United States keep Articles of Confederation as constitution

And thats not necessarily a bad thing.

It's not necessarily a bad thing (from certain viewpoints) if that's all the government is incapable of. But I don't know of any governments that can't do those things, but can do any of the other basic functions of government. Hence, my claim that he is depriving the most populous nation in the Americas of good and stable governance, etc...
 
I tinkered with this a long time ago. My POD isn't necessarily very good, but it is to have one change to the original Articles: Only 10 states are needed to amend them (10 out of 13 or 3/4 later I assume).

This leads to a less drastic Constitutional Convention; the Articles are amended moderately and not scrapped. My suggestions were: President elected through exhaustive ballot by Congress for a 3-year term, possibly allowing two consecutive terms; increased power to create or expand executive departments; Moderate Congressional power of taxation, domestic & foreign commerce; creation of a Supreme Court and federal court system; and maybe a few more. But not as extensive a list as the OTL Constitution. Meanwhile, every state gets one vote and the super-short Congressional terms may continue, as well as leaving up to the states most of the criteria for electing Congressmen.

Anyways, I postulate that a couple generations later there is a second Convention as the populous begins to demand better representation in the government. At this point you may get a federal structure fairly similar to ours, but with a congressionally-elected president and more deference given to the realities of political parties.

I am far from being an expert; I haven't read the actual Articles in years, so feel free to critique my take on things and use them as a springboard for any other thoughts :cool:
 
Ah. So you will deprive the most populous nation in the Americas of good and stable governance in order to save the millions of (wait there weren't millions?) Mexicans in California and New Mexico from the horror of U.S. citizenship.

Actually there were huge populations, not millions but certainly hundreds of thousands. Or don't you consider Indians to be people? The Pueblos in NM and rancherias in CA had long accepted Mexican (and previously Spanish) rule.

And yes, they did consider it a horror, which it was. Not just horror, but in California's case, the US takeover was followed by outright genocide, >90% CA Indians killed by mass slaughter, mass enslavement to work in the gold fields (for example, by Sutter, the initiator of the Gold Rush, who personally enslaved hundreds)...

I could go on and on, but I hasten to say I don't personally blame you if you didn't know this. It's not widely known except among Indians ourselves and a small minority of historians. CA history as taught in their high schools often whitewashes it, if you'll pardon the phrase.
 
A nicer version of what I would have said.

Because the Mexicans, Filipinos, SE Asians and the other nations that America 'intervened' in were pristine moral examples of a state in themselves. :rolleyes:

That wasn't my point at all. I just love seeing proud proponents of American Exceptionalism ignoring facts.

The main point here is that you don't have:

200,000 dead Indians in California

Up to half a million dead Filipinos

2 million dead Vietnamese

600,000 dead Cambodians killed in a few weeks by Nixon carpetbombing the country, followed by the Khmer Rouge coming into power, receiving US financial support and killing yet another million Cambodians.

Sneer at the Mexican, Filipino, etc govts all you want for corruption, but they don't slaughter their citizens anywhere near on the scale the US govt did.

I'll take routinely paying bribes to the local crooked cops over seeing relatives slaughtered by foreign invaders anyday.
 
The Delegates to the Convention were not just sent there willy nilly.
There was a large list of amendments that had been discussed in the papers. some 14 Amendments had been semi approved. [original had 14?, so this would double it's size].
They dealt with -Multi year term for President - Increasing penalties for failure to pay Assessments - allowing Delegates to vote individually instead of by state - Federal control of interstate trade, Federal control of the Military, etc.

1787
Delegates to the Convention decide to write a new Constitution.
1788
8 states ratify the new Constitution, 5 vote Nay.
1789
Despite strenuous efforts, to get one of the Nay states to change, it is clear that the new Constitution is dead.
1790
A new Convention meets with very clear instructions to Amend the AoC. The Delegates have a list of Amendments to consider. Some of these are based on the failed Constitution, some are not.
The convention proposes some 32 amendments that would give the US a Constitution close to OTL's
1792
All 13 states have ratified some 18 of the 32 Amendments proposed, and they go into affect.
1793
Vermont ratifies all the articles of the AoC and becomes the 14th State.
 
That wasn't my point at all. I just love seeing proud proponents of American Exceptionalism ignoring facts.

The main point here is that you don't have:

200,000 dead Indians in California

Up to half a million dead Filipinos

2 million dead Vietnamese

600,000 dead Cambodians killed in a few weeks by Nixon carpetbombing the country, followed by the Khmer Rouge coming into power, receiving US financial support and killing yet another million Cambodians.

Sneer at the Mexican, Filipino, etc govts all you want for corruption, but they don't slaughter their citizens anywhere near on the scale the US govt did.

I'll take routinely paying bribes to the local crooked cops over seeing relatives slaughtered by foreign invaders anyday.

There were govts. who killed FAR more than the US have.

Adolf Hitler 31 million

Joseph Stalin 50 million

Mao 80 million
 
I don't think you can just say "No Shay's Rebellion" and the AoC work. The veteran revolutionary war soldiers were getting pissed off because they weren't getting paid, because states were not giving money to the Federal government. This is a fundamental problem with the AoC; too little Federal Power, so the states can just say "no". This would eventually break down into what would basically be a bunch of little nations in an alliance, not one main nation. Now, with a POD like the one that Cylon_Number_14 gave, it could work. Not neccesarily throwing out the AoC, but changing it a little bit so it work.

As for the arguement about the USA, I don't think you can look at history as morally right and morally wrong, because everbody would be morally wrong. The nations that did survive did so because they were more powerful and victorious than other nations; therefore, all surviving nations are assholes. It's Darwinism, look it up.:rolleyes:
 
There were govts. who killed FAR more than the US have.

