should be plain that adopting Hamilton's suggestions in part or whole (more than they were OTL) would be less "insane" than doing the opposite, and opposing his suggestions at every turn more vigorously.
Now this business of discussing "the most insane" options is a bit self-defeating, because of course the weirder a suggestion is, the more likely to be plainly unworkable and counterproductive.
I would suggest, if we want to talk about doing Something Completely Different but plausible, we consider the possibility that the "Constitutional Convention" as we call it now might have been short-circuited.
It is well known, or should be anyway, that the gathering had a commission of sorts to propose revisions of the standing Articles of Confederation, but that they far exceeded their granted powers. Suppose someone had been more vigorous in watch-dogging the Convention and blown a whistle on it, putting pressure on them to conclude swiftly or being repudiated completely and a new approach to the desired revisions were taken instead?
I've considered the possibility that the Articles might have continued in operation with minimal revision before.
Suppose that the factions opposed to the Convention were to concede that some revisions were badly needed, and in particular The United States In Congress Assembled required
1) the power to institute a standing Continental Army and Navy
2) the authority to not request but demand taxes, to fund Congressional acts, of the member states.
With these two powers added, my reading of the Articles is that despite a number of more or less ad hoc supermajority requirements, by and large the Congress Assembled was an all-powerful unitary body fusing inherently supreme legislative, executive and even judicial authority.
The need for a third provision to establish a Continental judiciary of some kind would be plain as well. I daresay the highest court the Congress establishes would not be deemed capable of rulings that Congress, as the sole Federal elected body, could not override--fundamentally Congress Assembled itself would be the ultimate court, as far as the discerning of the exact nature of what is Constitutional law would go--quite reasonably I would hope they would recuse themselves from deciding cases pertaining to individual parties and let their established supreme Court rest--but quite possibly ordering the court to reconsider the disposition of such cases after Congressional revision or clarification of the law itself.
I believe that armed with these revisions, Congress Assembled might have functioned well enough to be the sole central organ of the United States, and the nation might be imagined to evolve to modern times remaining generally united and playing a broadly similar role in the world to OTL under a gradually revised Articles regime.
One tendency would be toward direct democracy. The 1787 Constitution took a leap in that direction with the House of Representatives of course--here that exemplary (though checked and qualified!) leap would be deferred. But I believe the basic democratic-republican spirit of the Americans was much too deeply and broadly founded to be diverted by failure to change Congress to a directly representative body elected by the people directly. The absence of a vote of confidence in the American people as mass voters for Congress is offset by the absence of the opposite, the Senate. In fact of course Congress Assembled was essentially the Senate, with more members, and them having short and irregular terms in irregular numbers. Each state delegation voted as a unit as the House is supposed to vote for the President should the Electoral Vote system fail to choose a President. Meanwhile in theory the States were sovereign and the USA a voluntary confederation of them for mutual convenience.
I deny by the way this was ever actually true even though everyone believed it was. In fact I think the American people were united inherently, by having been subjects of one sovereignty before rebellion, and choosing (perhaps without reflecting as deeply as they might on the meaning of what they were doing) to invent new republican institutions that assumed the ongoing unity of the new US nation implicitly. In the Articles is a provision that the residents of one state might freely settle in another, without the second state being permitted to prevent this or discriminate against their new citizens. I think this is a smoking gun proving that actually the American people were one all along, and a Federal government of some kind was absolutely required, and that the states do not and never did, even under the Articles, actually enjoy true sovereignty--they certainly do have protected status and prerogatives, but not sovereignty.
But continuing with the Articles would tend to reinforce this illusion, and focus the democratic passions and interests of the common people and their elite sympathizers on their various separate state governments.
Note these would probably not stumble upon the model we modern Americans take as standard, in close imitation of the OTL Constitutional Federal government. That is--two elected legislative Houses, one deemed to be "lower" and more properly populist, more immediately dependent on frequent elections, while the other is deemed "higher" and properly more insulated from changes in popular will--both in series required to concur on legislation; a separately and popularly elected Executive independent of the legislature with specific customary (embedded in written constitutional law of course--that is part of the customary American system!) powers. This specific model will not exist in the ATL. What did exist instead is something I would like someone to give me a nice comprehensive reference to sometime, or I might find something in my community college library perhaps.
