DBWI: America Survives

So I was just on wikipedia and I came across The United States of America Page. Apparently the country existed from its declaration of independence in July 1776 to Febuary 26 1816. It fell during the "Four Year Colonial War" as the British refer to it (June 18th 1812 to February 26th 1816). Do you think this country could have survived longer? How powerful could it have become?
 
Isn't this something to do with the Napoleonic wars? the wiki said the Iron Duke lead the army their before he became PM
I mean i know more than the average bloke but wasn't America some kind of unstable country(s?)

OOC: British kids aren't taught anything about the ARW or 1812, the majority don't know that 1812 even happened they think the two countries just sat walked away and didn't talk after the revolution until the 30's XD
 
I shudder to think what would have happened if the Crown hadn't won the Four Year Colonial War. The Dominion of British North America saw a peaceful transition away from the evils of slavery, and I have trouble seeing a BNA that wasn't a part of the British Commonwealth.

Given British North America's contributions to both Great Wars, I'd say that TTL"USA" could have grown at least as powerful as Australia is IOTL.

God Save The Queen!
 
Well it would have helped if the colonies (ok they called themselves states in this period) could have agreed on how they were going to govern themselves! It appears that they were united in name only and had continual skirmishes over territory especially the land between the Appalachians and the Mississippi. It also didn't help that Washington, Jefferson and Franklin gave up in disgust at the representatives inability to agree anything and retired from politics.
 
I think their growing population would force them westwards. They did buy Louisana from France and claim Oregon. Not to mention settlers moving to the Mexican state of Texas. I can easily see them going to war over Texas and taking all of Northern Mexico. Who knows, maybe they can split Oregon with the British.

The only reason the British won the first and second European wars was because of American troops from the colonies. If they had stayed Indepent there would be no reason to go to war aganist the Germans. Britian would fall or go bankrupt allowing the United States to become the super power.
 
I think their growing population would force them westwards. They did buy Louisana from France and claim Oregon. Not to mention settlers moving to the Mexican state of Texas. I can easily see them going to war over Texas and taking all of Northern Mexico. Who knows, maybe they can split Oregon with the British.

The only reason the British won the first and second European wars was because of American troops from the colonies. If they had stayed Indepent there would be no reason to go to war aganist the Germans. Britian would fall or go bankrupt allowing the United States to become the super power.

that's a lot of what ifs, I doubt they would be able to touch Mexico, just think of how easily they repelled the Spanish.
 
I think their growing population would force them westwards. They did buy Louisana from France and claim Oregon. Not to mention settlers moving to the Mexican state of Texas. I can easily see them going to war over Texas and taking all of Northern Mexico. Who knows, maybe they can split Oregon with the British.

The only reason the British won the first and second European wars was because of American troops from the colonies. If they had stayed Indepent there would be no reason to go to war aganist the Germans. Britian would fall or go bankrupt allowing the United States to become the super power.

That's a lot of "What if's", I'd say it's borderline ASB. There's no way that Europe would let one country end up dominating the majority of North America, let alone let one grow to superpower status. My guess is that the United States stays a regional power, most likely on the East Coast, maybe they get as far as the Mississippi.

We'd look at a North America that has a US dominated East Coast (I'll indulge and say they get to the Mississippi), with a probably independent New France that covers the interior (I'm not great on French history, do you think they would have split before or after the Glorious Uprising?), with New Spain balancing things out.
 
I think their growing population would force them westwards. They did buy Louisana from France and claim Oregon. Not to mention settlers moving to the Mexican state of Texas. I can easily see them going to war over Texas and taking all of Northern Mexico. Who knows, maybe they can split Oregon with the British.

The only reason the British won the first and second European wars was because of American troops from the colonies. If they had stayed Indepent there would be no reason to go to war aganist the Germans. Britian would fall or go bankrupt allowing the United States to become the super power.

Yeah well if they had won against the British, they could have tried to expand West but Mexico was pretty strong and not going to tolerate a bunch of Yankees telling them that slavery would happen in Texas. Not to mention, all of those German immigrants to New Austria. They wouldn't have tolerated pro-slavery forces.

