Consitutional Convention failure Ideas thread

Jasen777

Donor
If everything is coming apart, New Hampshire isn't likely to sign up for a Massachusetts dominated New England. And there's likely to be conflict with New York over Vermont again.

Maryland isn't going to want to be subordinate to Virginia or Pennsylvania either. Now whether either could last independently is questionable of course.

And Watch out for butterflies. Mormonism may never came to be, or never gain any support. The whole "burned-over district" revival of Western New York is going to be affected by a disunited U.S. Will New York alone have the ability to build the Erie Canal that made it prosperous int he first place?

Settlement patterns could be very different. Planning a Texas and California with any resemblance to OTL is getting way too far ahead. The disunited states will have a different (and likely weaker) settlement push. And Louisiana is in the way, and of course that is going to be different.
 
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Very close to the proposed state of Franklin indeed..... As for settlement, well you already know that the Americas wont all speak English..... you can work out what that means yourself.
 
After doing some research I am planning on having Roger Sherman of Conneticut not make the Philadelphia Convention, thus preventing the Conneticut Compromise from taking place and ending the convention in failure.

What I am now trying to work out, is that what would happen in the next 20 or so years, with the desired result of breaking the USA into several states. (I do NOT consider Rhode Island a state)
 
Settlement patterns could be very different. Planning a Texas and California with any resemblance to OTL is getting way too far ahead. The disunited states will have a different (and likely weaker) settlement push. And Louisiana is in the way, and of course that is going to be different.

I disagree. Befroe, the Revolution, the Americans were settling the lands west of the Appalachians in total disregard to the treaties signed between the British and the Indians. Most people forget that the lands between the Appalachians and the Mississippi were not given to us by the British. Rather they ceded to us the right to negotiate for those lands.

Also after the revolution therre was a lively and sometimes violent conflict between the states in settling the lands of the West. Pennsylvania and Connecticut actually got into a shooting war in Ohio over settlements.

I think the settlement push would have been more chaotic and violent. I can see Pennsylvania and Virginia fighting in Ohio or NC and Virginia fighting in Kentucky and Tennessee.
 
Any chance you could dig me up a link.

I also found out that long the way the New England Federalist states threathned secession in the late eighteenth, early ninteenth centuries, not sure if this is true however.

As it stands the effect I am going to try for is five or six good size countries made up out of the 13 original states with about another seven or eight nations in the rest of OTL USA.... Of course this will require a look at pretty much the entire pre-Civil war history of the United States and looking at ways it would develop in this TL as opposed to OTL. Of course being Australian I can only make a guess as to what areas would suit which areas. I am thinking for the original colonies the following 'nations' would be formed: Federation of New England, Greater New York, Pennsylvannia, Commonwealth of Virginia, United Carolinas and Greater Georgia.....

Other states I have in mind for are, Sequoyah (an Indian-led confederation), Texas, California (both very close to OTL without the strong US federal input), Deseret (Mormonist state) and a Rocky Mountain state. It is also probable that several areas of OTL USA will become parts of the 4 or 5 British dominions I have planned in place of Canada (which wont need to stretch from ocean to ocean to compete with its southern upstart rivals!)

I don't see all the American nations remaining neutral in the new Napoleonic-esque war, and this will obviously will have butterflies into Europe (especially the formation of Germany and Italy) and other events like the French revolutionary period, Victorian era Britain, 1848 uprisings and the like.

Let me know what you guys are thinking and if there is anything that you would add in, or have in mind as to how to make this happen.

Here are some questions that came into my min d, which I pass on as food for thought...
The historic person Sequoyah may not be born or distinguish himself enough to warrent a having a whole confederation named after him. How will this pan-tribal confederation evolve? How will Great Britain, France & Spain respond? British troops may not leave the Great Lakes in TTL; who's going to make them? Everything west of the Mississippi will develop very different in TTL. The Louisianna Purchase will probably not be made as none of the emerging Atlantic coast nations will have enough money to buy it. Oregon Country will be carvede up by the Spanish, British & Russians. Texas & California will not evolve as per OTL w/o the strong federal US input. Mexico may keep its entire pre Adams-Onis Treaty territory in TTL. Also, even if Joseph Smith, Sr. and Nancy Mack do get married in TTL, they may not have a son named Joseph, Jr. in 12/1905 or ever live in Palmyra, New York. Even if all this happens as per OTL and if he receives the Book of Mormon, why would the religion, his life/death or the journey to what became OTL Salt Lake City happen as per OTL? How can the formerly united states do anything but stay neutral during the Napoleonic wars? Where will the capital & incentive for roads, railroads & canals, which helped fuel westward expansion on OTL, come from in TTL?

Good luck. I look forward to seeing how your TL evolves.
 