Certainly the states would have more models to choose from than modeling themselves off the Articles Congress Assembled, but I suggest some might do just that anyway. The big difference would be the single legislature would be popularly elected, probably quite frequently. Settling on every other year is possible but not given! But the model would be that this body, concentrating all of legislative, executive and even judicial supreme authority in itself, would be all powerful, the only checks on it being possibly Federal action and hopefully democratic vigilance.
No "executive branch" would exist in such a state, or the United States In Congress Assembled either. Rather the state assembly, or Congress on its level, would create specific executives ad hoc, serving at the pleasure of the legislature and under supervision of a suitable legislative committee.
As noted states might not do this, having inherited or recently invented other models--but I think some would, particularly new ones created out west. Jefferson had already written, and Congress Assembled ratified, various Ordinances setting the model for how the collectively held territories of the USA would be tracked toward forming new states and governed in the interim, on a model of introducing republican autonomy as soon as feasible, by specified stages. The Territories by the way are one reason I think Congress Assembled would soon turn toward adopting a Federal judiciary--in Jefferson's scheme, the territorial settlers would quickly be able to elect their own judges, but in the interim some sort of judicial authority needed to exist, and a Federal court system would be a framework in which the territorial settler's elected judges would fit.
On the Federal level I envision the creation of many specific Secretaries for specific executive functions; should conflicts arise Congress would have to adjudicate them and revise the governing legislation accordingly. Historically the Secretaries of State, War, and I believe Treasury were all established during the Revolutionary War period. Assuming an Articles USA can stand and grow along roughly OTL lines, I suppose the Secretary of State will tend to become the "face" of the USA to all foreign powers. A separate Secretary of War (and another one for the Navy, which might at some later date be merged into one department) would manage the Army and Navy and during wartime I suppose Congress would appoint--and closely supervise, via a Committee of the Current War under various names--a supreme commander, but oaths of officers and soldiers will be to the USA, and perhaps to the Articles, not to this person. In addition early on some kind of secretary to manage relations with the Native peoples would be needed. As the nation evolves the need for action on a national level will emerge in various ways and appropriate departments with leaders named ad hoc will emerge.
The revenues of an Articles Congress are kind of interesting--the paper system which Congress could not enforce OTL is rather ingenious really. Note that the Constitutional mandate and requirement of a decennial Census would not exist, though I suppose the many states had something like that, some of them anyway. But what the Articles did require was that the states be assessed for their overall wealth, and pay contributions to Congress Assembled in proportion to that assessment. Now perhaps this might seem unworkable to some, though I think it is just a matter of the states accepting it and a suitable bureaucracy developing. Or simply suggest another approach, either because it would arguably seem more politically acceptable or logical, or just out of sheer randomness. Note that the OTL Constitution, prior to the Thirteenth Amendment enabling the Federal Income Tax, provided only for a "head tax" in which every citizen would have to pay the same stipulated amount. (This is one of the many reasons for the Census of course). But the Articles scheme was I think a bit more nuanced and fairer in my opinion, and provided we assume a moderately sized and not too costly federal bureaucracy could fairly assess the overall worth of the enterprises of each state, quite elegant. As Dillinger said, go where the money is! The Articles stipulated that states would be obliged to pay their financially proportional shares, but where each state got the money from would be its own business. Such a system, reasonably supplemented by the states agreeing (perhaps overcoming the objections of the coastal states--initially though all the states but Vermont were that, and more likely then with mutual concurrence of the majority of these) to pool all international commerce under a Federal authority, to collect tariffs perhaps with the proceeds split between Congress and any of several schemes to fairly distribute shares to the states. Certainly if the states are paying out according to their wealth, getting shares of the combined Federally collected tariff loot paid back to them in the same proportion would seem fair! This might considerably shift the terms of debate on whether or not to have tariffs and/or internal improvements.
