Long Term Consequences of New England Independence?

What it says on the tin. What if, with an extremely negative turn of events during the war of 1812, secession became the consensus of New England Federalists and it was successfully attempted?

How does the new republic evolve? What does its political and economic life look like 1, 5, 10, 40 years down the road? How are relations between the U.S. and New England? The U.K. and New England?

What long term effects does this have on the balance of power between free and slave states in the U.S.?
 
In something of an ironic twist (considering that New England was at the forefront for independence), I could see a New England confederation cozying up to the British on commercial / mercantile grounds. The British might see the New Englanders as a potential counterweight to a rump United States and as such work out some sort of means by which the maritime parts of what we know now as Canada would become part of this New England confederation.

I also suspect the then-District of Maine would force the issue to separate from Massachusetts; it was (I believe) in the works IOTL and would probably have come about anyhow. Thus, we have a New England (to use the term loosely) confederation of nine jurisdictions: Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island (only recently renamed; was "St. John's Island" until 1798). Government would probably be centered in Boston, the principal city, and would probably be more like a republic than a parliamentary nation.

The biggest problem for this confederation would be natural resources and agriculture: there isn't all that much of the former and the growing season isn't the best. Couple that with no room for expansion in its own right (Newfoundland would be a considerable distance from the nearest point in the confederation and would have Quebec in the way) and while quite likely a prosperous smaller nation in the 19th century, it would be on the decline in the 20th. Assuming that there's something akin to what we know now as Canada formed in the latter part of the 19th century, the New Englanders would probably find themselves being pulled toward joining Canada (based on a quasi-British heritage) or re-joining the US after roughly a century apart (based on better transportation, more resources and easier access to agricultural products).

Thus, there would probably be a considerable consolidation movement, especially in the US. I'm guessing it might be consummated in the 1940s or so--about the time that Newfoundland had to fish or cut bait IOTL.
 
I don't expect Britain to hand over any colonies to New England, unless the latter are prepared to recognise British suzerainty and become a Dominon (or *Dominion). Propping up a buffer state against the US is all very well, but giving them British terriory? Not quite the done thing, old chap.
 
I cannot see a sustainable New England any more than the Confederacy. True, they have industry and fishing, but poor farmland and the ironworks at the time of the War of 1812 were located in Pennsylvania. Besides that, they would be harassed by the other states and New York and Pennsylvania are both close by and numerous. Just can't see an independant New England thriving.
 
I cannot see a sustainable New England any more than the Confederacy. True, they have industry and fishing, but poor farmland and the ironworks at the time of the War of 1812 were located in Pennsylvania. Besides that, they would be harassed by the other states and New York and Pennsylvania are both close by and numerous. Just can't see an independant New England thriving.

Trade will do it. Fishing and whaling will bring in enough money alone to afford importing stuff like hardware and wheat from both the US and Canada until they have their own ways of production for the former.

And then, as time goes by, New England can and probably will get some coaling station type things, like the Danish Virgins and comparable other stuff. However the classic "let's take over the British colonies started by Yankees" approach (the Maritimes, Bermuda, etc) is unrealistic as hell, yes.
 
And then, as time goes by, New England can and probably will get some coaling station type things, like the Danish Virgins and comparable other stuff. However the classic "let's take over the British colonies started by Yankees" approach (the Maritimes, Bermuda, etc) is unrealistic as hell, yes.

I adore New England and the Maritimes joining up as basically the same culture across different nations' borders, but I sadly must agree it is unrealistic.

The flip side of that coin is that the 'Essex Junto' that tried to get New England to secede in 1786, 1794, 1804, and 1814 repeatedly tried to get all the states down to the Potomac to join them as well. Which, if that happened, you might as well toss in the whole Northwest Territory too for accessibility's sake and name it the Federated States of America, the US of Fredon(-ia) (a name suggested in 1803 by a New Yorker), etc. Altho' granted, Yankee influence in such a state would be paramount.
 
What exactly compromises New England in this scenario? Is this New England - as in Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island - or is this New England with those states, plus New York and maybe (possibly) New Jersey who are also comprised of certain people and similar attitudes?
 
I adore New England and the Maritimes joining up as basically the same culture across different nations' borders, but I sadly must agree it is unrealistic.

