AHC: USA reduced to as few states as possible.

See the title. The political entity must clearly consider itself the USA, and while some slight adjustments to borders can be made, the states that do remain should clearly be recognizable and generally not be carved up/reorganized/divided and overall made into new states.

A POD of no earlier than 1789, since having the Articles of Confederation stay, fail, and the states go their own way is too cliched and obvious and I'd like to see different ways this can be done. Otherwise, any ways of doing this -- secession, (re?)conquest of certain areas, externally-imposed vassal states, or a mix of any of these -- are allowed.
 
Avert the Louisiana Purchase. Have the US get involved in a disastrous version of the War of 1812: New England secedes and Michigan/Wisconsin are lost in the peace treaty. The "southern" states will be in the majority, so it's hard to imagine them seceding right away, but perhaps if Virginia abolishes slavery, South Carolina might split with the rest of the Deep South in tow.

The US in this case would be: Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Kentucky, Ohio, *Indiana, and *Illinois, which I think is a pretty solid core.
 
Would the USA still stretch from sea to shining sea?

If so, then probably something similar to the amount of Canadian provinces. Very large states, although in Canada, the reason for the small number of provinces has to do with the fact that their population is only ten percent of that of the United States.
 
Would the USA still stretch from sea to shining sea?

If so, then probably something similar to the amount of Canadian provinces. Very large states, although in Canada, the reason for the small number of provinces has to do with the fact that their population is only ten percent of that of the United States.

Theoretically this counts, but it's hard to imagine a few huge states, presumably in the west, while keeping the small founding ones back east without some huge balance upsets. Admittedly on my mind it was seeing the smallest possible, yet recognizable rump remnant composed of traditional states and their borders, probably by the US being torn asunder by internal or external woes.

If one wants to keep the current national borders though, it would be interesting to see the results of a few huge bloc states out west (Texas keeps its old republic borders? California is bigger? Oregon Country as one state?), although there would be obvious great disparity, more than even in OTL.
 
Civil Was one here. Have the Northwest Conspiracy succeed and the Old Northwest secedes from the Union. This cuts off the USA from its territories in the west. The USA is defeated. California, Nevada and the Oregon Country go their own way. The Remaining western territories are split between the CSA and the Northwesters. The USA is thus reduced to:

Maine
Vermont
New Hampshire
Massachusetts
Rhode Island
Connecticut
New York
Pennsylvania
Maryland (maybe)
 
Itr reading of a proposal in the runup to the Civil War, to "solve" the question of slavery in the territories by dividing them between the states of California, Oregon, Minnesota, Texas and (when admitted) Kansas. If there were no Territories there would be no territorial question. Needless to say it didn't fly, but it wouild have drastically cut down the number of western states.
 
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