The Collapse of the Farce

Jasen777

Donor
"As to the future grandeur of America, and its being a rising empire under one head, whether republican or monarchical, it is one of the idlest and most visionary notions that ever was conceived even by writers of romance. The mutual antipathies and clashing interests of the Americans, their difference of governments, habitudes, and manners, indicate that they will have no centre of union and no common interest. They never can be united into one compact empire under any species of government whatever; a disunited people till the end of time, suspicious and distrustful of each other, they will be divided and subdivided into little commonwealths or principalities, according to natural boundaries, by great bays of the sea, and by vast rivers, lakes, and ridges of mountains." - Josiah Tucker

Anyways this is officially abandoned.
 

Jasen777

Donor
I'm pretty much to the point where I feel like I'd be making stuff up, and while there's certainly nothing wrong with that, it's not what I'd like to do. (Though it does seem certain that the 2nd Republic is going to lose the Northwest Indian war equivalent, at least for a while).

Might we prevail on you to recommend reading on the subject of the constitutional convention?

There is of course Madison's notes and Yates'. I also used The Summer of 1787 by David O. Stewart.

The only real history (though dated) that I could get for the AoC period in general was: The Critical Period of American History by John Fiske.

Also good background for the period: Rebels and Democrats: The Struggle for Equal Political Rights and Majority Rule During the American Revolution by Elisha P. Douglass and The Transformation of Virginia 1740-1790 by Rhys Isaac.
 

Jasen777

Donor
Officially unabandoned(ish) for now. With 49% more knowledge of Natives east of the Mississippi, 38% less stylish writing, a negative time bonus to updates.

But seriously I'm going to go with a minimalist writing approach and basically just say what happens. And I don't know how often I'll update or how far I'll take it.
 

Jasen777

Donor
Summary for new and old readers of the TL.

“We are either a United people, or we are not. If the former, let us, in all matters of general concern act as a nation, which have national objects to promote, and a National character to support--If we are not, let us no longer act a farce by pretending to it.” - George Washington

"As to the future grandeur of America, and its being a rising empire under one head, whether republican or monarchical, it is one of the idlest and most visionary notions that ever was conceived even by writers of romance. The mutual antipathies and clashing interests of the Americans, their difference of governments, habitudes, and manners, indicate that they will have no centre of union and no common interest. They never can be united into one compact empire under any species of government whatever; a disunited people till the end of time, suspicious and distrustful of each other, they will be divided and subdivided into little commonwealths or principalities, according to natural boundaries, by great bays of the sea, and by vast rivers, lakes, and ridges of mountains." - Josiah Tucker

(Both OTL quotes).


The Collapse of the Farce
Blunt Summary Style​


The POD:

James Madison catches pneumonia on his way back to Virginia in 1783 and dies shortly after.


Madisonless:

Without Madison around, Virginia passes Patrick Henry's "A Bill Establishing a Provision for Teachers of the Christian Religion." It requires people to pay a tax, but they get to say what church they want it to go to, as long as it's a recognized church with a qualified minister. (OTL Madison pulled some tricks to delay the bill and ultimately defeat it, and then managed to pass the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom).

Baptists are particularly upset by the bill as they see it as violating freedom of religion. Many of them oppose state licensing of preaches on principle and some of them had been put in jail for unlicensed preaching only a few years before. The more western population is also heavily opposed as they have few traditional churches for the tax to go to. If people don't put down where they want the money to go to, it's supposed to got to seminaries in their resident county. But many counties don't have seminaries and sometimes the money goes to the tax collector and then disappears.

Baptists and other groups complain to the Confederal government and their co-religionists in other states, but don't get any relief. This puts a little more stress between Virginia and the Middle States, at a time where the country was barely being held together by the Articles of Confederation, and did not need any more friction.

Without Madison, and with Jefferson in France, the opposition to Patrick Henry is fragmented and less effective. This allows him to stack their delegation to the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia with anti-fedralists, lead by Richard Henry Lee. A notable exception to anti-federalism amongst the delegates is George Washington, who is too popular for Henry to oppose.

Without Madison's push for a strong central government, and with an anti-federalist Virginia delegation, the Constitutional Convention goes much more poorly than OTL. Unhappy with how the convention is going, and feeling betrayed by his friend George Mason, George Washington takes the opportunity to visit the Society of Cincinnati which was also meeting in Philadelphia. The society is made up of the officers who served the colonial cause in the American Revolution, with membership passed down by primogeniture.

Paranoid fears about the society boil over after seeing Washington go there, and rumors abound that they attend to crown Washington king and overthrow the government. Violence erupts between some of Society of Cincinnati officers and locals oppressed to them. This is the final blow to the Constitutional Convention, as most of the delegates flee Philadelphia carrying rumors of a Washington lead coup with them.

When coup rumors and news of the failed convention reach New York City, where Congress was meeting in an attempt to organize the Northwest territory (and failing due to disagreement on how to fund churches and education in the area), Congress disbanded, and would never again succeed in forming a quorum.


