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Oh Flag of Columbia, how Glorious the sight,
As millions of Free Men rise up in their might!
To battle for Homeland and Liberty's Cause
And aid in defending her rightly-writ laws!
Our Freedom it must, and shall be preserved
the Patriot's duty from which we nere swerved.
So we say: let Tyrants come try what they will!
The Flag of Columbia shall float or us still!
-The Flag of Columbia; Unofficial Anthem of the Free Republic
Introduction: A pleasure to meet you, residents of alternatehistory.com. You can call me Filly of Delphi, and after several years of lurking on this site, I've finally mustered up the determination and inspiration to contribute in exchange for all the wonderful timelines/discussions you've brought me. For that inspiration, I'd like to give a dedication to MacGregor and his timeline The Union Forever, whose early portion I've recently read in full and who's tone and scale I hope to emulate.

I've always been fascinated by the concept of a "Reverse Civil War" (A War of Southern Aggression/Northern Secession) ever since I first saw the idea in the POP demand mod for Victoria 2 but haven't found much discussion of it on this site. From what I have seen, this is because most proposed scenarios start too late for it to be a realistic possability, and its this gap I hope to fill. This TL will diverge from our history at the time of the Constitutional Convention, and lead up to its version of The Civil War and hopefully beyond. As I'm somewhat new to this, suggestions and constructive critique are more than welcome; hopefully, I can both entertain you and enlighten myself at the same time. Without further to do, let us begin.


Divergence: The Constitutional Convention.


Background

The First Constitutional Convention (Constitutional Convention of 1787) was called by the Congress of the Confederation as much-needed response to the swell of problems facing the young republic. Initially afraid that a strong national government might take away the new-found independence the states had just gained from England, for its first eight years America's government was structured under The Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union: a weak national government that lacked the authority to collect taxes, impose uniform rules over the individual states, or enforce American interests in international affairs. This weakness lead to several squabbles between the states and the state and national government during the 1780's; Maryland and Virginia fighting a trade and legal war over navigation monopolies on the Potomac River, the ambivalence of New England preventing the national government from taking action after Spain closed the Mississippi to American shipping, and perhaps most telling the Congress of Confederation having no way to repay the debt it'd taken on during the American Revolution, resulting in Great Britain refusing to evacuate its forts in the Northwest territories or end its relations with tribes now on American soil. It was these commercial concerns; the need for states to generate enough revenue so they could pay back their creditors, and the resistance of state residents to high direct taxes was what New York politician Alexander Hamilton pinpointed as the root of the national strife during his speech at the previous autumn's Annapolis Convention, famously declaring "I see no way in which thirteen drowning men, each tugging at the same raft, might make it to shore safely lifeboat than our squabbling states should continue our national compact in peace in our current state. We must act a single continent, not islands onto ourselves." Many historians consider this last part a thinly-veiled jab at the state of Rhode Island & Providence Plantations; by far the single biggest troublemaker in the Confederation in terms of asserting her sovereignty. Not only had the tiny region imposed a unilateral tax on national post traffic but had been only state to veto an attempt to create a national tariff, restricting the national government's one possibility of a continuous revenue stream.

Hamilton's conclusion seemed to be vindicated when in early 1787 a mob of over 1,000 frontier farmers under the command of Daniel Shays; a former captain of the 5th Massachusetts, marched on Springfield in an attempt to seize the armory and force the bankers and government in Boston to return their repossessed farmers, cancel debts, and provide back-salaries to unpaid Revolutionary War veterans by force of arms. As the Federal government had no standing army (Since they lacked the money to pay one) as Massachusetts was already deeply in debt, the state government had to raise a militia with funds solicited from the very same merchants who had foreclosed on the rebels' property to put down the rebellion, secure national arms, and re-impose the civil courts the farmers and forcefully closed. The disturbing news of Shay's insurrection caused the politicians and many common citizens to panic: after all, many states had debt-ridden farmers and financially-strapped state governments, and the necessity of an army funded by private elites raised the disturbing specter of a potential "Hessian Rule"; mercenary armies used to enforce the whims of the rich where democratic institutions were too poor to resist, perhaps with the backing of British or Spanish bullion. The incident made the need for a stronger national government clear enough that 12 states were convinced to send delegates to Philadelphia to hammer out the needed amendments to the articles; only Rhode Island refusing to attend.



The Great Debates: From Confederation to Nation

From May 25th to September 30th, the delegates held gatherings in the assembly room of the Pennsylvania State House; George Washington elected the presiding officer by unanimous vote on the first day. Initially convened the draft suitable amendments to the Articles, the first week of the convention was largely consumed by vigorous discussion over weather it was even possible to create a suitably powerful national government within the limited Articles' limited framework. This discussion; the first of the "Great Debates": those dividing points on the new government's structure that would take up most of the Convention's time and usually end in compromise, defined by back to back speeches from those on opposite sides of the aisle that could take up an entire day in themselves (Such days would sometimes be mocked as "Long Parliament" days by those delegates absent from the convention hall, in reference to the long-winded discussions of the MP's of the early parts of the English Civil War).

Supporters of simply amending the Articles of Confederation, called "Confederates", were most common among delegates from the largest states, such as New York, who enjoyed more power under the current decentralized system and feared a restructuring of the government might take away what they perceived as the rights of their "sovereign" states, and the smallest states who believed they would be overwhelmed by the more populous ones in a singular national government. Though small in number, they did find a speaker in the tenacious; as his supporters would call him, or tedious; as he was often derided, in Judge Robert Yates of New York. Depending largely on dry, legalistic arguments which questioned the extent of the Convention's authority and individual liberty than the merits of the Articles, the Confederate position would be quickly dismissed as untenable by his more pragmatic opposition.


This opposition called itself the "Nationalists" because they favored a new government that was a fully sovereign nation; subject not the individual states but the will of the people. Though supported by such personalities as George Washington and James Madison of Virginia and Alexander Hamilton of New York, early discussion was dominated by the Rufus King; a young representative from what was at the time Massachusetts. Specifically instructed by a government fresh off the scare of Shay's Rebellion to promote the formation of a national military, he took the floor every day of the first week's debate, countering Yates' arrangements with, according to an exert from George Washington's memoirs of the occasion "A thundering oratory which couldn't help but captivate the entire chamber. It was his informative, patriotic speeches, I feel, which stirred the heart of all but the most conceited Confederates to the love of our one nation". One key counterpoint the Nationalists could raise against the main Confederate argument; the need to preserve individual liberties, was the impassibility of those liberties being secured without a strong Federal government. "Tell me to what extent the right of property exists when, like in the state of brutish nature, any brigand may have what he likes with nothing more than a stronger arm and sharper spear than its owner? What value is the farmers crop when his government can not assure it can get to market without the privations of foreign pirates", Jame Madison's official minutes record him as saying, to which "Mr. Hamilton began a polite applause for the gentleman from Massachusetts, who no doubt knew of such things firsthand"



Rufus King of Massachusetts, whom after the convention was a key speaker and

advocate for the ratification of the Constitution and the Nationalist clique. Though he became close friends and
co-workers with his fellow young Nationalist Alexander Hamilton, King would quickly adopt a
far more populist rhetoric compared than his unapologetically elitist partner


Next Up The Great Debates: Representation, Debt, Defence and the Slavery Question





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