The flip side of that coin is that the 'Essex Junto' that tried to get New England to secede in 1786, 1794, 1804, and 1814 repeatedly tried to get all the states down to the Potomac to join them as well. Which, if that happened, you might as well toss in the whole Northwest Territory too for accessibility's sake and name it the Federated States of America, the US of Fredon(-ia) (a name suggested in 1803 by a New Yorker), etc. Altho' granted, Yankee influence in such a state would be paramount.

Essex Junto? First time I've heard of them, what is that?
 
What it says on the tin. What if, with an extremely negative turn of events during the war of 1812, secession became the consensus of New England Federalists and it was successfully attempted?

How does the new republic evolve? What does its political and economic life look like 1, 5, 10, 40 years down the road? How are relations between the U.S. and New England? The U.K. and New England?

What long term effects does this have on the balance of power between free and slave states in the U.S.?

Well, it deducts 12 senators and around 30 representatives, largely from the antislavery side. So it's hard to see the Republican Party (if not butterflied away) getting a majority in either half of Congress before the 1890s at best.

JQ Adams almost certainly never becomes POTUS. unless he can build up a new base in whatever part of the rump US he moves to. So it's either Jackson or Clay in 1824. In general, the Whig party is weakened.
 
Essex Junto? First time I've heard of them, what is that?

What was the Essex Junto? Largely a myth, as I explain at
https://groups.google.com/d/msg/soc.history.what-if/BIKwVwrU3ks/NukA1abV2NIJ

***
There was indeed a movement in 1803-4 to form a "Northern Confederacy"
which some Federalists hoped would include Canada. I will discuss this in
another post. Here, however, I would like to note that the "Essex
Junto"--except for Timothy Pickering--had very little to do with this
movement, in part for the very good reason that such a "Junto" by 1803-4
insofar as it ever existed had pretty much ceased to do so, and also
because most of the surviviors of the "Junto" opposed secession in 1803-
4--as the few who remained would oppose it in 1814.

The most important article about the Essex Junto is David Hackett Fischer,
The Myth of the Essex Junto, The William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd Ser.,
Vol. 21, No. 2. (Apr., 1964), pp. 191-235. Unfortunately, the article
(except its first page) is not available online for non-subscribers. So I
will try to summarize Fischer's main points here:

The Jeffersonian belief attributing "New England's stubborn hostility to a
tiny clique of malcontents called the Essex Junto, a handful of wealthy
'mercantile gentlemen,' firmly in control of their party and their
section, who sought to destroy the Union when they were no longer able to
dominate it" is every bit as much a myth as the Federalist belief in the
Jeffeersonians as a Jacobin conspiracy. Fischcer attributes the beleif in
the "Essex Junto" myth among historians to the influnence of Henry Adams:

"Four generations of Adamses publicly discussed the Junto, always in the
same spirit. Unwilling to forgive Federalist opposition to John Adams in
the 1790's and to John Quincy Adams in 1808, they bitterly blamed both
upon the Essexmen. Indeed the idea of the Essex Junto was first
popularized by John Adams himself, who believed that it had been
intriguing against him in the presidential election of 1796. Henry Adams
tells us that even as a child he was taught 'to love the pleasure of
hating'--and in the Adams house nobody was more hateful than an
Essexman...'

In calling the Junto a myth, Fischer does not deny that a group of very
conservative Essexmen existed: "In alphabetical order, the list includes
Fisher Ames, George Cabot, Francis Dana, Nathan Dane, Benjamin Goodhue,
Stephen Hig ginson, Jonathan Jackson, John Lowell, Theophilus Parsons,
Timothy Pickering, Israel Thorndike, and Nathaniel Tracy." The point,
however, is that "while there was an Essex Junto which appears to have
dominated the politics of its home county during the 1770's, it did not at
any time control Massachusetts, or Massachusetts Federalism. Before
1796, the Essexmen were only a part of a faction which was itself a
minority in the state, unable to break the hegemony of Hancock and
Samuel Adams. After 1796, the Essexmen were, for the most part, in
retirement. A Federalist party was created and controlled by younger
men, whose political values and purposes were considerably different."

