Following the disastrous War of 1812-1816, the collapse of the Federation meant that even had they been disposed to be generous, the British would not have been able to return to the status quo ante bellum. At the end of negotiations with the various parties, six entities shared North America. British Canada, now including Louisiana, the Republic of Mexico, also British Nova Scotia, the Republic of New England, the Amphictyony of Philadelphia and the British colonies in the former United States, where resistance to the British advance had held to the last. Yet while both Philadelphia and New England quickly adapted to the status of British satellites (with London carefgul never to overtly challenge their independence), resistance in the rump United States remained alive.
The Stands Rebellion
It was the high-handed implementation of British laws limiting the import of slaves overseas (which local authorities interpreted as including the Caribbean Sea) that led to increased friction between Cis-Mississippi colonies and the imperial centre. The decision to attempt a second rebellion came in 1830, with the rumour that Parliament was planning to introduce an abolition act and the news of revolution in Europe. The assembly of Georgia led the way, followed quickly by the Carolinas, Alabama, Mississippi and Tennessee. Kentucky and Virginia never entirely committed to the endeavour, though that did not help the when retribution arrived. Richard Stands, a Georgian lawyer and assembly member, led the uprising and organised the militias into an effective fighting force. It took three years of campaigning and the eventual selling out by several leaders of the independence movement to crush the rebellion, and the ewvents of those years were widely believed to have hastened abolition thoughout the Empire (the Jamaica Negro Rifles and the irregular Freedmen's Corps, both recruited among former slaves in 1832, were particularly feared by the American army and the legacy of the long insurgency in the backwoods left much bitterness). Richard Stands was hanged for high treason in 1834 and acquired almost instant martyr status among the white population of the United States, a restless, overgarrisoned colony where resntment between the races ranmkled and Britich treasure drained like water for the thankless task of policing unproductive land. It was in those sullen, leaden years that the legend of the 'invisible nation' grew up. The British were never able to locate the shgadow government or the President - indeed, it is doubtfuzl they existed with anything like that degree of organisation - but throughout the land, writs of the 'United States Government' appeared, secret elections were held, midnight courts sat in session in barns and secluded farmhouses, and the 'United States Militia' commissioned officers and terrorised the free negroes.
By 1855, things had come to a head. Long unpopular in Parliament, it was resolved that with the burden of another war and a general distate among the electorate for keeping white men underfoot for the benefit of the coloured race, London was ready to talk independence - however nominal. The United States were reconstituted on 4 July 1856 in Charleston and the last British troops left in 1858, having seen tens of thousands of freedmen emigrate to Canada. relations between the ostrensibly friendly nations remained frosty and fraught with difficulty, with Royal Navy coaling and berthing rights in US harbours and navigation on the Mississippi frequent causes of friction. The United States to this day retains a strong legal tradition of racial separation and discrimination and keeps alive the tradition of the 'dark days' of the 'invisible nation' and its martyr hero, Richard Stands.