Economic and Demographic Impact of a US that balkanizes early

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Deleted member 67076

Suppose for whatver possible reason the United States breaks up early in its history (say, by 1800, 1810, etc) into 3 or more states ala Gran Colombia or the United Provinces of Central America.

What would be the economic impact of such a change, assuming the states remain divided as time passes? Additionally, what would be the demographic impact? Would there be shifts in migration patterns stemming from division, such as say, more people moving to New England cities instead of the Midwestern plains? Or would there just not be as much immigration from Europe period, and what then would that cause?

I do realize this is a bit vague in my parameters but I don't know enough about early American history to plot out a decent scenario off the top of my head.
 
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Anaxagoras

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A failed Constitutional Convention is the easiest POD for this. In this case, we can assume the Southern Confederacy would be generally opposed to tariffs and the Northern Confederacy would favor them.
 

Deleted member 67076

Well, it depends on how exactly the US splits into three or more states and what those states each encompass. Which ones did you have it mind?
Either like what Anaxagoras' suggested, a failed Convention, or the initial few years of the Republic don't go as well as expected and it falls apart (perhaps with or without a war to attempt to keep the states intact)
 
A failed Constitutional Convention is the easiest POD for this.

It's really not as easy as people think. There was a concerted faction of nationalists who were pushing for a powerful national government who were wealthy, influential, and organized. More broadly, relatively few members of the political class were entirely comfortable with the situation as it was on the ground at the time. Pretty much everyone wanted more power to the central government, there were just disagreements on how much and in what form it should be exercised.

The Constitutional Convention and the resultant Constitution were not unique moments that accomplished what would have otherwise been impossible. They were contingent events that occurred against and because of a backdrop of political, social, and economic drivers that would have kept pushing in that direction, if not necessarily in that particular way.

TL,DR: Don't be lazy. No massive historical change is easy, butterflies are powerful but their opponent -- historical contingency -- is likewise strong.
 
Well IMO, it was the stability of North America that drew people to the USA, a balkanised US would mean less immigrants over all to the balkanised States, maybe more settlement in Canada, Brazil and Argentina. With less people I would expect less economic potential, meaning the combined gdp of the balkanised US will be less today then an intact United States.

Overall less people, less money. which could mean that North America would have a larger native population.
 
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It's really not as easy as people think. There was a concerted faction of nationalists who were pushing for a powerful national government who were wealthy, influential, and organized. More broadly, relatively few members of the political class were entirely comfortable with the situation as it was on the ground at the time. Pretty much everyone wanted more power to the central government, there were just disagreements on how much and in what form it should be exercised.

Hear hear!
 

Deleted member 97083

Well IMO, it was the stability of North America that drew people to the USA, a balkanised US would mean less immigrants over all to the balkanised States, maybe more settlement in Canada, Brazil and Argentina. With less people I would expect less economic potential, meaning the combined gdp of the balkanised US will be less today then an intact United States.

Overall less people, less money. which could mean that North America would have a larger native population.
While the stability in the US drew people later on, at first it wasn't a huge concern. Large scale immigration continued all throughout the Civil War for example.
 
First we need to define "Balkanizes". How many states are forming out of the US? Is it each of the 13 Colonies for themselves, or regional formations? Because regional formations will be much more stable and viable than each colony for themselves, which might as well lead to places like Delaware being conquered by Pennsylvania or something. Or perhaps an analogue to the Argentine Civil Wars with a Rosas-like figure in charge (I've always liked the idea of Andrew Jackson as the US's Rosas). You also have to worry about new states in the west, like the State of Franklin and such assuming the "Thirteen Republics" can't hold them down.

But let's go with regional federations for now.

Well IMO, it was the stability of North America that drew people to the USA, a balkanised US would mean less immigrants over all to the balkanised States, maybe more settlement in Canada, Brazil and Argentina. With less people I would expect less economic potential, meaning the combined gdp of the balkanised US will be less today then an intact United States.

Overall less people, less money. which could mean that North America would have a larger native population.

Why would it necessarily be unstable? If you make three states that are New England, Mid-Atlantic, and South, the South is the only one that might be unstable since it would be closest to a Latin American state, and even then, plenty of Latin American states were more or less stable in the 19th century, not to mention as a slave-based economy the South will have difficulties attracting immigration as it did OTL (not that it won't exist, of course).

I don't see how it follows the US would have a larger native population. Some groups would certainly be larger, since the Cherokee, Creek, etc. will continue their integration into society unless the South muscles the manpower to evict them to Oklahoma or elsewhere as OTL. But many other groups will still end up pushed aside and beaten. It wasn't even immigrants who were doing this (for the most part, Germans are the main exception), since immigrants tended to settle in cities--these were Anglo frontiersmen and pioneers who were at the forefront of the Indian Wars, and it was on their behalf the wars were fought.

I'd still expect New England to extensively attract immigrants, as would the Mid-Atlantic regional federation. It would certainly be weaker than the US as a whole, but the draw for immigration would only be slightly less, unless you can bring anti-immigrant hysteria to new levels and shut off immigration to one or both of these areas early. But remember that the situation in Brazil and Argentina when they received most of their immigration was far better than it was in the early 1800s when the US received much of its immigration. If a Balkanised US might be unstable, then early 19th century Argentina is gonna need to look significantly different for it to even compare stability-wise.

Now for the scenario I proposed above, I think there you'd see much less immigration, but it would still no doubt be attractive to immigrants. Frontiersmen in New York and Pennsylvania, parts of New England being like Belgium in terms of early industrial potential, etc. There's still lots of potential, and you'd see regional cooperation between some states (although not all of them) to increase the economic strength of the various states.
 
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