Divorce in America - The Constitutional Convention Fails

This is just a rough thing, so bear with me. It's the spiritual successor to "Better Than One", which I worked on a while back.


George Washington dies of a heart attack in 1787, shortly after the beginning of the Philadelphia Convention. As the States mourn their loss, the delegates are forced to elect a new convention president – William Paterson is selected, as a compromise candidate. His views on the matter of a Constitution are not as well-received as Washington’s IOTL, as Paterson is less regarded by the delegates than his illustrious predecessor.


Long story short, the Convention fails by a narrow margin, and the Articles remain the “constitution” of America. The various pro-Federal delegates remain unsatisfied with this – the Articles were never more than a stopgap measure, after all – and begin to talk of forming a federation-within-the-confederation, with the federation counting for one “state”. (The New Jersey Plan would of course be the model for this Federation, consisting largely of New England, where the small states approved strongly of it.) The other states are horrified at the idea of a super-state emerging from the federation, and Patrick Henry urges the Virginian legislature to refuse to recognise such a state from emerging.

(The states in favour of metafederating outside of New England are Delaware, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. New York refuses to join, dividing the metafederation geographically and culturally; the State of Vermont is not involved at this time, due to disputes with New York as to indemnities for its alleged independence.)

This would probably affect the French Revolution slightly, due to increasing wariness on the part of radicals in France as to the success of an independent republic; but for the sake of simplicity we’ll assume it’s the same as OTL until “OMG IT’S NOT?” and I can add in the butterflies according to my interests. It’s not the most professional way to do it, but hey, there you go.

So, the Revolution occurs much as OTL, and Europe goes to hell. Britain declares war on France, who appeal to their fellow republicans across the ocean. Jefferson is all in favour of the Revolution, and does his best to convince the States to not side with Britain. The “Federation” largely show pro-British mentality, if only because the mercantile industry relies on Britain not destroying your ships; while New York also refuses, on account of being right next to heavily-armed British territory. Virginia and Maryland declare their support for France in the matter, though not outright declaring war.


That's what I got so far. I'm not entirely sure on where to go with the Northwest Territory - ideally, I'd like to see it go to the Federation after it leaves (hardly a spoiler, it's in the NAME), but I'm open to other ideas.

Also, I'm not sure what will happen to Vermont and New York. It would be interesting to see a Confederation consisting solely of New York and the South - talk about a conflict of interests - and I can't see New York trying to enforce its Vermont claims by force. However, I'm not so sure Vermont would be happy to join the Federation, either. It could end up neutral ground between Britain, New York(Confederation?) and the Federation.

I'm not sure what would happen to the western claims, either. With no real Union to rally around to support State Solidarity, I don't see the states being nearly that friendly - it's their state, they aren't going to hand great chunks over to Congress for the hell of it. But I could be completely wrong! TELL ME if this is the case, and I'll cry and delete the file - er, I mean revise the scenario to incorporate this.

Finally, I reserve the right to have weird stuff happen in Europe because of the butterflies, as discussed above. One way or another, I'm getting my Neyist France.
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Thoughts? Accolades? Accusations of blasphemy followed by seating in a comfy chair?
 

yourworstnightmare

Banned
Donor
I think the Southern states wouldn't form an own federation if they didn't felt threatened. Then again if New England, and the other regions of the Federation in North decides to take on the others by force, you might see some kind of loose federation form in the South.
 
I think the Southern states wouldn't form an own federation if they didn't felt threatened. Then again if New England, and the other regions of the Federation in North decides to take on the others by force, you might see some kind of loose federation form in the South.

They aren't forming their own federation yet, they're just threatening to not allow a Federation to form in their Union. Which will probably come back to bite them in the arse.
 

I'm not sure what would happen to the western claims, either. With no real Union to rally around to support State Solidarity, I don't see the states being nearly that friendly - it's their state, they aren't going to hand great chunks over to Congress for the hell of it. But I could be completely wrong! TELL ME if this is the case, and I'll cry and delete the file - er, I mean revise the scenario to incorporate this.


Interesting idea overall, but weren't most of the state claims ceded to the Confederation/Union by 1787?
 
Interesting idea overall, but weren't most of the state claims ceded to the Confederation/Union by 1787?

It doesn't look like it - found this on Wiki:
Statecessions.png


which suggests that only the Northwest and SC's claims were sorted at this point. Connecticut still claimed the Erie coast!