Of course slavery was eventually going to be a big problem for TTL USA. I don't think you could have had a situation like where Parliment gradually ended slavery. So an American Civil War somewhere in the 19th Century? Maybe the 1840s or 1850s?

And Mike, you well know that while British North America supplied troops to the First and Second Crimean Wars, the Dominion of British America became its own sovereign nation 1897 so it supplied men to the Great Wars of the 20th Century of its own accord. I believe that perhaps TTL USA would possibly do that if there were like 50 to 60 years of peace between them and the British Empire.

(OOC: BNA is the combo of Canada and USA. Canada became its own nation in 1867. I adjusted the date of BNA's independance and it functions like Canada with a Prime Minister and a Governor-General who represents the Queen)
 
Of course slavery was eventually going to be a big problem for TTL USA. I don't think you could have had a situation like where Parliment gradually ended slavery. So an American Civil War somewhere in the 19th Century? Maybe the 1840s or 1850s?

It would have torn them apart if they hadn't solved it. Look at how bad things got OTL, if it hadn't been for Prime Minister Wilberforce we could have seen a second American Revolt. I can't imagine TTL's USA being able to handle it diplomatically. Best case scenario you've got a running legislative battle between slave states and free states, worst case the country ruptures and the slave states split off, most likely in the 1830's, around OTL's great debate.

Maybe if they had split, we'd have seen the Free States return to the Commonwealth, as a "prodigal son".
 
It would have torn them apart if they hadn't solved it. Look at how bad things got OTL, if it hadn't been for Prime Minister Wilberforce we could have seen a second American Revolt. I can't imagine TTL's USA being able to handle it diplomatically. Best case scenario you've got a running legislative battle between slave states and free states, worst case the country ruptures and the slave states split off, most likely in the 1830's, around OTL's great debate.

Maybe if they had split, we'd have seen the Free States return to the Commonwealth, as a "prodigal son".

Yes, Prime Minister Wilberforce is someone that every schoolboy knows around here from history.

And yeah, I could see the TTL New England states rejoin the Commonwealth if there were an 1830 split. Perhaps later on, you'd have seen a Prime Minister Jeb Bush from the riding of New Haven, Connecticut and that association footballer Tom Brady as the Governor-General in that TTL while the rest were stuck with that Presidental system(seriously the Head of State and the Head of Government should be two people. Thank God, we have that in the BNA) with perhaps Rafael Cruz as the President.

I like our current government though. Prime Minister Gillibrand for the Labour Whigs and Jeremy Roenick as our Governor-General.
 
I was a Gillibrand supporter (born and bred Lib Dem Party), but I wasn't thrilled with the choice of Roenick as Governor-General. Sure, he's a good Rugby player but was he really a better choice than Letterman? I mean, leading the BNA to victory over the All Blacks twice in a row, is all well and good, but we're talking about one of the greatest journalists of a generation. What was it PM Kennedy said? "If I've lost Letterman, I've lost the war"?
 
Right, I'm just going by the map here, but, well, look at the map. The territory claimed by the USA at it's height includes pretty much the entire heartland of BNA, including all of its most powerful cities. New York alone has a GDP that rivals California!

I'm not sure how much that'll mean for how powerful this USA would be--who knows what programs and philosophies their governments would have had and encouraged--but I do know that the Empire would end up much weaker!

Now consider how long it took to get the Indian Dominions their dominionhood. It was hard enough to get people of the time to accept non-White dominions as it was--by my calculations, without BNA, the votes of the Indian dominions would greatly excede those of all the White dominions combined. Now again, this is crude--we'd still have part of BNA, and this part would likely get more developed faster than IOTL--but still, we're looking at a situation where I could easily see the Indian Question being put off until full-scale revolution broke out.

In short, we're looking at a Britscrew scenario.
 
In short, we're looking at a Britscrew scenario.