Here are some questions that came into my min d, which I pass on as food for thought...
The historic person Sequoyah may not be born or distinguish himself enough to warrent a having a whole confederation named after him. How will this pan-tribal confederation evolve? How will Great Britain, France & Spain respond? British troops may not leave the Great Lakes in TTL; who's going to make them? Everything west of the Mississippi will develop very different in TTL. The Louisianna Purchase will probably not be made as none of the emerging Atlantic coast nations will have enough money to buy it. Oregon Country will be carvede up by the Spanish, British & Russians. Texas & California will not evolve as per OTL w/o the strong federal US input. Mexico may keep its entire pre Adams-Onis Treaty territory in TTL. Also, even if Joseph Smith, Sr. and Nancy Mack do get married in TTL, they may not have a son named Joseph, Jr. in 12/1905 or ever live in Palmyra, New York. Even if all this happens as per OTL and if he receives the Book of Mormon, why would the religion, his life/death or the journey to what became OTL Salt Lake City happen as per OTL? How can the formerly united states do anything but stay neutral during the Napoleonic wars? Where will the capital & incentive for roads, railroads & canals, which helped fuel westward expansion on OTL, come from in TTL?

Good luck. I look forward to seeing how your TL evolves.

Some very good reasoning. My plans for some of the things you have mentioned are the following:

- There will be limited American participation in the Napoleonic-esque wars, probably with some of different sides as well! (even these wars will be affected by butterflies, and in effect from the late 18th century onwards the whole history of the world has to be practically re-written)
- I was planning on a Deserect type state. Now it doesn't necessarily have to be Mormonism, but there will be a distinctly American relgion occuring at some point in the TL.
- Sequoyah is the working name I have for the Indian Confederation that I am planning. It is going to be around the OTL Oklahoma region, if anything a little bit larger. Not sure as to how this is going to develop just yet as I am still forming the concrete TL for the years immediatley after the failed convention.
- Lousiana Purchase indeed will not happen, I have ideas for this area of French influence however.
- As for economic growth, there will still be a lot of capital influx from European nations (probably even more than in OTL as there will be more nations investing in the different states) However immigration will be different with some areas not receving as much as in OTL and other receiving more than in OTL.

I am planning on having from 1780 - 1815 written up by the end of the weekend, to kick this off. Don't hold your breathe though, just in case the missus throws a spanner in the works.
 

Jasen777

Donor
Also after the revolution therre was a lively and sometimes violent conflict between the states in settling the lands of the West. Pennsylvania and Connecticut actually got into a shooting war in Ohio over settlements.

I think the settlement push would have been more chaotic and violent. I can see Pennsylvania and Virginia fighting in Ohio or NC and Virginia fighting in Kentucky and Tennessee.

Yes, but that adds up to a weaker overall push as they spend more energy fighting each other.
 
Whe also have the pirate problem.
After the revolution, the US no longer came under British payments of Tribute to the Barbary coast.
This was one of the costs the AoC struggled to pay, and the US paid.
Would this fragmented US be able to afford the payments like whe made in OTL.
 
True, however would the individual states have to pay so much? The Barbary Pirates may play some part for the first few decades but wont survive as the industrial revolution takes place.
 
Have him killed in a duel wih Patrick Henry

There were some 14? proposed Amendments to the AoC, which would have doubled the number of Articles.
If the 1788 Convention fails, I would see a '89 convention that had been called to look only at the Amendments, and forbidden to do anything else.

Do you have a list of these amendments to the AoC?
 
As a general note, IMHO it's incorrect to say that Jefferson was "anti-Union." Indeed, his letters to Madison during Virginia's ratification debates suggest he as very much pro-Union, he simply wanted the Union government to reflect his ideals. Indeed, he called the plan of 1787 perfectly valid, but wanted a strong Bill of Rights. All of this is somewhat minor since it's still quite likely that if you let Jefferson get to a constitutional convention without someone like John Adams to counter balance him, the idealist nature of Jefferson's proposals would stymie the result.

Now, as to what this Ohio War of yours will be, it largely depends on just what it's about. The Northwest Ordinance had already been passed, so the issue of Western lands per se has been settled. It will rear its head when the Articles dissolve and the states start to re-assert their land claims. Now you might start something like this if you wait about 10 years and have Indian attacks on settlers force Big State X (either Virginia or Pennsylvania) to send in troops to protect settlers. Very soon that state clams land which another state objects to and presto-chango a war erupts. I would more imagine the death knell of the AoC is a union of the New England colonies that doesn't really undo the Articles, but supercedes them so effectively that they're very soon rendered a dead letter.

Also, you have a ton of economic detritus to consider. One or more of the smaller states may either default on its loans or fall prey to internal insurrection because of taxes imposed to pay back those loans. Western speculators will be destroyed if the Northwest Ordinance renders their investments void. This probably means Canada gets much of the Great Lakes territory still occupied by Britain.
 
Well as it stands at the moment the NW Ordinance has fallen apart due to the collapse of the AoC.

The emergence of the United Commonwealths of New England will come up in the next one or two chapters.

The Ohio War starts when Virginian State Milita in Ohio attack a Pennsylvanian settlement from a mis-percieved griveance.
 
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