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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.
Thoughts? Accolades? Accusations of blasphemy followed by seating in a comfy chair?