Adolf Hitler 31 million

Joseph Stalin 50 million

Mao 80 million

But the Mexican, Filipino, and other govts I named weren't among them.

These were the govts the other posters looked down upon and naively assumed the US govt is superior to, not Nazis or Communists.

Their repression has been sporadic, brutal, but not nearly on the mass slaughter scale, even genocide like in California and Cambodia.
 
The reason the Articles didn't work was because the federal government didn't have any revenue, if there was a simple amendment which would allow for a small excise tax...the Articles could have survived...

Its hard to imagine America expanding beyond their Revolutionary War territorial gains....I can't imagine the Louisiana Purchase taking place, maybe Georgia buys New Orleans but I couldn't imagine any more...

There is the threat of a trade war between the north and south as well as border conflicts between the states, it would be necessary to amend the articles allowing for interstate commerse clause....actually after all the amendments to the articles, it might look a lot like our current constitution...if that were the case, the Union could stay in tact

The framers of the Constitution were sneaky, they had the Constitutional Convention while Thomas Jefferson was in Europe....I always wonder what would be different if he were in Philly instead

I would hope and imagine that there would be less wars, maybe not even the war of 1812…definitly not the Mexican American War....but even without territorial gains, I imagine we would still turn into a industrial and economic super power...drawing imigrants from across the world....

Mexico would be interesting because she would be a major rival to the United States, as would Canada...
 
Well, if you look at Congress at being more like Parliament, you could have the Federal Committee propose taxes, and a States Senate vote on whether to bring them in. FedCom replaces the Crown and State Senate replaces Lords and Commons. Each state would then be left to maintain their own militias and infrastructure, with unrestricted free trade between the states. A President could be elected by the State Senate, and then confirmed by FedCom.
 
Expansion may still be possible. At some point, these states will want more land. They may vote the money needed to purchase Louisiana, and then the territory could be divided between each bordering state. Not annexed but essentially a puppet or colony. Jefferson thought that a separate Confederation Government would govern the states of Transmississippi, within the Union of America. But whether America would have the resources to fight anything other than defensive or internal wars is beyond me.
 
Expansion may still be possible. At some point, these states will want more land. They may vote the money needed to purchase Louisiana, and then the territory could be divided between each bordering state. Not annexed but essentially a puppet or colony. Jefferson thought that a separate Confederation Government would govern the states of Transmississippi, within the Union of America. But whether America would have the resources to fight anything other than defensive or internal wars is beyond me.

I think expansion would be very difficult beyond New Orleans, the like I said, I could see Louisiana becoming its own independant nation...potentially purchased by Aaron Burr....Texas could still become independant...you could maybe even have the Mormon nation/state of Desert...even the California Bear rebellion
 

MAlexMatt

Banned
Holy Necromancy Batman! This is an older thread, now isn't it?

The reason the Articles didn't work was because the federal government didn't have any revenue, if there was a simple amendment which would allow for a small excise tax...the Articles could have survived...

There's actually an article by one Russell S Sobel out there on the web that does a decent job defending the contribution mechanism. It ends up that the Federal government was able to bring in so little revenue under the contribution mechanism because there was so little money to be had period: Both the states under the Articles and the Federal government under the Constitution collected a smaller percentage of the total levied rate than the Federal government under the Articles did. In other words, the problem wasn't states greedily refusing to pay their taxes, it was the general inefficiency of tax collection in the period at the state level paired with the absolute dearth of money in the post-Revolutionary USA.

The reasons I've been able to find for the failure of the Articles is that they weren't working for certain people as much as those people wanted them to. Land Companies, political elites, and other groups threatened by the burgeoning democracy in certain states grouped together and used their increasingly tenuous grip on the state governments to (as permanently as possible) further entrench their power at the Federal level.
 
Not just horror, but in California's case, the US takeover was followed by outright genocide, >90% CA Indians killed by mass slaughter, mass enslavement to work in the gold fields (for example, by Sutter, the initiator of the Gold Rush, who personally enslaved hundreds)....

While the Indians died in droves, it was due to disease and habitat destruction of their food sources. I've seen no reliable evidence that Sutter enslaved any Indians, let alone that it was done on a mass scale during the Gold Rush.

And whenever and whoever was in charge when gold was found, the Indians would have been pushed off their lands and died in large numbers from European diseases.
 
Umm, the meaning of the word hasn't changed. Just cause Nappy and Tallyrand, and such kept negociating treaties while fingering their daggers and sizing up their "friends'" backs doesn't mean a document signed in good faith by all sides isn't binding.
The articles also required unanimity to change, but they threw that out the window when North Carolina and Rhode Island wouldn't go along.
 
That wasn't my point at all. I just love seeing proud proponents of American Exceptionalism ignoring facts.

The main point here is that you don't have:

200,000 dead Indians in California

Up to half a million dead Filipinos

2 million dead Vietnamese

600,000 dead Cambodians killed in a few weeks by Nixon carpetbombing the country, followed by the Khmer Rouge coming into power, receiving US financial support and killing yet another million Cambodians.

Sneer at the Mexican, Filipino, etc govts all you want for corruption, but they don't slaughter their citizens anywhere near on the scale the US govt did.

I'll take routinely paying bribes to the local crooked cops over seeing relatives slaughtered by foreign invaders anyday.

I am sure in your universe the Mexicans never fought Native Americans or have any civil wars or revolutions but in this one they sure did. In your universe maybe the Filipinos never warred on themselves and others but in this one they did. In your universe maybe the Vietnamese didn't get into any civil wars but in this one they did.
 
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