AHC/WI: Articles of Confederation lead to collapse of US

The Articles of Confederation were the predecessor to the modern US Constitution. Suffice it to say, they were weak, unenforceable, and had the effect of creating 13 countries in one.

The Constitution replaced it and created a strong federal government while at the same time granting significant autonomy to the states. But what if an agreed upon Constitution can never be written, and the US dissolves into thirteen independent countries?

-AYC
 
If the US broke up this early, I think that other colonies in the Americas would be less likely to declare independence seeing how the US failed. There would likely not be any French Revolution and therefore no Napoleonic Wars. In the former US, I would think there might be a lot of border disputes. I think New England could possibly form its own country instead of its respective states though. Mexico (or possibly still Spain) would retain it's territory in the West. If it becomes an independent Mexico, it could easily become a superpower to replace the US. Europe would probably remain the center of power.
 
I'm doing a TL involving this, so more details about the possibilities of this, or links to threads where this was discussed in greater depth, would be greatly appreciated. I want to see if I can avoid any major fumblings before I even begin if possible.
 
Well..you might not see 13 separate colonies, but several agglomerations of smaller groups. For example New England (and remember Maine was part of Massachusetts at this time) minus Vermont which might be independent "Green Mountain Republic", could see NY, PA & VA all as single entities - Delaware might go with NJ or Maryland... Carolinas and Georgia might all be together - Georgia was very underpopulated at that time and felt threatened by Spanish in Florida & Indians to the west. In this Balkanized USA you might not see the British give them all of the "northwest" that was due by treaty, as it was quite some time before the Brits evacuated that area - good odds Minnesota east of the Mississippi, Wisconsin, and Northern Illinois might fall back in to British hands. Of course unlikely Florida ever gets bought, likewise Louisiana Territory either stays French or partially or completely goes to UK as a result of Napoleonic Wars. An interesting butterfly would be Napoleon losing in Europe, but coming to N. America and establishing French Empire there...independent from France.

Any of the "western" territories the US owns as a result of the treaty ending the revolution will be significant bone of contention between the successor states. OTL there were disputes about what belonged to whom basically settled by saying everything to the west of the boundaries well established was federal property & to be made in to new states. Even New England might have claims (the "western reserve" area of Ohio was claimed by Connecticut) and they could connect via the Great Lakes.

There will become an increasing divide between the slave and non-slave states (although most even north did have slavery which went away pretty quickly) in this case, even more so than OTL when there were reasons to compromise. Certainly fugitive slaves unlikely to be sent back across international border..no fugitive slave law/Dredd Scott. Might see some fighting over the western territories, and could very well see different successor states becoming allied/aligned with different European powers, causing friction.

In any case this Balkanized USA would go no further west than the Mississippi, and none of the states would be significant powers. Economic development would be significantly retarded because there would be at least some customs/tariff barriers between successor states unlike OTL, and foreign investment might be significantly reduced due to concerns about political instability. Later on, will take a while to get a standard N. American RR gauge....OTL was not really in place til after the CW & in south and some in north due to needs of Union army.
 
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