Galloway and the Plan of Union: A Saga of a British America
- Thread starter PGSBHurricane
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Given that it's almost done, here is a hint for what it's about:
Politics and Political Parties
Chapter Twenty-Seven: UAC Politics of the 1820s
Chapter Twenty-Seven: UAC Politics of the 1820s
The 1820s began as James Monroe was nearing the end of his tenure as Prime Minister, with foreign and regional affairs, slavery, and admissions to the Union all hot-button issues. One of his most remembered accomplishments was the signature of the Transcontinental Treaty of 1819 that defined the borders between the UAC and New Spain. They wouldn’t be any less hot when Levius Peters Sherwood of Niagara became the new Prime Minister and the First Whig Prime minister of the UAC. His background was a bit more under the radar, but he was still seen as an ideal fit by the Crown. Born in the New Hampshire land grants near Canada (in what became the province of Vermont) in 1777, he was the son of a Loyalist spy from the Massachusetts rebellion, Justus Sherwood. After attending law school, he moved to Niagara and became a member of the provincial bar in 1803. After becoming the local registrar and customs inspector for Grenville, Leeds, and Carleton, and customs inspector, he switched partisan affiliation from the Tories to the Whigs. In 1813, Sherwood was elected to the House of Commons, representing the province of Niagara. He was elected to the Senate in 1816 after three years in service, having one of the most utmost reputations of the politicians in his province. Once the Whigs took control of Parliament in 1819, King George IV wanted to have a more “under the radar '' face to serve as Prime Minister, and Sherwood was among the top choices to the shock of many former Patriots. The concurrent Governor-General of British North America was George Ramsey, 9th Earl of Dalhousie.
After transitioning into power, the UAC under Sherwood paid an ever-increasing level of attention to Latin America, notably to Brazil and Saint-Domingue. The latter was given a notably close eye, given that the implications of a slave victory on the island could set a negative precedent for the southern provinces of the Union. The writing was mostly on the wall in 1820 but the war was not officially lost yet, giving Anglo-Americans (especially southerners) some glimmering hope in their eyes. The years 1821 and 1822 saw much of that hope evaporate. As stated earlier, most Anglo (and American) troops remaining in Saint-Domingue were concentrated at Port-au-Prince and various other nearby coastal enclaves by the middle of 1821, just waiting to withdraw as thousands were dying from tropical diseases like malaria and yellow fever. When they finally did withdraw all troops in 1822, the Anglos had picked up 100,000 casualties and 4 million pounds in economic losses. The elites from the southern provinces had now entered a state of panic. If the slaves in Saint-Domingue got their way, they feared that their aristocratic way of life would soon come to an end. This did not impact Sherwood’s electability as he remained Prime Minister after the 1822 elections due to the new Democratic-Populists taking votes from the Tories. Their worst fears were realized in 1823, however. Saint-Domingue got a negotiated peace. The slave trade would be gone. Eventually, they would have their freedom, on par with their white counterparts.
Terrified of a massive slave rebellion in the UAC, white southerners doubled down on their sacred institution. Some provinces, like South Carolina, considered secession and independence, but they ultimately realized the British would not tolerate any attempts at rebellion and would easily put down any anything involving preserving or expanding slavery. Instead, they developed stringent slave codes that strictly defined slaves as property, rather than as any sort of human being, and outlawed teaching them how to write or read. Slaves could not leave the plantation without consent from their masters and needed to carry proof of permission if they were to at all. In addition to all this, they could not physically touch a white person even in self-defense, buy or sell goods, hire themselves out, or visit the homes of free peoples. When things were peaceful, masters were looser with enforcing restrictions but they were much more rigid when unrest was on the horizon. They were enforced through the provincial court systems and slave patrols who watched for runaway slaves and assisted owners in finding them. This all went down with disgust from New Englanders. While Great Britain personally opposed these slave codes, it did not do much to intervene. Of course, clamoring for independence in the South and West occurred after 1825 once Brazil got its own recognition, but it fell on mostly deaf ears when the British came to hear of it.
