I also wonder if the apparent success of monarchical Colombia wouldn't eventually lead to revisionism about Hamilton in the US, where his monarchism would be seen to have been vindicated by history
I also wonder if the apparent success of monarchical Colombia wouldn't eventually lead to revisionism about Hamilton in the US, where his monarchism would be seen to have been vindicated by history
Wait, Burr was run on the Federalist ticket? How did he win New Jersey? Why did the Federalists nominate such a radical?
Wait, Burr was run on the Federalist ticket? How did he win New Jersey? Why did the Federalists nominate such a radical?
Ah. Maybe change the burrite color? It being the Federalist orange is confusing. You could switch colors with the federalists.No, Aaron Burr ran as an independent (Historians would later call him a "Burrite", as the precursor to the Democratic Party, as we'll see in a bit). I figured New Jersey was the best state for him to win since New Jersey was on its own Federalist to Democratic-Republican swing iOTL, as well as having recently abolished slavery, so maybe Burr's abolitionist rhetoric would bode well with New Jeresey politicians. The Federalists instead nominated Charles C. Pickney, who won Hamilton's state of Wabash as well as a few electors in his home state, in Kentucky and in New York.
Ah. Maybe change the burrite color? It being the Federalist orange is confusing. You could switch colors with the federalists.
John_Locke said:How would it be possible to avoid the United States going into a secondary status in the Americas? I know it seems like the United States was doomed from the start, surrounded by two great powers and limited by the conflicts between way too different states, but is it in any way possible to arrange a system that makes the United States an important regional power? Maybe even a world power?
DEMOSTHENES said:You’d need Flying Magic Octopuses (FMO) for this to hapen. No way the United States becomes that strong. They were sandwiched between the United Kingdom and Colombia (which have traditionally been diplomatically close), and had huge internal differences. No way that traders in the North, plantation owners in the South and trappers and independent farmers in the West would ever become allies of each other.
A lot of people compare the early United States to early Colombia, but that’s unfair. Though geographically much larger, the social and economic systems were far more similar in all of Spanish America - there wasn’t any major ethnological differences between the different States until the twentieth century, there was Creole landowner dominance everywhere, and the country was (and to a degree remains) uniformly Catholic. None of that is true in the United States.
Deganawidah said:Now, I don’t think it’s as impossible as (useremosthenes) thinks. I do agree, though, that it’s a tall order.
I think the easiest way is preventing Hamilton from usurping power from Adams in 1800. That might provide for a far more stable United States. Though even later PODs are possible.
That being said, I do think it becomes borderline FMO after Burr’s Rebellion. The Rebellion really broke the back of the First Constitution - unity was shattered and it would take a long to bring the United States back together into a strong sense of national unity.
Pedro Juárez said:I think it’s absolutely impossible for the US to become a superpower as long as the borders remained as is. As they stand, they were barely a transcontinental power until the 1920s: it’d be far easier if they had the extensive natural wealth of Luisiana and California, and the geographical advantage of not having to protect their territory from incursions from either La Florida or Nova Scotia. The shared ownership of the Lower Mississippi River ensured that no conflict involving the United States and Colombia would happen without shattering the former country’s economy.
John_Locke said:Now, I think the prevailing pro-Colombian bias of this netsite is showing. At the time of Burr’s Rebellion Colombia didn’t even exist - it’s a bit absurd to say that it was predestined since before independence to become the undisputed master of most of North America.
That being said, avoiding the conflicts that wrecked the United States for so much of the first two-thirds of the nineteenth century would go a long way. Without those, maybe westward expansion would go better - we did see a glimpse of that with Thomas Jefferson’s request to map the Oregon Country in the brief period of peace between Hamilton’s Folly and Burr’s Rebellion.
If you avoid most civil wars (I don’t think all of them are necessary, though the earlier the better) - and, by the War of the Supremes, it's way too late - the US has a strong demographic advantage regarding Colombia, which only truly settled Louisiana starting from the homesteading Decrees of the 1840s.
DEMOSTHENES said:If anything, there’s a Colombiaphobic attitude in this thread. Of course the country wasn’t predestined to rule, but it had a real demographic advantage over the United States in that there wasn’t so much of a conflict between the different parts of the country as there was in America between States. Hell - after Burr’s Rebellion there were States that directly opposed any expansion into Native land, how exactly do you expect these States to readily join in in conquering other countries?
The fact is, as long as there’s a political division such as there was in the United States there’s no way it can become a world power, much less in the XIX Century. In Colombia, Liberals and Conservatives (and even Francistas) agreed in a lot of things - the fight between Democrats, Republicans and Federalists in the United States was a fight to the death. There’s no way a country so shakily built as the United States - one that for such a long time had half of the country literally supporting slavery, and the other half divided between abolitionism and general dislike of the institution - can expand that shakiness abroad, much less when it’s so surrounded by united, militarily strong, allied nations. Any war to gain land by the United States against either Colombia or Britain would end in disaster, as can be seen with the general blockade that would prevent General Jackson from going into war with Colombia in the 1830s.
Aureolin said:Not to add that the United States had a nasty habit to fix all its issues with violent conflict. It’s often forgotten that the first rebellions against the United States Government happened before George Washington even left the Presidency. Sure, those pale in comparison with Burr’s Rebellion and the War of the Supremes (not to speak of the War of Emancipation) but they were there - and they were only slightly smaller than, say, Hamilton’s Folly in scope.
Retrieved from uchronia.com Discussion
What If: Stronger United States
Thanks for that! It's been fixed
If the OP decides to change it, maybe William Crawford? IIRC he was considered the only person who could have challenged Monroe for the nomination in 1816 meaning they likely had similar friends/allies and he was the most prominent non-Virginian.Hey, I'm currently reading through this TL and I just finished The Age of Burr. One small thing I feel the need to point out. You need to pick a different VP for Madison. He can't run with Monroe because they're both Virginians. Unless the Constitution is different in that regard in this TL, two men from the same state can't run together. Other than that, I'm loving this so far! Great work!