During the 1790s the Essexmen "gradually began to retire from politics for
reasons both public and private, general and specific. Two factors in
local politics must have been important. First, there was the predominance
of Hancock and Adams. Many Massachusetts Federalists felt a "dread of
State politics" because of this. Second, the gravitational center of
Massachusetts Federalism was shifting westward into the Connecticut
Valley. After 1796, Federal pluralities in the western counties were
necessary to balance Republican margins in the east and even in old Essex.
More important, perhaps, were pressing personal reasons. Age, illnesses,
and financial trouble all played a part." Theophilus Parsons separated
himeslf from politics as early as 1792. Fisher Ames withdrew four years
later, as did George Cabot. "The heir to Cabot's seat in the Senate was
another old Essex gentleman, Benjamin Goodhue. He remained in office four
years, but in 1800 was forced to withdraw from politics--and from society
as well--by a serious illness which may have been alcoholism." By the late
1790's the term "Essex Junto" was really devoid of meaning--"Its supposed
principals continued to meet in each other's homes, but their gatherings
were family affairs, with the grandchildren present and the conversation
ranging widely over all manner of topics...Their influence appears to have
been as limited as their [political] activity. In the Massachusetts
gubernatorial election of 1800, for example, the Essexmen favored Francis
Dana as Federal candidate, but a caucus of Federalists in the General
Court ignored them and selected Caleb Strong instead."

"Ironically, it was in the late 1790's, when the Essexmen were retiring
from public affairs and the 'Essex Junto,' in any meaningful sense, had
ceased to exist, that the phrase entered the vocabulary of American
politics, as John Adams began to use it. In the presidential election of
1796, Adams's margin of victory was only three votes. During his
administration he brooded upon this disagreeable fact until it grew into
an obsession. One day in 1797, when the burdens of his office weighed
heavily upon him, he summoned his Secretary of State, Timothy Pickering,
and bitterly blamed the narrowness of his victory on the intrigues of the
'Essex Junto.' Pickering was astonished. He later noted in his commonplace
book that he had 'never heard the term' before...

"The suspicions of Adams appear to have been groundless. The Essexmen
still had confidence in him in 1796. In so far as they were active at all,
they were active on his behalf. Cabot spoke for the group as a whole when
he declared, 'Although I took no part in the election, I do not hesitate
to avow my opinion that the first and highest duty of the electors was to
prevent the election of a French President; and, this being provided for,
the next object would have been to secure the election of Mr. Adams.'

"How could Adams have made such a mistake? The answer appears to be that
he had lost touch with Massachusetts politics. Since 1778 he had spent ten
years in Europe and seven more at the seat of the national government. In
1780, as we have seen, Adams's relations with the Essex clique were not
entirely cordial; he had run against their elitism in the state
constitutional convention. Having collided with another group of elitists,
the followers of Hamilton in national politics, it was easy for Adams to
identify the two groups. Adams knew that Hamilton wished to shave his
electoral margin in 1796, and he probably knew that Higginson, Cabot, and
Parsons were among Hamilton's correspondents. As mercantile men and
supporters of Hamiltonian economic policy, they were suspect...

"John Adams's claim to presidential greatness rests upon one courageous
act, the dispatch of a peace mission to France in February 1799, which
he himself called 'the most disinterested, the most determined and the
most successful of my whole life.' But Federalist leaders, with few
exceptions, emphatically disagreed. Even moderate John Steele of North
Carolina wrote that 'Mr. Adams has lately acted so strange a part, that
many do not hesitate to assert that he is deranged in intellect. The
democrats laugh, but the Federalists lament that there should be any
cause for such an opinion.' When a few men began to speak against his
re-election the President caught wind of their statements and attributed
them to the 'Essex Junto,' working hand-in-glove with Hamilton to
undermine republicanism generally, and the Adams family in particular.

