GURPS Gallatin plausibility check

Alexander Hamilton is killed at the Battle of Trenton. The more libertarian Albert Gallatin becomes the first Secretary of the Treasury. Without Hamilton's Federalist Papers to defend the Constitution or his strong economic policy to knit the nation, the United States breaks up when New York refuses to ratify the Constitution in 1787. In 2004, only five of the original states remain in the USA and eight (sic) other American republics checker the continent (but only seven are listed in the book).
Could a single extra death lead to the balkanization of what is OTL USA?
 
Alexander Hamilton is killed at the Battle of Trenton. The more libertarian Albert Gallatin becomes the first Secretary of the Treasury. Without Hamilton's Federalist Papers to defend the Constitution or his strong economic policy to knit the nation, the United States breaks up when New York refuses to ratify the Constitution in 1787. In 2004, only five of the original states remain in the USA and eight (sic) other American republics checker the continent (but only seven are listed in the book).
Could a single extra death lead to the balkanization of what is OTL USA?

It's kind of a cool concept but it doesn't seem terribly plausible, I'm afraid. DoD's *U.S. successfully assimilating Peru and Chile, Germany assimilating all the rest of Continental Europe in 'For Want of a Nail', or Russia developing Alaska into a successful colony, are actually slightly less far-fetched, and that's not saying much.
 
I guess the key question would be: was Gallatin a viable candidate for Secretary of the Treasury? Apart from that, it doesn't sound impossible--the early US was pretty fragile, so Hamilton's absence might be enough to get it started down a path towards separatism. Though of course Hamilton was not the only author of the Federalist Papers...

It's kind of a cool concept but it doesn't seem terribly plausible, I'm afraid. DoD's *U.S. successfully assimilating Peru and Chile, Germany assimilating all the rest of Continental Europe in 'For Want of a Nail', or Russia developing Alaska into a successful colony, are actually slightly less far-fetched, and that's not saying much.

Dude, are you required by law to mention Decades of Darkness every time you post or something? It is an excellent timeline, but it seems like you bring it up at the slightest provocation...
 
I don't get why people assume that a failed Constitutional Convention leads to Americans gnawing on each other's bones in the ruins of liberty. There were plenty of anti-federalists who agreed the articles weren't viable...
 
Well, it's a bit more plausible than the SF series (by an author called O'Neill Smith?) that has 'Gallatinist' anarcho-capitalism as the dominant ideology across all of North American and Europe by the 1980s... but that isn't saying much.
 
Alexander Hamilton is killed at the Battle of Trenton. The more libertarian Albert Gallatin becomes the first Secretary of the Treasury. Without Hamilton's Federalist Papers to defend the Constitution or his strong economic policy to knit the nation, the United States breaks up when New York refuses to ratify the Constitution in 1787. In 2004, only five of the original states remain in the USA and eight (sic) other American republics checker the continent (but only seven are listed in the book).
Could a single extra death lead to the balkanization of what is OTL USA?

While your scenario is within the realm of possibility, I believe that even w/o Hamilton's presence, the concept we now call federalism and the 1787 Constitution would still have persuasive and articulate proponents. I believe that, even in a Hamilton-less environment, New York would still ratify the 1787 Constitution as it did in OTL - with the understanding/expectation that certain issues/concerns would be addressed by the new Congress and that changes to the document would be considered and proposed.
 
I thought it was a Take That against L. Neil Smith's libertarianwank.
I think that to be a Take That, the libertarians would need to do less well*. In the full(-er) write-up, the one explicitly libertarian nation (The Ohio Association) is an apparently prosperous place with no army but a remarkably robust set of local militias and where all drugs and many heavy weapons are completely legal. And they free-ride on Texas and the United
States for international defense (and they apparently don't mind the
rampant smuggling).

*or Robbie Williams.
 
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