Un-federalized North America

Canada and the United States can be considered some of the best examples of federal government. All the provinces and states have autonomous legislative bodies and infrastructure.

Federalism works well for the most part, but what if North America wasn't primarily two massive conglomerate nations, but a collection of smaller states.

What would happen if all modern North American states and provinces were not united in a federal system?

Granted some would be considerably better off then others. In Canada BC, Alberta, and Ontario would be in much stronger positions then the other provinces. Texas would be a juggernaut in the entire continent.

How would these countries look economically, militarily, and socially? How would relations be between them? Would their current legislatures or houses of representatives be sufficient?

Have fun.
 
Federalism works well for the most part, but what if North America wasn't primarily two massive conglomerate nations, but a collection of smaller states.

It is…

500px-Location_North_America.svg.png
 

You know what he meant.


There's a lot of potential for some really interesting nations north of the Rio Grande. One friend of mine created an alternate world where the Carolinas were majority Desi, the descendants of South Asian indentured servants brought in as a compromise to end slavery, whereas Georgia was in a protracted civil war between black communists and white fascists.

Ultimately, though, the POD to allow for Canada and the US to be disunited butterflies away most political boundaries as we know them, so questions about current borders or legislatures being sufficient don't really matter. What the countries look like will depend on your POD.

An idea that I have continued to propose for a scenario like this is the existence of an independent Cherokee nation acting as a buffer between *Georgia and *North Carolina.

EDIT: Wait, somehow I wandered into post-1900? OK, I don't see how the US and Canada could break apart without a pre-1900 POD.
 
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By total landmass, it is. The majority of North American land is currently not occupied by small nations. So my point is true.

I suppose one of the most plausible ways to disunite Canada and the US is to have socialist/fascist revolutions between 1900 and 1935.

If there were wide scale soviet style revolts which succeed and spread you could see states and provinces splitting from each other. States not taken by socialism, but unsatisfied with the federal response might split from federation yet maintain their democracy.

A possible POD is the Winnipeg general strike in 1919. The entire working population of Winnipeg approx 30,000 struck from May 13 to June 21st. It ended when the RCMP rushed a protest group killing two of the strikers. If this violence had not ended the protests as in OTL, but pushed them further, we could see the rise of socialism in the prairie provinces of Canada. This coupled with the eventual Great depression could destabilize the continent enough to cause federalism to collapse.
 
With a dissolved Union in the 1920s and 1930s, the Second World War would be vastly different, and perhaps even fought in North America, between some of the states, but that might be unrealistic. Japan will not lose the war, since there is no US-Japanese war, but Germany might lose. Or will California take the US' role in the Pacific war?

(If pre-1900: The time for dissolution should rather be before the 1860s Civil War. Suppose the anti-federalists get effective, and sway the general opinion everywhere towards local independence, so there will be no Confederacy, and no Civil War, just a dissolved Union, as a dream gone by, and people afterwards will say that it was utopian to think that such a diverse continent could be held together.)
 
Canada and the United States can be considered some of the best examples of federal government. All the provinces and states have autonomous legislative bodies and infrastructure.

Federalism works well for the most part, but what if North America wasn't primarily two massive conglomerate nations, but a collection of smaller states.

What would happen if all modern North American states and provinces were not united in a federal system?

Granted some would be considerably better off then others. In Canada BC, Alberta, and Ontario would be in much stronger positions then the other provinces. Texas would be a juggernaut in the entire continent.

How would these countries look economically, militarily, and socially? How would relations be between them? Would their current legislatures or houses of representatives be sufficient?

Have fun.
I find this highly unlikely, considering how poor Texas was prior to the New Deal, military-industrial complex buildup and the space program. It's oil revenue wouldn't make it wealthy or a juggernaut: it'd turn it into a rentier state.
 
(If pre-1900: The time for dissolution should rather be before the 1860s Civil War. Suppose the anti-federalists get effective, and sway the general opinion everywhere towards local independence, so there will be no Confederacy, and no Civil War, just a dissolved Union, as a dream gone by, and people afterwards will say that it was utopian to think that such a diverse continent could be held together.)


indeed i suppose a viable timeline might be that the replace of the articles of Confederation doesnt happen and the USA breaks apart around 1800.
 
indeed i suppose a viable timeline might be that the replace of the articles of Confederation doesnt happen and the USA breaks apart around 1800.
If that happens then, being nonexistent at the time, it can't buy the Louisiana Territory from France a few years later on...
 
An idea that I have continued to propose for a scenario like this is the existence of an independent Cherokee nation acting as a buffer between *Georgia and *North Carolina.

I wonder what the Cherokees might have called their independent nation? Does anyone know how to say Cherokeeland in Cherokee?
 
An idea that I have continued to propose for a scenario like this is the existence of an independent Cherokee nation acting as a buffer between *Georgia and *North Carolina.

I wonder what the Cherokees might have called their independent nation? Does anyone know how to say Cherokeeland in Cherokee?

It most assuredly would not ever be called "Cherokeeland."
 
From wikipedia:

The Cherokee refer to themselves as Tsalagi (ᏣᎳᎩ) or Aniyvwiyaʔi (ᎠᏂᏴᏫᏯᎢ), which means "Principal People." The Iroquois, who were based in New York, called the Cherokee Oyata’ge'ronoñ (inhabitants of the cave country).

Most likely, they wouldn't get to pick. The majority of the world is named by other people. "Africa" is an arabic term, "America" came from an Italian surname, and so on. Likely they would get named something by someone else, and it would stick. It may be rooted in a Cherokee word, it would most likely be changed a bit. Wouldn't be the first time

US_State_Name_Etymologies4.png
 
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