"When the news of this conspiracy reached its supposed principals
they were dumbfounded. Higginson wrote to Pickering, 'We know that
the P[resident] and his tools affect to believe, that a faction exists who
aim at supplanting him, unless They are permitted to counsel and direct na
tional measures; and they stile us the Essex Junto, with you at their
head, who have drawn into their views many of the leading publoc men. But
the P[resident] can not himself believe this, though some of his
dependents may. His views in promoting such absurd calumnies are to shield
himself. . .' As the newspapers began to discuss the 'Essex Junto' other
Federalists were equally nonplused. William Vans Murray, a moderate
Marylander who had served three terms in the Federal House of
Representatives and was as knowledgeable about American politics as any
man in the county, was puzzled when news of the furor reached him in
Europe. He immediately wrote to John Quincy Adams for an explanation: '[A]
Boston captain, who spent the evening with me last night, tells me of our
Essex Junto--I had never heard of this.'

"...A contributor to the [Federalist] Boston Columbian Centinel explained
that although there was a group of Federalists from Essex County who had
been active together in Massachusetts politics during the 1780's, the
'Essex Junto,' conceived as the ruling council of Massachusetts politics,
was 'a conjured phantom.' In the words of the writer, 'no such combination
or association ever existed.' But the protests were in vain. The myth of
the Essex Junto appeared to confirm so many Jeffersonian assumptions that
critical examination became impossible. Had John Adams not supplied the
Republicans with this useful and satisfying conception, something similar
would, perhaps have been invented.

"During the presidential campaign of 1800, John Adams believed that
the 'Essex Junto' was trying to destroy him. But it was not so. Except for
Pickering, the men whom Adams designated as the leaders of the 'Essex
Junto' were actively promoting his election in so far as they were active
at all. The leaders of the movement to overthrow Adams were Hamilton,
Pickering, Oliver Wolcott, and such southern Federalists as Robert
Goodloe Harper and John Rutledge, Jr. They sought to win the support
of the Essex clique but were rebuffed...When Hamilton announced his
intention to attack Adams, Ames, Cabot, Dana, and Parsons earnestly
entreated him not to publish it, or at least not to publish it over his
own name....In the Federalist intrigue with Burr in 1801, each Essexman
had his own opinion. Ames definitely preferred Burr, but Cabot inclined
toward Jefferson, Parsons vacillated, and Pickering did not commit
himself...

"After the election of 1800, the Essexmen withdrew from politics more
completely than ever before...Now and again, the Essexmen dashed off
articles for the gazettes; most of them kept alive their correspondence
with active politicians. Theophilus Parsons helped to sponsor a new
Federalist journal in 1804 (they tended to become more active in
presidential election years). But Francis Dana's observations on
Federalist strategy were typical: 'In short,' he wrote, 'the least they
attempt the better. Let them stand still on terra firma and see the
salvation of the Lord, if it is ordained to visit our unhappy country.'

"The despair of these men did not signify the death of New England
Federalism. At the turn of the century, a new generation of political
leaders was coming on the stage, young men such as Josiah Quincy who
'intended ab initio to pursue politics as a profession.' The Essexmen were
appalled at the shameless way in which they pursued political power...

"These young men--Quincy, Otis, Timothy Bigelow, William Sullivan, Thomas
Handasyd Perkins, and others, established a pyramidal structure of
electioneering committees and thereby provided Massachusetts Federalism
with an organizational skeleton for the first time. They sponsored
newspapers, copied the electioneering techniques of their opponents, and
organized chapters of the Washington Benevolent Society throughout the
state, which, as one scholar has observed, offered the voters Fraternity
as a substitute for Equality. These new-model Federalists neither ignored
the people nor attempted to educate them, but merely sought to secure
their support. They adopted popular issues for the sake of popularity. In
1812, for example, Otis and Quincy were on the verge of reversing their
party's traditional foreign policy by calling for a war with England, but
their counterparts in the Republican party beat them to it...

"The development of elaborate Federalist organization in Massachusetts was
accomplished without the assistance of the Essexmen. The names Cabot,
Ames, Parsons, Jackson, Higginson, Dane, Dana, Goodhue, and Pickering do
not appear on the rosters of the various Federalist committees in
Massachusetts, not even the exalted Central Committee. Only one Essexman--
Israel Thorndike--sat in this body...The elderly gentlemen of the Essex
clique remained studiously aloof from this activity. Temperament and
principle combined to hold them back. The pursuit of popularity,
systematic courtship of the people, constituted the abandonment of ideals
long and deeply cherished.

