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Shattered Stars: An American Timeline



‘On the death, or life, of a single insect turns the fate of nations.’ William Tweed. A Yellow Ship: The Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1787.

It was the greatest gathering of North American men and minds since the Continental Congress. Summoned together to reform, repair, or perhaps even replace the Articles of Confederation, they planned to meet in Philadelphia to hammer out the future of the turbulent new Republic. That future was not rosy and many problems gripped the new nation.

Ranging from outstanding war debts, bickering between states over Western lands, a diverse Native American policy, and simply being unable to collect taxes many issues were hamstringing the country. Each state guarded its own narrow interests, even at the expense of others, totally uninterested in the common good. Vermont even governed itself as its own nation, watching the United States warily from their own borders. Varied coinage, a lack of a unified military command or even a designated foreign affairs office caused yet more problems. It seemed that while the Americans had won the war, they were going to lose the peace.

Against this uneasy and divided backdrop rose Shay’s Rebellion. Veterans, led by Daniel Shay, had risen up in Massachusetts against ‘unfair taxes’, levied by the state during an economic downturn. Taking over courthouses and other state buildings they had dusted off the old war cries of the Revolution and had marched on several cities, seizing old armory stocks. The nation had panicked at the sight of these grizzled, battle hardened men, turning on the government. The revolt had been stopped by loyalist militia but the event had shaken the nation and renewed calls for ‘Reform’.

So that was why these men were gathering at the so-called Constitutional Congress, to address the problem of running a bankrupt, war-weary nation filled with power hungry states. Many bright minds showed up, eager to take on the challenge. The names still ring in history. Roger Sherman. Edmund Randolph. James Madison. Benjamin Franklin. And the great George Washington himself, hero of the Revolution came to preside over the gathering. Despite the great obstacles set before them, they may have succeeded if there hadn’t been another visitor to the City of Brotherly Love that summer.



The men who gathered to save America

Yellow Fever.

The disease was not unknown in the city, with the first recorded cases dating back to the 17th century. A dreaded scourge, no one knew how ‘yellow jack’ was spread or where it came from other than the tropical south. All the people knew was that when yellow fever entered a city thousands would die. While it was a constant specter in the South (with New Orleans nearly always under assault) it came and went in Northern cities. It was only by the worst luck that just as the delegates for the Convention began their deliberations, some unknown ship (probably from the French Caribbean islands) brought in yellow fever.

The plague ripped through the city, overwhelming the futile efforts of the city’s medical community. Unable to understand it, there was little to be done except comfort the sick and the dying. There many of these as the causality list climbed into the thousands. The speed at which the sickness spread was dizzying and the city laid prostrate under the blows. The streets were filled with the ill and the poor sections of town groaned with the dead.



A few desperate souls trying to escape the stricken city

The rich and the powerful did not escape either, and the blow fell hard on the assembled Convention. Due to the fragile nature of the Republic, mistrust between delegates or a sense of duty, few delegates fled the city. This cost the Republic dearly as one after another fell ill. Of the 55 men who attended a full two dozen caught the illness, with several prominent men dying. John Dickinson, George Mason and Thomas Fitzsimmons were among the slain. They still tried to carry on however, trying to solve the nation’s problems as themselves came under assault. It was the twin death of Ben Franklin (aged and in poor health) and, far more importantly George Washington, that heralded the end of the Convention. The delegates fled in panic from the city, desperate to escape the death that lurked there. The nation mourned the passing of it’s greatest leader and statesmen.

For three months yellow fever gripped the city. By that time, the men had returned home and the last chance for reform was lost.
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So the basic POD is that Yellow Fever grips Philadelphia (like it would only a few years later in OTL in 1793) during the Constitutional Convention. The illness is so bad, it halts the proceedings.

The USA will be governed by the Articles of the Confederation...for a while at any rate.
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