The upcoming elections in 1825 would prove to be especially important for the Tories. The split between the south and west starting in 1822 (with most westerners supporting the Democratic-Populist Party) cost them not just the opportunity to take back control of the government from the Whigs but to fast-track the admissions of Louisiana and Mississippi into the UAC. Granted, it wasn’t a priority in 1822 because Saint-Domingue was not yet lost, but over 10 years had passed since Louisiana and Mississippi were open to settlers, and southerners were pushing to achieve a state-free province balance again. This split occurred as settlers were pushing westward, with the Missouri territory having opened up in 1821. The westerners were mostly farmers, including middle-class plantation owners and yeomen farmers, who felt like the Whigs and Tories were not representing their interests well. Interestingly, this shift caused elites in coastal cities like New York and Philadelphia to increasingly side with the Tories over the next several years without the yeomen farmers there to look down on. With a coalition between the plantation Tories and Democratic-Populists, Louisiana and Mississippi were admitted to the Union just after the 1825 Parliamentary elections, which was enough to oust Prime Minister Levius Peters Sherwood from power.
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Could you outline the judicial system of the UAC? Do provincial courts play a large role in the system, impacting federal and provincial law?
Deleted member 147978
I suspected that the UAC would be a hybrid legal system like Canada's ITTL or maybe not.
I will have to do some research on the judicial systems on OTL Dominions because they would likely be the basis for this (with some more distinct American influences of course). I will hopefully answer that soon.
Dumb question, but Americans (or British North Americans) ITTL still swear off tea?
I'll say it like this: Coffee is more popular where patriotism was stronger during OTL Revolution whereas tea is more popular where loyalism was stronger.
@SashaBonaparte148
I'm not sure if this covers the judicial system of the USA but here are some important features:
I'm not sure if this covers the judicial system of the USA but here are some important features:
- There is both a federal and provincial system in the UAC where the federal circuit is responsible for laws covered by the Declaration of Commonwealth (the quasi-constitution), the Bill of Rights, statutes, past cases, etc.
- Everything not described in the covered areas is relegated to the provinces unless the dispute is between two provinces or the offense or crosses provincial boundaries in some capacity. Nothing can override the Federal Supreme Court, however.
- There is an appeals court but it’s not in 12 different regions like OTL USA.
- The UAC has more jurisdiction than OTL USA over private law and relationships such as debt collection, family law, land, contracts, and negligence.
- Judges aren’t self-governing and can be fired or demoted for decisions that are extremely unfavorable to the Monarch. Of course, there will be more independence as the decades go by. Federal judges serve lifetime tenures until the lifetime of age 75 if they don’t make extremely unfavorable decisions.
- Public defenders, court staff, chief justices, appellate judges, bankruptcy judges, etc. are appointed and managed by various government departments.
- The courts can more easily extend rights and curtail provinces if need be than OTL USA.
- There is a higher tendency for the UAC to look to the British legal system and those of other countries to answer its questions, unlike the USA IOTL which is comparatively more self-contained.
- There are juries in criminal courts and civil courts where the amount of money sued for by the plaintiff is at or above a certain amount.
- There is one set criminal court procedure for offenses at the federal level, but each province has its own procedure at the state level.
- Harmonization of state laws is strongly encouraged but not legally enforced.
So a generalized Imperial common law could emerge at all levels of government, or just having several major points of agreement in the common law for all levels of government.
The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council's review powers of colonial laws is curtailed even earlier than what happened in other Dominions?
I don’t think it would be abolished until the 20th century although it would probably be one of the first if not the first single dominion/colony to abolish it. Then again I hadn’t heard of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council until you just mentioned it so I will probably have to go back and fix that list if you see anything wrong with it.
I was originally planning on updating this TL next but since I haven't really developed much in the terms of direction yet (especially for outside the UAC and Britain) but instead I'm alternating between this and La Floride and this will become a race to see which gets released first. It should be updated in time for Christmas and New Years, though. That much I can tell.
Just glad to see this TL is still going, quality over quantity as they say