DBAHC: Could the United States have survived and remained united if it remained a democratic nation?

A lot of people claim that large continental empires are inherently predisposed to autocracy. Nowhere would that be more true than in the American Empire, where the large geographic, ethnic, religious and cultural gap between the population centers enforces a sense of regionalism that often surpasses loyalty to Pennsylvania. A democratic America, as seen in the first government, known as the "United States of America", was paralysed by infighting over minor disputes, being unable to stop the multiple rebellions by slaves and New Englanders until the monarchist coup, which was shortly followed by a period of competing military councils until Emperor Jackson finally united the country.

As we see yet another round of race riots across America, I ponder the question: could the United States have survived and remained united if it remained a democratic nation?

Personally, I believe the south only joined the United States during the Anti-British War to separate from Britain, and later it attempted to leave when it felt Pennsylvania's jurisdiction and economic controls were growing too strict, and the north had no interest in being attached to what it viewed as a bunch of illiterate farmers and cruel slaveowners. If they had allowed free elections, then we could easily see the states separate into regional groups, like Spanish America had.
 
Interesting question.....and one which may never, to be truthful, have a definitive answer, given that so many things happened in the last 25 years of the 18th Century.

But might a democratic and less reactionary-dominated America have led to a less populated-and powerful-Canada & Mexico? IOTL, Canada has approximately 75 million people from coast to coast, versus Mexico's 180 million; both are considered to be amongst of the world's great powers in this day and age(Mexico leading in military strength, and Canada in finance & cybertechnology in particular), and there's a good argument to be made that they did so well in large part because of America's relative weakness.
 
A lot of people claim that large continental empires are inherently predisposed to autocracy.

That's basically just Anglo-Japanese propaganda, though. Part of the whole 'island story' shtick, scrappy little democratic monarchies holding out on the edge of monolithic continental tyrannies (please ignore our vast overseas colonial empires), etc. Just because it happened to be true in Europe, North America and East Asia doesn't mean it's true everywhere and every time.

Hell, it's disproved by their Canadian and Mexican allies today, and long before that by Brazil and Egypt.
 
Just because it happened to be true in Europe, North America and East Asia doesn't mean it's true everywhere and every time.

Hell, it's disproved by their Canadian and Mexican allies today, and long before that by Brazil and Egypt.

If it's true in most of the world then it's generally true. All exceptions are exceptional.

Canada, for example, is only what it is because of the last two hundred years of brain drain from its southern neighbor. Obviously it'll be liberal, democratic, and technologically advanced if all the secularists and freethinkers from the 1820s on fled the Empire. The impact of the Second Great Awakening and the anti-intellectualism of the Latter Day Church cannot be overstated!
 
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