Obviously the looming slavery issues and probable Civil War would be an elephant in the room. But I suspect it would get resolved eventually much the same as OTL...very probably with some delay of a decade or more.
The USA will not remain as it was in 1787 of course. It will expand westward. The notion of democratic populism, of "one man one vote" in state governments at first and eventually in the Federal system will grow in breadth and strength. Meanwhile great concentrated fortunes will also grow, and the nation will over the 19th century go from agricultural primarily to industrial, with the "captains of industry/robber barons" playing major roles and being countered by strong populist movements of various kinds.
The Articles regime must evolve somehow. I think it can do so in various ways to remain essentially of the same form but with modifications to permit to be relevant, effective and reasonably popular. It is possible though not certain pressure to shift representation in Congress Assembled from each state on an equal basis to states sending delegates free to caucus with those of other states in parties, and for the numbers of delegates to be brought in line either directly or indirectly with state populations will effectively change Congress to a national popular assembly. A compromise might be to make state delegations not proportional to population but say to the relative square root of it, so that a standard size delegation goes to an average sized state, and a state having say 9 times the average state population gets triple representation with a state 1/10 the average size in population getting 1/3. I suspect such a compromise would work out roughly to similar balances of power as the OTL Constitution allows.
It will be gradually recognized that the Federal regime is not optional, that the states are not sovereign but must remain in the Union, and it is all the people of the USA who delegate their sovereignty, not the various states.
Still, I think it should be plain that adopting Hamilton's suggestions in part or whole (more than they were OTL) would be less "insane" than doing the opposite, and opposing his suggestions at every turn more vigorously.
Now this business of discussing "the most insane" options is a bit self-defeating, because of course the weirder a suggestion is, the more likely to be plainly unworkable and counterproductive.
I would suggest, if we want to talk about doing Something Completely Different but plausible, we consider the possibility that the "Constitutional Convention" as we call it now might have been short-circuited.
It is well known, or should be anyway, that the gathering had a commission of sorts to propose revisions of the standing Articles of Confederation, but that they far exceeded their granted powers. Suppose someone had been more vigorous in watch-dogging the Convention and blown a whistle on it, putting pressure on them to conclude swiftly or being repudiated completely and a new approach to the desired revisions were taken instead?
I've considered the possibility that the Articles might have continued in operation with minimal revision before.
Suppose that the factions opposed to the Convention were to concede that some revisions were badly needed, and in particular The United States In Congress Assembled required
1) the power to institute a standing Continental Army and Navy
2) the authority to not request but demand taxes, to fund Congressional acts, of the member states.
With these two powers added, my reading of the Articles is that despite a number of more or less ad hoc supermajority requirements, by and large the Congress Assembled was an all-powerful unitary body fusing inherently supreme legislative, executive and even judicial authority.
The need for a third provision to establish a Continental judiciary of some kind would be plain as well. I daresay the highest court the Congress establishes would not be deemed capable of rulings that Congress, as the sole Federal elected body, could not override--fundamentally Congress Assembled itself would be the ultimate court, as far as the discerning of the exact nature of what is Constitutional law would go--quite reasonably I would hope they would recuse themselves from deciding cases pertaining to individual parties and let their established supreme Court rest--but quite possibly ordering the court to reconsider the disposition of such cases after Congressional revision or clarification of the law itself.
I believe that armed with these revisions, Congress Assembled might have functioned well enough to be the sole central organ of the United States, and the nation might be imagined to evolve to modern times remaining generally united and playing a broadly similar role in the world to OTL under a gradually revised Articles regime.
One tendency would be toward direct democracy. The 1787 Constitution took a leap in that direction with the House of Representatives of course--here that exemplary (though checked and qualified!) leap would be deferred. But I believe the basic democratic-republican spirit of the Americans was much too deeply and broadly founded to be diverted by failure to change Congress to a directly representative body elected by the people directly. The absence of a vote of confidence in the American people as mass voters for Congress is offset by the absence of the opposite, the Senate. In fact of course Congress Assembled was essentially the Senate, with more members, and them having short and irregular terms in irregular numbers. Each state delegation voted as a unit as the House is supposed to vote for the President should the Electoral Vote system fail to choose a President. Meanwhile in theory the States were sovereign and the USA a voluntary confederation of them for mutual convenience.
