WI American north/south divide from the start? - couple of scenarios

Thande

Donor
Some vague ideas percolated through my mind earlier when I should have been concentrating on not being run over.

I was thinking about the whole Draka conceit of a "Counter-America" from the start (1770s) and connecting it with the idea of a USA living alongside a CSA of considerable if not equal power, as in Turtledove et al. I started wondering how you could combine these so that we have a separate USA and CSA - not using those names of course - from the beginning (1770s/80s).

Here were my two ideas:

1) South remains British and revolts later. One WI that occasionally pops up is the idea of the British doing better in the southern campaigns of the ARW and end up keeping the Carolinas, Georgia etc after the war (though you'd be pushing it to include places like Virginia). Say this happens, we have say 25 years of a British South alongside a United States analogue in the north, then the south eventually rebels, perhaps taking advantage of British defeats in the alt-French Revolutionary Wars. The south never joins the USA-analogue for various reasons - they were apart for too long, without so many Jeffersonian voices the USA-analogue is too federalist for their tastes, slavery, etc. - and instead becomes an independent confederacy and rival to the USA-analogue.

2) Articles of Confederation/Constitutional Convention fail, but then. Another common WI is 'what if the Articles of Confederation fail?' and most seem to interpret it as each state going its separate way (except perhaps New England). But what if the Convention fails, but then they call another one say 10 years later, excluding the states most opposed to federalism (ie the south) and we end up with a Northern United States and then independent southern colonies vaguely tied to it. Eventually the southern states drift apart from this ever-closer-union and end up banding together in a looser way for economic reasons.

Thoughts?
 
Personally, I doubt this would work this early.

I could certainly see some sort of split from day 1 - as you say, the Brits could 'easily' control the Carolinas, say; or New England could wander off on its own.

What I DON'T see is anything like the 'Union' vs. 'Confederacy'.

Remember that slavery was still active in the north, so slavery isn't going to be the key. You could get a 'big state/little state' split - but that would put New England and the Carolinas in one basket and New York, Virginia and Pennsylvania in another.

You could get South Carolina or Rhode Island to wander off on their own, as they seem so want to do:)

You could have the Brits hold North Carolina south, you could have New ENgland spit off - but I don't see what you want....
 
Well there is always thew ASB solution, where the ASB's send copies of both the US, & the CS Constitutions to Philadelphia.


I think if the Ratification had Failed [OTL 4 states didn't ratify]

Or if the convention had failed over one of the compromises.
[Perhaps the 3/5 count for blacks, North sticks with not counting them [zero], while the south sticks with counting them as whole persons [one].
Whe would then have two possible Constitutions. New England pushes one, while the Carolinians push the other.
 
Who is getting Virginia? Washington and Madison were both from that State, so if they're missing, there won't be a US analog.
 

Jasen777

Donor
Number 1 could work, but it's really going to need Virginia to be a decent rival to the North. Number 2, there's just no way to guess.
 

Lusitania

Donor
Some vague ideas percolated through my mind earlier when I should have been concentrating on not being run over.

I was thinking about the whole Draka conceit of a "Counter-America" from the start (1770s) and connecting it with the idea of a USA living alongside a CSA of considerable if not equal power, as in Turtledove et al. I started wondering how you could combine these so that we have a separate USA and CSA - not using those names of course - from the beginning (1770s/80s).

Here were my two ideas:

1) South remains British and revolts later. One WI that occasionally pops up is the idea of the British doing better in the southern campaigns of the ARW and end up keeping the Carolinas, Georgia etc after the war (though you'd be pushing it to include places like Virginia). Say this happens, we have say 25 years of a British South alongside a United States analogue in the north, then the south eventually rebels, perhaps taking advantage of British defeats in the alt-French Revolutionary Wars. The south never joins the USA-analogue for various reasons - they were apart for too long, without so many Jeffersonian voices the USA-analogue is too federalist for their tastes, slavery, etc. - and instead becomes an independent confederacy and rival to the USA-analogue.

Thoughts?

In case of number 1, the southern colonies would get all the loyalist who would rather go the a warmer climate than the north. Canada would become French with the Quebecois expanding into Upper Canada at the same time that the Americans are moving inward.

While in the south it could rebel it may not but it will rival America and also expand inward. The interesting thing would be what would happen in 1800 when the French want to sell Luisiana, who would get it.

Whom even controls New Orleans controls the Mississipi so the war of 1812 would be very interesting with America between two English colonies.
 
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