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Hey all, Zioneer here.

So I've decided to write a independent Deseret TL (more accurately a TL of the "Presidents of Deseret"), and I've figured out a few details, but I'm not sure how to put them together. If anyone has an interest in the 1840s-1860s (including the OTL Civil War, I suppose), I'd like feedback. I'll put the ideas I've had in a stream-of-thought list:

1. One of the things that's required to have independent Deseret, California, etc seems to be either no Manifest Destiny, or a delayed or weakened Manifest Destiny. The simplest way to do this when I want to have it done (late 1840s) looks like electing Henry Clay instead of James Polk, and having a far less pro-Manifest Destiny Congress. The only problem is, I can't think of a good event that would turn the public away from a full, "ocean to ocean" Manifest Destiny craze. Maybe a large disturbance in the South (slave revolt?) that convinces the US to take care of internal matters first?

2. Another requirement for Deseret to be independent, and to feel that they'd be better served as an independent nation rather than a US state would probably be a sense of nationalism. I'm planning for the Mormons to rebel against Mexico (who would still own Alta California before this point), so that might be a suitable but of nationalistic pride. Anyone have other suggestions? Or suggestions for the USA to view Deseretians (need a better name) as culturally different from them?

3. I don't think the borders of the State of Deseret are feasible, but clearly, to thrive as a nation and not be a poor backwater, Deseret would need access to the ocean, right? So perhaps Deseret goes for OTL San Diego and southern California, the southern tip of Nevada, north Arizona and New Mexico, as well as Utah and western Colorado. No Idaho, Wyoming, or southern Oregon (as evidenced in the picture on the Wiki page). Still enormous, but not quite as much as the "OTL" state of Deseret. Would a different settling point be a better choice for the Deseret government, or is Salt Lake City the best central point for all of it?

4. Where would Hawaii fit into this scenario? In OTL, there was quite a lot of LDS colonization of Hawaii, and Mormon missionaries were very successful there; they even produced a Prime Minister of Hawaii (though he had gone rogue from the LDS Church long before). Would there be more colonization, since the LDS Church would have access to a massive amount of resources and thus, supplies for converts? Or less because the OTL US might be more hostile to the "foreign" Deseretians and allow less Mormon converts and immigrants (that would OTL go on to convert Native Hawaiians) through to Utah?

5. For that matter, what happens to the OTL settlement of California? As well as the rest of the Southwest? Any idea on how the OTL immigration to the Southwest could work differently?

6. I'm having trouble constructing the political system of Deseret; obviously it'd be heavily based on the US model, but I don't think the Mormons would keep the Electoral College (for example), and I think they'd try to construct a more consensus-based political model. Any ideas for this? I'm also looking at the possibility of having the Mormons give specific "ethnic" congressional seats to the tiny populations of Mexicans and Native Americans, and expand those ethnic allocations once Deseret gets more immigration. I want to have a similar, but visibly different system from the USA. Thoughts?

7. Based on a sense that the Deseretians have a different identity than "proper" Americans, I think that the USA would avoid annexing Deseret (or Texas, for that matter) in this scenario. Could they just annex everything north of Utah/Colorado and avoid too much conflict with Deseret?
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