I deny by the way this was ever actually true even though everyone believed it was. In fact I think the American people were united inherently, by having been subjects of one sovereignty before rebellion, and choosing (perhaps without reflecting as deeply as they might on the meaning of what they were doing) to invent new republican institutions that assumed the ongoing unity of the new US nation implicitly. In the Articles is a provision that the residents of one state might freely settle in another, without the second state being permitted to prevent this or discriminate against their new citizens. I think this is a smoking gun proving that actually the American people were one all along, and a Federal government of some kind was absolutely required, and that the states do not and never did, even under the Articles, actually enjoy true sovereignty--they certainly do have protected status and prerogatives, but not sovereignty.
But continuing with the Articles would tend to reinforce this illusion, and focus the democratic passions and interests of the common people and their elite sympathizers on their various separate state governments.
Note these would probably not stumble upon the model we modern Americans take as standard, in close imitation of the OTL Constitutional Federal government. That is--two elected legislative Houses, one deemed to be "lower" and more properly populist, more immediately dependent on frequent elections, while the other is deemed "higher" and properly more insulated from changes in popular will--both in series required to concur on legislation; a separately and popularly elected Executive independent of the legislature with specific customary (embedded in written constitutional law of course--that is part of the customary American system!) powers. This specific model will not exist in the ATL. What did exist instead is something I would like someone to give me a nice comprehensive reference to sometime, or I might find something in my community college library perhaps.
Certainly the states would have more models to choose from than modeling themselves off the Articles Congress Assembled, but I suggest some might do just that anyway. The big difference would be the single legislature would be popularly elected, probably quite frequently. Settling on every other year is possible but not given! But the model would be that this body, concentrating all of legislative, executive and even judicial supreme authority in itself, would be all powerful, the only checks on it being possibly Federal action and hopefully democratic vigilance.
No "executive branch" would exist in such a state, or the United States In Congress Assembled either. Rather the state assembly, or Congress on its level, would create specific executives ad hoc, serving at the pleasure of the legislature and under supervision of a suitable legislative committee.
As noted states might not do this, having inherited or recently invented other models--but I think some would, particularly new ones created out west. Jefferson had already written, and Congress Assembled ratified, various Ordinances setting the model for how the collectively held territories of the USA would be tracked toward forming new states and governed in the interim, on a model of introducing republican autonomy as soon as feasible, by specified stages. The Territories by the way are one reason I think Congress Assembled would soon turn toward adopting a Federal judiciary--in Jefferson's scheme, the territorial settlers would quickly be able to elect their own judges, but in the interim some sort of judicial authority needed to exist, and a Federal court system would be a framework in which the territorial settler's elected judges would fit.
On the Federal level I envision the creation of many specific Secretaries for specific executive functions; should conflicts arise Congress would have to adjudicate them and revise the governing legislation accordingly. Historically the Secretaries of State, War, and I believe Treasury were all established during the Revolutionary War period. Assuming an Articles USA can stand and grow along roughly OTL lines, I suppose the Secretary of State will tend to become the "face" of the USA to all foreign powers. A separate Secretary of War (and another one for the Navy, which might at some later date be merged into one department) would manage the Army and Navy and during wartime I suppose Congress would appoint--and closely supervise, via a Committee of the Current War under various names--a supreme commander, but oaths of officers and soldiers will be to the USA, and perhaps to the Articles, not to this person. In addition early on some kind of secretary to manage relations with the Native peoples would be needed. As the nation evolves the need for action on a national level will emerge in various ways and appropriate departments with leaders named ad hoc will emerge.