Not necessarily. We in the Foreign and Dominion Office have frequently wargamed this: it's almost as popular as Operation Lion d'Marine (What if Napoleon did invade?!) or Imperial War Z (Redshirt Zombies!). Consider the following...

The reintegration of British North America back into the Empire lulled the then-Colonial Office into a false sense of security: the secession of the Thirteen Colonies could be falsely dismissed as an aberration in the smooth upward flow of proper colonial administration. Consequently, the violent insurrections and sedition against HMG in Ireland, the Raj areas and the Upper Canada region in the middle of the 19th century came as a surprise when it shouldn't have, and the loss of the second Boer War just emphasised the point. Consequently the Dominion concept (extensive devolution of powers but retaining the Crown as head of state and Westminster as the supreme court) wasn't rolled out until the 1890's: as PistolSO points out, BNA didn't attain full Dominion status until 1897 when the American Assembly became the BNA Parliament and Teddy Roosevelt became First Minister. Would Dominions have arisen earlier if BNA had stayed outside the Realm?[1]

As SMJB correctly point out, the Raj areas didn't become Dominions until decades later and arguably the most succesful application of the concept is the Dominion of Australia, which was unified in the 1900's. It is fascinating to consider what would have happened if the economies of scale shown by a unified Australia were applied to a single Raj Dominion (Dominion of India?).

A more subtle point is the freezing of political development. The devolution of power to very-large subunits whilst retaining a central head-of-state has proven stable, peaceful, and democratic, and it has been copied world-wide: witness the Kaiserein's recent attempts to enable her Europäischen Gemeinschaft to meet its 100-yr anniversary by devolving power. And we in the Foreign and Dominion Office are content with this.

But we cast our mind back to 19th century scientific romanticism and their postulated systems of government. Would the Parisian Communards have spread their "Universal Socialism" as wide as they dreamt? Would Jefferson's dreams of a Roman Republic on the Potomac have lasted? We abolished slavery[2] and created law and moderate government under God and the Queen for all male landowners over the age of twenty-five. Was that the best the universe could provide?

[1] OOC. IOTL the Dominions started being created in the 1850s to prevent the successful secession of another colony after the Thirteen demonstrated what can happen if you don't pay attention to the governed. If you delay or abandon the devolution inherent in the Dominion concept, the Empire eventually cracks. Note that ITTL the Boer Wars were lost, so the Dominion of South Africa is smaller and never develops apartheid
[2] OOC. ITTL overt racism is abhorrent and illegal in this Dominion Civil Service: all may enter and take the Imperial Examinations and succeed by their own wits. Covert racism, caste systems, voluntary separation on the other hand...:(
 
I once read this crazy alternate history book about the "United States" buying Alaska and taking the Phillipines from Spain. And taking over Hawii!! It gets to the point with America building the first atomic bomb and nuking Japan in a war. And later being in a Cold War with Russia!

One must think what would happened had British Soliders not liberated Russia though the Middle East. There is a reason why Great Britian was and still is the only super power.
 
I was a Gillibrand supporter (born and bred Lib Dem Party), but I wasn't thrilled with the choice of Roenick as Governor-General. Sure, he's a good Rugby player but was he really a better choice than Letterman? I mean, leading the BNA to victory over the All Blacks twice in a row, is all well and good, but we're talking about one of the greatest journalists of a generation. What was it PM Kennedy said? "If I've lost Letterman, I've lost the war"?

Fair point. Letterman's work in the mid '70s to turn public opinion against the Commonwealth's involvement in the Persian War was among his finest achievements. Yes, PM Robert Kennedy was a fine politician. Tragic family though. Lost one brother to Addison's which had crippled him in the late '50s and then having lost another brother to drowning after an automobile accident.

But you have to admit beating the All Blacks twice in a row ranks up there in the Annals of Sport such as that Harry Truman-led test match against Jamaica in 1923. (Speaking of which, I wonder if Rounders would have caught on in TTL USA.) Roenick's embrace of his fandom and his sometimes too-honest comments also made him a very popular after his Rugby career ended.
 
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