Dissolution

As the Confederation starts to dissolve, states start to think about their best exit strategy. In Britain, Ambassador John Adams, acting on behalf of the Massachusetts Executive Council, negotiates a treaty that advantages Massachusetts, and any other states that would join it and a successor confederation. These states would gain free trade rights with the West Indies and the Maritime colonies of Canada, rights to ship to Britain itself (albeit subject to duties), fishing rights to the Grand Bank off Newfoundland, and official British recognition. The trading and fishing rights were to be denied to other former U.S. States.

In exchange the British would receive favorable trading rights in those states, the boundary of Northern Massachusetts (Maine) settled, and the right to have frigates build for the Royal Navy in Eastern Ports. Massachusetts and the states that would join them would also agree not to interfere with any British operations in the Northwest territory, an easy concession since they basically could not do so anyways.

In 1789 states sent representatives to the Congress of Dover, to either save the Confederation, or as it soon proved: to address the pragmatic issues of ending it. Eventually a grand compromise was reached and an agreement was made on how to divide the debt (largely based on population) and the western territories (largely based on colonial area "sea to seas grants").

Virginia and New York struck out on their own, Vermont was by itself out of necessity (N.H. and N.Y. still holding a claim on their territory), and Rhode Island was in such turmoil that it had not sent representatives to Dover.

The rest of the states formed into regional confederations -

The Unites States of America – A group of middle states that saw themselves as the direct continuation of the Confederation government and came to be known as the 2nd Republic. Members included Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, and New Jersey. They also inherited a part of the Old Northwest Territory. The state of Westsylvania was created to help settle the issue of where Pennsylvania's western border would fall.

New England – A group of Eastern States, consisting originally of Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Connecticut. They agreed to cede their western claims to the USA for assumption of their share of the debt, a particularly good deal as they had already pledged to Britain not to interfere in the region (as at least the Massachusetts Dover representatives had already known).

Confederate of the Carolinas - A group of Southern states (North and South Carolina and Georgia) that felt they need to stick together to counter Virginia. North Carolina wanted to maintain their western land claim instead of admitting western settlers in as new states. South Carolina did not mind keeping power in the East, and agreed after reaching an agreement with Georgia to receive part of it's claim. Georgia, in dire need of help to face down threats from the Creeks, did not have a strong position from which to bargain.

------------------------------------------------------

So I have conflicting data about the British held forts post war so I changed the map a bit....

1790final.png
 

Jasen777

Donor
Here's a poor map showing the approximate extent of actual White settlement. Shown over OTL lines. Orange dots show active Native resistance. Shows just how far ahead Virginia is in settling the West.

settlementzoomy.PNG
 

Jasen777

Donor
And an update:

1790+1-ish – (with some information from beforehand)

Rhode Island pulls itself together, elects a legislature, and goes nearly riot free in 1791. The legislature spends most of the time debating whether to stay independent or to seek the join New England or the 2nd Republic.

*

A combined force of 1000 South Carolina and Georgia militia lead by General Andrew Pickens gain a technical victory over a similar number of Creeks lead by Alexander McGillivray. The hard fought battle lasted all day and saw over 100 dead on both sides, after which the Creeks withdrew. The Creek threat to current Georgian settlement is ended, but the hope of forcing Creeks to a wider agreement is thwarted.

*

New York makes another doomed attempt to exert authority over Vermont (an area New York has a long standing claim on), but their officials are promptly ran out of the area. Attempts to call up the militia to have them deal with Vermont are defeated by the militia's vast indifference to the issue.

*

North Carolina had given the seven counties of the old Washington District to the 1st Republic in 1784 in order to help settle the Confederacy's debt. The idea was that the national government would take charge of the governance of the land and raise money by selling it to citizens. However the AoC government proved unable or unwilling to do so. In legal limbo the residents of the area had declared their own state, Franklin.

When the North Carolina government saw that the national government was not using the land as they had intended, they tried to re-exert authority in the area. For several years North Carolina and Franklin operated parallel governments in the area. In 1789, the Governor of Franklin was arrested in the government temporally collapsed.

However, seeing the failure of the First Republic revived the movement, and joining with newer settlement in the Cumberland and to the south, Franklin formed the new nation of Tennessee and declared independence from Carolina.

*

The Treaty of Paris had not caused fighting in Ohio to stop, it only ended direct British involvement. Numerous native tribes in the area had formed the Western Confederacy in order to oppose American settlement, believing (probably correctly) that previous treaties had limited such settlement to south of the Ohio. The period of 1783-1790 saw perhaps a thousand settles killed, and an unknown number of Natives.

In 1786 George Rogers Clark raised 1,000 Virginian (Kentucky) militia and crossed the Ohio, but his force failed to make significant contact with its enemy and withdraw after a year mostly spent drinking. In 1790, a force of 1,500 lead by James Wilkinson (it was not known at this time that he had been having secret dealings with the Spanish) crossed the Ohio and burnt several villages before being defeated by a Western Confederacy force lead by Blue Jacket and suffering 400 dead. This put all settlement north of the Ohio at risk, including that from the 2nd Republic in Westsylvania, which had been left largely alone.