The revenues of an Articles Congress are kind of interesting--the paper system which Congress could not enforce OTL is rather ingenious really. Note that the Constitutional mandate and requirement of a decennial Census would not exist, though I suppose the many states had something like that, some of them anyway. But what the Articles did require was that the states be assessed for their overall wealth, and pay contributions to Congress Assembled in proportion to that assessment. Now perhaps this might seem unworkable to some, though I think it is just a matter of the states accepting it and a suitable bureaucracy developing. Or simply suggest another approach, either because it would arguably seem more politically acceptable or logical, or just out of sheer randomness. Note that the OTL Constitution, prior to the Thirteenth Amendment enabling the Federal Income Tax, provided only for a "head tax" in which every citizen would have to pay the same stipulated amount. (This is one of the many reasons for the Census of course). But the Articles scheme was I think a bit more nuanced and fairer in my opinion, and provided we assume a moderately sized and not too costly federal bureaucracy could fairly assess the overall worth of the enterprises of each state, quite elegant. As Dillinger said, go where the money is! The Articles stipulated that states would be obliged to pay their financially proportional shares, but where each state got the money from would be its own business. Such a system, reasonably supplemented by the states agreeing (perhaps overcoming the objections of the coastal states--initially though all the states but Vermont were that, and more likely then with mutual concurrence of the majority of these) to pool all international commerce under a Federal authority, to collect tariffs perhaps with the proceeds split between Congress and any of several schemes to fairly distribute shares to the states. Certainly if the states are paying out according to their wealth, getting shares of the combined Federally collected tariff loot paid back to them in the same proportion would seem fair! This might considerably shift the terms of debate on whether or not to have tariffs and/or internal improvements.
Obviously the looming slavery issues and probable Civil War would be an elephant in the room. But I suspect it would get resolved eventually much the same as OTL...very probably with some delay of a decade or more.
The USA will not remain as it was in 1787 of course. It will expand westward. The notion of democratic populism, of "one man one vote" in state governments at first and eventually in the Federal system will grow in breadth and strength. Meanwhile great concentrated fortunes will also grow, and the nation will over the 19th century go from agricultural primarily to industrial, with the "captains of industry/robber barons" playing major roles and being countered by strong populist movements of various kinds.
The Articles regime must evolve somehow. I think it can do so in various ways to remain essentially of the same form but with modifications to permit to be relevant, effective and reasonably popular. It is possible though not certain pressure to shift representation in Congress Assembled from each state on an equal basis to states sending delegates free to caucus with those of other states in parties, and for the numbers of delegates to be brought in line either directly or indirectly with state populations will effectively change Congress to a national popular assembly. A compromise might be to make state delegations not proportional to population but say to the relative square root of it, so that a standard size delegation goes to an average sized state, and a state having say 9 times the average state population gets triple representation with a state 1/10 the average size in population getting 1/3. I suspect such a compromise would work out roughly to similar balances of power as the OTL Constitution allows.
It will be gradually recognized that the Federal regime is not optional, that the states are not sovereign but must remain in the Union, and it is all the people of the USA who delegate their sovereignty, not the various states.
But how much of the success of liberal ideals is due to the USA itself? IOTL, the US provided a great propaganda and psychological boost to liberal revolutionaries, who could point to it as an example of a successful liberal country. In a TL where the US is much more reactionary, this wouldn't be the case. The other big revolution, the French, ended up killing tens of thousands of its own citizens, committing the first modern genocide, falling to a military dictator, and initiating a quarter-century of continent-wide warfare. If this were the only example of trying to run a country on liberal lines, I wouldn't be surprised if liberalism were much less popular compared to OTL.
We'd have to estimate the importance of class polarization. Plenty of people OTL were undeterred by the deploring narrative of the trajectory of the French Revolution emanating from the victorious reactionary upper classes; these controlled the bastions of high culture to be sure and we might underestimate how much revolutionary spirit there was for that reason; it was the upper class narrative that tended to be enshrined in widely available histories, novels and other analyses. The more revolutionary classes were not daunted and did produce literature of their own, not to mention word of mouth agitation and verbal family lore. But the literature tended to disappear from libraries and so forth, or never be granted a place there at all.