I'm not sure what to do about Kentucky, and other potential states - would the Confederation (I'll stick with this word, it's most accurate) be able to agree? Would there be a problem with slavery? (what states still have slavery at this point? Everything south of Mason Dixon, sure, but I'm reading that Pennsylvania still had it, as did New York?)
 

Thande

Donor
Interesting idea, Nek.

A loose South + New York "confederacy of everywhere else" may not be as unwieldy as you might think. If the issue of "blavery" is at the back of your mind, bear in mind that in the 1780s New York had one of the largest slave populations in the USA and only turned against the practice by a fairly narrow margin politically speaking.
 
If the Constitution itself failed than the necessary changes could still be made under the Articles, they just need to be revised.

However, if your goal is a dis-united America, I'll instead comment that PA and Delaware are more likely to see eye to eye with Virginia and New York at this time, rather than New England. If the early US were to fall apart it'd fall apart along proto-national lines, with the overwhelmingly puritan, south-east English descended New England colonies going their separate ways from the heavily mixed, heterogeneous (though at this time, heavily Ulster-Scots) Middle Colonies, and the heavily Anglican, middle English descended upper South.
 
I don't understand why the fialure of the Convention leads to a collapse of America. Why does Patrick Henry oppose this, for instance?
 
If the Constitution itself failed than the necessary changes could still be made under the Articles, they just need to be revised.

However, if your goal is a dis-united America, I'll instead comment that PA and Delaware are more likely to see eye to eye with Virginia and New York at this time, rather than New England. If the early US were to fall apart it'd fall apart along proto-national lines, with the overwhelmingly puritan, south-east English descended New England colonies going their separate ways from the heavily mixed, heterogeneous (though at this time, heavily Ulster-Scots) Middle Colonies, and the heavily Anglican, middle English descended upper South.

Hmm. How feasible would it be to have Pennsylvania/Delaware split off as their own federation at the same time?

Thande - my issue with New York in the Confederation was more the cultural differences one, and not blavery.
 
I don't understand why the fialure of the Convention leads to a collapse of America. Why does Patrick Henry oppose this, for instance?

Patrick Henry opposes it because he thinks it's a stealth plan to a large government - that once the Federation is in place, the other states will be forced to go along with its plans, which would not necessarily go along with the practices of either Patrick Henry or the State of Virginia.

The collapse of America here isn't inevitable in the slightest - sorry if I'm coming across with that impression. It's just the result of lots of people being obnoxious at once, with the absence of a central leader for people to accept like Washington IOTL.
 
Very original idea. I like it. But I think it would be interesting if there was a second Constitutional Convention some time later, after years of strife and disunity. These years of conflict fade into history, and the new Constitution creates a loose federal system much like that of the European Union today.
 
All 13 States agreed in principle to give up their Western Claims in 1781 prior to Marysland agreeing to the AoC.

Note that the NY, Penn, Mich, claims were all resolved prior to your POD.

If you extent that Claim line in the middle of NY south, You Have the main Frontier settlement area of the 1780's. It is possible this entire area could kave different States Borders than OTL.
 
What would happen to the western land claims if it became obvious (as your TL seems to be leading up to) that the Articles of Confederation were going to collapse? I expect at least one state would reassert its claim on the grounds that, since the Confederation government no longer exists, the cession is void. I think that this might become a major source of conflict between the now independent states-does anyone else think so?
 
It doesn't look like it - found this on Wiki:
Statecessions.png


which suggests that only the Northwest and SC's claims were sorted at this point. Connecticut still claimed the Erie coast!

I'm not sure what to do about Kentucky, and other potential states - would the Confederation (I'll stick with this word, it's most accurate) be able to agree? Would there be a problem with slavery? (what states still have slavery at this point? Everything south of Mason Dixon, sure, but I'm reading that Pennsylvania still had it, as did New York?)


Yeah but reading through that article on wiki and looking at the map there were practically no disputes left between the states. NY had given up it's claims (except Vermont), as had Mass. and Conn. Only NH and NY disputed the Vermont region. That area of the Erie coast you were referring to is the Connecticutt Western Reserve which was set aside for settlement by Connecticutt's revolutinary war veterans and it wasn't so much a claim as recognized as part of the deal forming Northwest Territory I believe (Virginia also had a similar reserve north of the Ohio called the Virginia Military District which isn't shown on the map).

Basically 9 states had claims in 1781 (of which 7 states had claims in the west) and by 1787 only 5 states still had claims (of which only 3 had claims in the west really).

With Kentucky it was organized as a county or counties of Virginia and I think North Carolina and Georgia had similarly organized their claims.
 
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