The challenge is to destroy the government based off of the American constitution. This could mean anything from the peaceful adoption of a new document, a coup, a dissolution of the union, or anything else that prevents it from governing anything. It can take place any time from the ratification to modern day. Was the survival of the government created by the constitution probably, or an unlikely outcome?
AHC-Overthrow the Consitiution
- Thread starter El Speculador
- Start date
One possibility is to have the British win the War of 1812 decisively. IOTL, it was basically a push - neither side accomplished much but at least the British largely fucked off U.S. territory - but if the British had made major inroads and forced the U.S. into serious debt and financial instability, then the whole nation could go straight to hell. At best, the States become a backward alliance that turns into something of an authoritarian democracy at the federal level until the South splinters off and the Feds don't have the ability to hold things together, and at worst the British regain a chunk of the colonies and it's close to the 20th century before they are liberated.
Britain intervenes in the US Civil War, either on behalf of the Confederacy or fighting their own concurrent war a la "If they will not meet us on the open sea", although the casus belli is such that the US can't make the war stop just by issuing an apology. America gets screwed so badly that its government becomes totally discredited, and one of its generals launches a coup, taking over the government in the name of military efficiency against the existential threat currently facing the Union. He promises to lay down his powers once the situation is returned to normal, but funnily enough, that day never quite seems to arrive...
"Liberated"? A bit presumptuous about whether the territories in question would still actually want to be part of the US, don't you think?
Planet of Hats
Donor
Pretty sure this is a current politics thread.
At least it isn't the inevitable "Canada willingly joins the US" canard.
Anaxagoras
Banned
Even if the Confederacy succeeds in breaking away from the United States, the Constitution will remain in force in the United States. I personally think that the most dangerous moment for the Constitution was in the late 1790s, when it was still new and not firmly established, and the High Federalists were passing the Alien and Sedition laws and threatening the use of a standing army to suppress internal political opposition.
King Thomas
Banned
Some would say-have Donald Trump elected as President, but that's over the top in my view.
That scenario would still use the constitution, even if it is ignored. The idea of my scenario is not that the constitution is partly ignored, because that has been going on since the Lewis and Clark expedition was sent out by the federal government, but that it is completely removed from any legal standing.
State Debt Crisis 1839-1841. Combine with Aroostock War and Second Seminole War. POD British choose to harass young Republic of US with insurgencies to force payment of massive canal-building debts. Check it out. Constitution specified that Martin Van Buren would have HAD to make good and the British would have known it.
A President comes to power and starts repressing populations with the approval of Congress and the Supreme court. Large scale martial law eventually leads to revolution and the writing of a new constitution. Or we can go with a long drawn out scenario where the US goes all Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms until someone manages to reunite the states under himself, and draws up whatever constitution he wants.