Of course revolutionaries had their own cautionary take-aways from the record of such trajectories as that of the French First Republic or the outcomes of 1848, largely concerned with avoidance of reactionary dictatorships; the Bolsheviks being on the lookout for "another Napoleon" or "another Napoleon III" is part of the story of how Stalin slipped under their radar (acknowledging also that the difference between Stalin and most other probable contenders for control of the USSR, or more famous if also more improbable ones like Trotsky, was a difference of degree and style, the Party having long adopted "democratic centralism" with more and more emphasis on the latter part of the phrase.
In short it is not so clear to me that the USA was the major shining light for European revolutionaries OTL. I do think most people veering more or less left of center had some kind thoughts for the American example, but the farther left they went the more critical reservations they had as well; for Marxists any pro-American sentiment would take the form of hopes that the American masses might move drastically and rapidly--away from being apparently rather appallingly bourgeois that is!
Your point is worth considering carefully but in a rather more nuanced way I think. For one thing while "given" the OTL French Revolution I think any American reaction would just shift the focus of European radicals more back to their side of the Atlantic, and no great weight rested on the American example after the Napoleonic wars, still the contemporary American example was probably more critically catalytic in France itself in the 1780s! Would there be a First Republic at all without the American example?
Well, the Constitution was drafted and adopted just a handful of years before the great French risings of 1789.
A Marxist analysis is often caricatured, especially by people who don't understand Marx very well, as cartoonishly simple, a simple two-class civil war between a monolithic proletariat and equally monolithic bourgeois ruling class. Now one reason I respect Marx so much is that I think, after the transition to liberalism and the firm establishment of bourgeois capitalism has been accomplished, indeed society does trend strongly to actually be roughly described by that sociological model, but even then serious and careful Marxist analyses are more nuanced than that; the roles of various subdivisions and classes that at least conceive themselves as "middle" classes are very crucial. Still more were Marx's analyses of actual situations on the ground, notably in his famous "Brumaire" autopsy of the trajectory of the '48 in France and the rise to power of Louis Bonaparte, focused on important subdivisions of the broad categories of classes.
Basically, in the 19th Century, the "project" was the establishment of liberalism, of the bourgeois capitalist order, first of all. Naturally the more radicalized lower class firebrands looked beyond this to socialism in various forms, but center of gravity of power remained the rising bourgeoise, and many people a Marxist might suggest, speaking frankly with them, should throw their lot in with people lower on the social ladder in fact saw good prospects for themselves aiding movements led by and for interests higher up--indeed as a general rule in any social unrest, other things being equal the smart way to play it safer is to ally with some champion among the more powerful.
For America then to turn more rightward, and more to the point for the American people to appear to accept it as a done and settled deal, would throw some cold water on some of these sectors then. But it would actually embolden others, people one might judge more rightward than the dismayed ones, but relative to the situation on the ground in Europe, clearly still among the progressive bloc. They'd feel safer playing with red revolutionary fire.
So to a first approximation, I'd expect the USA going meekly (at least apparently) and whole hog Hamiltonian would have essentially a null effect. Mainly because the time span for the cold water, damping some lower middle class people and invigorating upper middle class people (and their allies in the upper classes) to have either effect in France is short, and insofar as the US example (as opposed to other factors, like the tight financial spot backing the American Revolution put the French monarchy in, which are unchanged anyway) was catalytic, the major documented effect was among the upper classes, notably the nobility--rather than fearing the OTL trajectory of events in America as an existential threat to their privileges, it made movements among the salon classes bolder in seeking revisions away from monarchial absolutism toward a more constitutional order with themselves having a more active say in government. It was with an eye toward offsetting the pretensions of the nobility that Louis XIV called the Estates General, ostensibly about a tax raising process. If instead of the 1787 Constitution, we adopted a more Hamiltonian one, that would I think only encourage the nobles to assert the timeliness of France moving forward on similar lines, and lull the King's wariness about the revolutionary potentials of the Third Estate and cause him to put all the more hope that these commoners would prefer to help him check the nobles. Now, would the less apparently democratic new American order dismay and daunt the leaders of the Third Estate and the more impetuously populist nobles like Lafayette? I really don't think it would; relative to the existing French order even Hamilton's program would look like progress, and the French were not shy about boldly going beyond American examples and doing it their own way. Some would be quieter and less resolved but others would be louder and bolder, and the complex process once rolling would bring forth new waves of hope and enthusiasm regardless of what is happening in America.
