No federal territories in the U.S.

[historylesson]

When the United States won independence from Britain, the borders were set as seen in the map below:

As you can see, several states had claims on the land west of the Ohio River due to the confusing sea-to-sea grants. In order to avoid conflict between the states, they agreed to cede these lands to the federal government.
My question is, what if this never happened and the federal government never owned land?
- Who would have gotten that land? Virginia IMO would have the upper hand, but lets not forget that much of that land was at the time populated by Native Americans.
- This would also mean that there would never be a federal district. Would the capital be where it is now or somewhere else?
- There would obviously be no expansionary wars, such as the war against Mexico, but states that were independent could request to join the Union. People that wanted to become independent could also ask for assistance from the U.S., and if they succeeded they could join the Union afterwards (say California or Texas).
- The Louisiana or the Alaska purchase wouldn't be possible either, unless one of the states made the purchase (Jefferson for example may have tried to purchase New Orleans for Virginia not the U.S.)


There is of course the possibility that the country wouldn't have survived if the states had to fight over territories.


My question is what do you think the U.S. would have liked like now if this was the case, and how would this have affected the rest of the world?

 

[Elfwine]

Why don't the cede them to the Federal government? Do they work out some other arrangement, or does the status quo last until it breaks down?

That's the first question.

 

[historylesson]

Why don't the cede them to the Federal government? Do they work out some other arrangement, or does the status quo last until it breaks down?

That's the first question.

Well that was one of my questions too. My guess is that if they were able to reach an agreement by ceding the land to the federal government, then another peaceful solution might have also been possible.
Many of the states ceded the land and the federal government took over their war debt. Maybe one of the states, say Virginia compensated the other states that had claims on the land? Connecticut might have kept their Western Reserve, but due to the distance from Connecticut, I assume it would have become an independent state at some point, much like Maine did.
While this is what I believe would have happened, I am not sure Virginia would have been able to defend that land from the Native Americans who were living there and whose demands were completely ignored in the treaty that granted the 13 Colonies their independence. Britain was apparently in favor of having an Indian nation between them and the former Colonies, so I think there is a good chance that whoever got a hold of those lands would lose them quickly.




But I would like to hear what everything else thinks.

 

[Evan]

A lot of the smaller states refused to ratify the Articles of Confederation until the larger states had ceded their Western land claims. If you want to avoid that happening, you'll either need to deal with the consequences of no Confederation or provide some other reason for them to ratify - perhaps the Articles are proposed earlier when Congress is more popular, or perhaps ratification is explicitly or implicitly demanded in exchange for protection during the Revolution. (Maryland finally ratified when they were trying to get the French fleet to drive the Royal Navy out of their waters, and Congress convinced the French to wait until they ratified. That was a single incident IOTL, but it wasn't needed elsewhere.)

 

[historylesson]

Well lets assume that the smaller states refuse to ratify the Articles. What happens to the claims west of the Ohio river? Who gets that land.

Also does the Union collapse? And do external threats force the States to cooperate?

 

[Iori]

Also does the Union collapse?

Pretty much; with 7 of the Original 13 States refusing to join and 4 of the 6 states that do unite having territorial disputes with one another the Confederal Union can't survive.

In short the United States would cease to be and North America would end-up looking more like Europe in terms of numbers of countries and overall country size.

 

[jkay]

But this is space bat because it assumes too much stupid, that we'd've preferred letting the British hang us separately rather than agree. And it went away after the Constitution was ratified.

It's your responsibility to research new TLs, not ours. So, I suggest hitting Google or books 'til you do.

Second, it's YOUR responsibility to find a POD that'll do what you want, once you understand enough.

 

[historylesson]

So how do the states settle their disputes? I can't imagine Mass or Connecticut or New York having too much of an interest in the Northwest Territories due to distance from those areas even though they probably would seek monetary compensation to give up on their claims. If Virginia ends up in control of those lands, do they have the manpower to really take control (since the lands were populated by Indians).
Are there any other disputes between the states? Are the smaller states in danger? What happens to Georgia? Do you think they would be able to survive and perhaps expand their territory?
And what happens to Louisiana?
I have some ideas on what might have happened but I want to hear more opinions.