Skallagrim
Banned
Can you tell me what it is that makes the US more likely to choose a monarchy while the OTL aristocratic Spanish colonies chose republicanism? These differences could be pretty important for me to take into account. Was it just that the US would be the first Colony to break away, it was well suited for a republic OTL, and other colonies just copied it?
In addition to what @Dolan has noted, there's the fact that in OTL, a lot of inhabitants of the Spanish colonies despised being ruled by the Spanish elite. Said elite was in a position of power, and the on-goings in Europe (French occupation of Spain etc.) severely weakened that power. Some flipped their support to the colonial population, others attempted to support Spain in keeping or re-taking its colonies later on. But the independence struggles of the Spanish Empire were directed against an aristocratic elite. That, and the example of the USA, made the independence fighters ready to support republicanism.
We are working on the premise that in ATL British North America, it will be the aristocrats who are leading the charge for independence. They simply have no reason to desire a republic. This doesn't rule out some kind of deliberate "aristocracy" model, but consider how the colonies are almost certain to be governed in this ATL. To even get aristocrats in charge, you by definition need a system of chartered fiefs. Some aristocrat gets the right to organise and exploit Carolina Colony on behalf of the crown, making him (presumably) the Duke of Carolina. He no doubt does this by granting his own charters and fiefs to other aristocrats, who form Counties within his Duchy. (Yes, in this America, the counties will have actual Counts!) If independence comes about, and no monarch is chosen, then the Duke of New York and the Duke of Virginia are essentially sovereign heads of state. There can by a 'Grand Ducal Council' or something, where they gather periodically and work together, but it would lead to an America that is set to be an alliance of sovereign countries.
If, however, they choose a monarch, there is a uniting factor in the kind of social and cultural context that they all understand and respect. It promises stability and certainty. It also removes the greatest existential risk there is to the new independent order: that two Ducal Houses unite their Duchies by marriage and start conquering the neighbours. Basically, the aristocratic states would want a common monarch for the same reason that the USA in OTL wanted a Constitution and a President. (Which doesn't mean the King has to have the exact same powers as the OTL federal government. As I have often pointed out, the USA could have replaced the Articles of Confederation with a much weaker Constitution and that would have been fine, too. The central issues were that there was no chief executive, and that the general goernment had no real power to force the states to obey its edicts. In this aristocratic context, those same problems exist, and a monarch solves both of them.)