So I don't think anything done in Philadelphia in 1787, even something as reactionary as making a rougher and more aristocratic figure than Washington King, and putting down risings against this quite violently, would by that late date derail 1789 in France. Mind, earlier PODs involving the ARW being lost by the Patriots or the whole thing being defused by negotiations and settlements somehow might be much more game changing in France.
Not that I think either American alternative would be very likely, and the former--a rebellion that flares up, costs the Crown dearly but the Crown victory costing the colonists still more dearly, and a repressive restoration of Royal/Parliamentary power in America--more likely than "simply" negotiating away the crisis, for I think the crisis had deep roots in American society diverging in ways little noted but not entirely unseen by astute observers on both sides, and these could be hammered into acceptable sullen compliance with a Crown and Parliament that would learn some necessary lessons in the fray, but not simply talked away peacefully. Very frank talk might have led in theory to a settlement mutually agreeable, but the British side would have to make concessions they would not like to and not see the need to until too late, so I discount this option as realistic. In retrospect the American rebels were in a good position to win out ultimately and had motives to break loose of the British system that they did not clearly understand and recognize before the crisis but which came more clearly to mind during it.
And one of these deep rifting factors I think is that the Americans were becoming both democratic and bourgeois--in other words, deeply liberal.
In practice, no Hamiltonian or for that matter my opposite proposal of ongoing ramshackle Articles regime would stand without seeming, to American eyes, to be satisfactorily compatible with the developing and emerging American social order. I have acerbically pointed out that as American society did and political practice did develop, it actually conformed pretty well with Hamilton's broad notions. So perhaps had he been a bit more astute about mythos and terminology, refraining for instance from ever referring to his strong President For Life as any kind of "monarch." Analytically in the terms of the day, that term would apply of course, but the rhetorically smart thing would be to let his critics claim that and to have some pettifogging distinctions handy that would defuse the charge and put the critics in the wrong--for eventually at any rate, Americans could and did accept the "monarchial" Presidency.
Perhaps in truth his system would have no hope of adoption no matter how carefully sold, in his generation, before the evolution of the confluences of interests among the powerful he foresaw but perhaps discerned their strength prematurely. The Patriot generation was quite present and its spectrum went farther left than the clique in Philadelphia, as they knew well. It might be that a century had to pass before the American people would drift into accepting Hamiltonian forms and thus his notions were basically too advanced (as a shrewdly realistic system, I am not suggesting it was actually "progressive" in the usually left-polarized sense of the term common today, though in terms of doubling down on bourgeois rule it could justly be called just that).
What might have thrown more cold water with a more generally damping effect on the spectrum running from radicals frankly hoping to turn the world upside down to reformers hoping to fix the system would be the American system disintegrating into a bunch of squabbling mini-republics with many of them falling fast into various kinds of autocracy, and the American continent embroiled in frequent war and being played off against each other for imperialist gain, even if no crowned monarch ever formally seized any of them. I suspect even that would only slow things up a bit in Europe.
The USA existing at all, under almost any terms avoiding disintegration, would have served its purpose of revolutionary inspiration already once the British negotiated the truce.
Damn, Hamilton was an absolute chad. "Lol, we just barely won against the brits, let's conquer the rest of the Americas."
This makes me realize the political party the US is missing: Neo-Hamiltonians.
"The natural borders of the United States stretch from the North Pole to the Panama Canal! Ave, Praeses, morituri te salutant!"
Forgot a few territories in the Middle East because hey, gotta get all that black gold, but other than that, T I M E T O E S T A B L I S H D I R E C T R U L E F R O M W A S H I N G T O N
"Our natural borders are at this man-made structure that won't be constructed for some 100 years"
Hey, I did say neo-Hamiltonians.
Which is ironic because Washington D.C. is the only place in america that doesn't rule itself.