"Only an emergency of alarming proportions could rouse these weary
old men from their political lethargy. Such an emergency developed with
the threat of New England's secession from the Union. There were two
distinct disunionist movements among New England Federalists. The
first reached its climax in the winter of 1803-4. Its headquarters were
not Newburyport, Salem, or Boston, but Coyle's Rooming House in the
District of Columbia. Its principals were neither the Essex clique nor
the young Federalists who managed the party affairs in New England,
but a motley crew of Federalist Congressmen, including Timothy Pickering,
who were not able to win either the confidence or the support of more
influential leaders. The movement was suppressed by other Federalists and
never effectively revived. With the exception of Pickering, the survivors
of the Essex clique were among those who helped to suppress it.

"The origins of Pickering's conspiracy, as we shall call it, are external
to this essay. Sufice it to say that it was a cumulative result of
frustrations felt by many Federalists in Washington. On Christmas Eve of
1803, after the purchase of Louisiana and the beginning of the assault
upon the Judiciary, Timothy Pickering began to seek support beyond the
walls of his rooming house, sending a feeler to a 'dear friend,' Richard
Peters of Pennsylvania. He suggested the creation of 'a new confederacy,
exempt from the corrupt and corrupting influence and oppression of the
aristocratic Democrats of the South.' Pickering was confident that the
future was with him: "There will be--and our children at farthest will
see it--a separation. The white and black population will mark the
boundary.' But the response of Judge Peters was a disappointment.
Pickering complained that his schemes were 'too strong for the latitude
of Pennsylvania.'

"Toward the end of January, Pickering tried again. He dispatched a
letter to George Cabot, describing in candor and detail his plans for a
'northern confederacy' of New Jersey, New York, New England, and Canada,
to be established with the backing of Great Britain. So confident was
Pickering of his rectitude that he carefully made copies of his
correspondence and preserved them for posterity.

"Two weeks later, on February 14, 1804, Cabot carefully composed a
reply which, despite its conciliatory tone, was clearly negative. He
argued that secession was impracticable for two reasons. First, the
disease which Pickering wished to cure, democracy, had already infected
New England. Second, assuming that amputation might still be the
remedy, a knife was not at hand. 'There is no energy in the federal
party,' he wrote. A few days after the dispatch of this letter, Cabot
added in a brief note that Ames, Parsons, and Higginson all agreed with
him. Higginson himself wrote, 'I have seen your letters to Mr. Cabot and
Mr. Lyman on the question of separation, which is a very delicate and
important one. Considered in the abstract we all agree there can be no
doubt of its being desirable, but of the expediency of attempting it or
discussing it even at this moment we all very much doubt.'

"Only one of Pickering's correspondents supported him--Theodore
Lyman of Waltham, an acquaintance but not an intimate friend of the
Essexmen. And Lyman told Pickering that he was unable to find Federalists
who were willing to discuss disunion, much less to endorse it...
"Cabot's and Higginson's letters, which Henry Adams has published,
leave the impression that these gentlemen found disunion desirable but
unattainable. But a letter which Adams did not publish suggests that
their talk of the abstract desirability of secession was an empty
concession to Pickering, which softened their refusal to co-operate with
him. Ten days after Cabot wrote his first letter to Pickering he sent a
confidential note to Rufus King: 'An experiment has been suggested by some
of our friends, to which I object that it is impracticable, and, if
practicable, would be ineffectual. The thing proposed is obvious and
natural, but it would now be thought too bold, and would be fatal to its
advocates as public men; yet the time may soon come when it will be
demanded by the people of North and East, and then it will unavoidably
take place. I am not satisfied that the thing itself is to be desired. My
habitual opinions have been always strongly against it; and I do not see,
in the present mismanagement, motives for changing my opinion.'

"With the coming of spring, in 1804, the conspiracy melted away.
Pickering's efforts to revive it were invariably unsuccessful, not because
the 'Essex Junto' was in a state of 'inert perversity,' but because
Federalists such as George Cabot actively sought to keep their wayward
friend out of mischief. The Great Embargo, for example, might have
sustained the northern confederacy scheme more effectively than the
Louisiana Purchase. In October 1808, Cabot wrote to Pickering, 'I have
seen from several quarters letters expressing apprehensions that a
disunion of the States is meditated by the Federalists. Some Federalists
have been made to believe that there was a foundation for these
insinuations, and the Democrats at the southward are using this story to
deter men from acting with the Federalists. I think, therefore, it will be
well to pass some very decided resolution on the importance of maintaining
the union inviolate under every trial.'