Attempts to raise another army to permanently settle the Indian issue north of the Ohio were thwarted due to Kentucky's vote in 1791 to secede from Virginia and form an independent country. The Kentuckians had several grievances against Richmond. There was the traditional cultural differences of the west from the east. There was the various districting decisions, voter qualification, and Representative qualifications, the made western interests underrepresented. There was a lack of protection from Indian attacks and the failure to take seriously the effort to gain trading rights to the Mississippi.

And there was the religious establishment tax that was deeply resented on practical grounds - Kentucky had few official churches and no seminaries so often the tax collectors simply disappeared the money. It was also against a rising religious consensus against, already the slogan was heard across the frontier – "No creed but Christ, no Church but God's."

Therefore Kentucky had decided to follow the example of Tennessee, and declared independence from Virginia.
 
And an update:

1790+1-ish – (with some information from beforehand)

OK - some important questions.


  1. New England - a "federation" of Massachusetts with Connecticut and New Hampshire would be totally dominated by Massachusetts unless Connecticut and New Hampshire are grossly overrepresented. Is there a central government? If so, who is head of it?
  2. I believe the same would be true of the rump USA, with Pennsylvania as the Big Dog. Again, what is the form of the government, and who is in charge?
  3. Repeat for the Confederation of Carolina, too.
  4. OTL, Connecticut surrendered its claim to sovereignty over a strip of western territory in return for ownership of part of it: the Western Reserve in what became NE Ohio, which Connecticut then sold or granted to settlers and land companies. ATL, does Connecticut own the Western Reserve, and if so, how does the USA feel about it?
  5. Who is in charge in New York? George Clinton? New York claims Michigan and Wisconsin, but has no communication with those areas except by water. Has New York formed any kind of militia or rangers to exert its sovereignty there? Or is New York basically allowing Britain to nullify the claim it inherited from the U.S.?
  6. Independent Kentucky would include southern Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, I think.
 

Hnau

Banned
Interesting timeline so far. I've always been interested in the POD of Madison dying before the Constitutional Convention. He was, in many ways, the dynamic leader that held it all together. Without Madison, and with other unprecedented tensions emerging such as the riot, the likelihood of success at the Convention drops considerably.

I'm not so sure the name "Eastern States of America" would be the most popular one, and I'm not so sure the British would be so friendly to them. It is to Massachusetts's advantage that Adams is in Britain, yes, but these were the states that rebelled against Britain first, and became the most ardent supporters of independence. It seems like the British government would still hold some grudges from that.

As for the name, well, New Englanders still thought of their states as part of New England, but in the 1780s especially the state governments will want to distance themselves from their connection to England. I doubt they'd identify themselves as "Eastern"... the whole coast was eastern. More likely you'd get a name like "The Confederation of the Northern States of America" or the "Northern Confederation". They would identify as Northern more quickly than Eastern, I'd imagine.

Whatever you decide upon, I'll be following this. :)
 
I do not like Kentucky's chances in the is rebellion. The 2nd Repulbic will likely not want to support this precedent fort Western rebellion either.
 
Very interesting! Glad to have it back.

For the new readers, the large states won't entirely dominate their neighbors, because there are constitutions to ensure it. Just read a few updates back and you'll understand.
 
Any chance of info on Ira Allen and the plot to bring Vermont back into the British fold?

I expect New York is going to lose territory to Britain and or native allies of the Empire.
 
I've been thinking about this a lot lately.

Virginia and Kentucky are in a fascinating position. This close to the revolution a Virginian crackdown would be ideologically very difficult, and politically.... Virtually everyone they'd be fighting has immediate family either in Virginia or Pennsylvania (well PA OTL, a lot would be in that new western-Pennsylvania state).

Yet those people on the frontier would be in a very challenging position trying to force the natives out all on their lonesome. And if Virginia moves in and defines it's boundaries as including West Virginia, southern Ohio, much of east Kentucky, well. What exactly could they do about it?

And there's a religious divide brewing along the Appalachians anyway with evangelicalism in utero. This has a lot of shades of the Boer free states, come to think of it.
 
Question - looking at the maps, the Pale of Settlement distinctly excludes what became West Virginia. In the high west that makes a fair bit of sense - it wasn't the greatest land, but what was the deal with the eastern counties?
 

Jasen777

Donor
Sorry folks I got a new hobby that is taking most of my time and has even been somewhat profitable so far.

Virginia and Kentucky are in a fascinating position. This close to the revolution a Virginian crackdown would be ideologically very difficult, and politically....

True, I can't figure out what Virginia would do.


Yet those people on the frontier would be in a very challenging position trying to force the natives out all on their lonesome.

Yes, though the Natives are probably still doomed in the long run.
 

Jasen777

Donor
Question - looking at the maps, the Pale of Settlement distinctly excludes what became West Virginia. In the high west that makes a fair bit of sense - it wasn't the greatest land, but what was the deal with the eastern counties?

I've had conflicting sources about that. Apparently there were small settlements in OTL West Virginia already. My main map source was a map of territory that the Natives had lost (which I reversed) they might not have included that area because apparently there were not any permanent Native settlements there, it was just used as a hunting territory.
 
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