"The second disunion movement in New England was more substantial and much
more dangerous. It was not really a conspiracy in any meaningful sense,
but a grass roots movement, a popular upheaval, which began as a response
to the economic policies of Jefferson's administrations and ironically
flourished best among Jefferson's 'chosen people,' the yeomanry of the
Connecticut Valley.l12 Although this movement began independently of young
Federalist leaders in Boston, they saw an opportunity in it, an issue to
be turned to partisan advantage. Harrison Gray Otis described their game
in a letter to Josiah Quincy: 'This temper, you are sensible, must not be
extinguished for want of sympathy, nor permitted to burst forth into
imprudent excess,' he declared. As early as 1808, Otis contemplated a
convention in Hartford 'for the purpose of providing some mode of relief
that may not be inconsistent with the union of these states.'...

"With few exceptions, disunion was never the object of young Federalist
leaders in New England. They wished merely to play upon sectional
loyalties for political purposes. Party organs in New England--the
Palladium, the Courant, and others--printed many inflammatory pieces but
few which were genuinely secessionist...

"But the appeal to sectional pride was more successful than its sponsors
may have wished. Otis noted in December 1808 that 'the spirit of the
yeomanry in this state is raising to a point which will require restraint
rather than the excitement of those who are supposed to influence and lead
them.' The initiative passed to the people. The young Federalists suddenly
found themselves in the dangerous position of a rider thrown and dragged
behind his horse that he had spurred once too often...

"The simile is inexact, for the young Federalists never entirely lost
control. In 1814 after two years of war, they called the famous meeting
at Hartford, and managed to keep a firm grip upon its proceedings. Most
of the Essex clique were gone by 1814--Ames, Dana, Jackson, Lowell,
Parsons, and Tracy were dead; Goodhue and Higginson were in seclusion.
Only four of the old Essexmen still had their wits about them--Pickering,
Cabot, Dane, and Thorndike.

"Pickering, who favored disunion, opposed the Hartford Convention because
he knew that it would 'end in smoke.'l16 Cabot and Dane, who had
'withdrawn from public life,' and had not been 'in any political situation
for many years before,' emerged from their retirement in order to attend.
There can be no doubt as to their motives. Cabot made clear his position
in conversation with Christopher Gore. According to the latter, Cabot
'laughed very heartily at his going to Hartford, and says he was prevailed
upon to take the journey, merely because they declared an absolute
determination, in all men of standing in the community not to go, unless
he went, and that a measure of the Sort, was necessary to allay the
ferment and prevent a crisis . . . He expressed his unaltered conviction,
that the worst of evils would be a dissolution of the Union.'

"Dane was dragged out of his study in much the same way. 'Do not
be afraid,' he said to a moderate as he prepared to go to Hartford,
'somebody must go to prevent mischief!' When he returned to his study,
he continued to edit his monumental Abridgement of American Law, in which
he declared, 'As the union of our States, on republican principles
throughout the whole, are essential to that union, the author often
takes occasion to notice and enforce those principles; and, of course, to
select largely from those laws and constitutions best calculated to bind
the states together on federal and republican principles. He can hardly
realize that one sister state in this union ought to view another as a
foreign state.' "The position of the only other Essexrnan still active in 1814, Israel
Thorndike, is problematical. The 'Boston rebel,' John Lowell, Jr., wrote
of the Hartford Convention, 'It is to be regretted that we had not chosen
two or three such persons as Daniel Sargent, William Sullivan and Colonel
Thorndike. I do not know that we have among the delegates a single bold
and ardent man.' But in April 1814, Thorndike wrote to Otis that,
notwithstanding party policy, he was in favor of subscribing to government
securities. It is inconceivable that this hardheaded businessman would
have wished to invest in a government which he was plotting to destroy.
From this fact it would appear that Thorndike, too, was a moderate, and
that all of the surviving Essexmen but Pickering were unionists in 1814."
 
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