TheSlovakPatriot
Banned
What if the Articles of Confederation remain ed tge US constitution and tge current constitution does notexist. How wowould this affect North America and the rest of the globe?
The US falls apart, the US Constitution was created for a reason.
The US would have never been united then. It would have been a very loose unstable confeferation or an EU type of thing. If even that.
If the Articles of Confederation remained it's safe to say the Federal Government wouldn't. Instead we would see many different countries on the North American Continent.
Without a stable constitution the US would have likely never gotten further then the 13 colonies.
Western North America would be culturally Spanish, Central North America would be French and Eastern North America would be English. All in all, today you could have 10 to 20 countries just living in North America, if by some miracle there is a sense of cultural unity then you could see 3 large countries, California to the West, Louisiana in the Center and Freedonia or America in the East.
I think continuing settlement beyond the bounaries of the 13 colonies is a given, though without a regular army to back up the state militias it might be slower and bloodier (for the settlers). But why should the US not expand beyond the 1783 boundaries? Would it be impossible to admit new states or for the existing states to acquire new counties?The US itself couldn't have gotten further, but that doesn't mean Americans themselves wouldn't have been able to. With the far north of Mexico a wreck and with barely anyone besides natives on the ground in Louisiana (or Mexico outside of New Mexico), you'd still have Anglo nations coast to coast.
I think continuing settlement beyond the bounaries of the 13 colonies is a given, though without a regular army to back up the state militias it might be slower and bloodier (for the settlers). But why should the US not expand beyond the 1783 boundaries? Would it be impossible to admit new states or for the existing states to acquire new counties?
I could see a Greater Georgia seeking to expand into Florida and Alabama. Or Pennsylvania into Ohio etc.
The EU, a similar agglomeration of independent states, limps along with dozens of different languages and a very long history of killing each other in very large numbers.
I don't get why everyone is so constantly down on the Articles as an object of alt-history. I've never really seen a great argument why they would definitely, without exception fail and the US would fall apart except for what is essentially an argument from inevitability, like you're making here: They will fail because they were destined to fail and we barely avoided that fate so they would definitely fail.
The US was a relatively homogeneous, idealistic nation in a time when nationalism and patriotism were the by-words of idealistic politics. The whole reason something like the Constitution could work in the first place was because of this fact. I'm not saying we'd be living today under the exact same form of government that existed then (I think the argument that the Confederation would break on the rock of slavery significantly more convincing than the alternative 'just because it did' argument), but I am saying this is a subject and thread of discussion that too often gets dismissed here with, "Would never work, because I was taught that in high school history".
Thanks for the info.Remember, the Northwest territories were divided up under the AoC just fine.
Thanks for the info.
So, basically it would be possible for the Confederal entity to expand as roughly in OTL Just with less central control and a lot more squabbling between states and factions?
I won't quote all the people who said 'why no reform?'
But the reason the AoC was totally unworkable and was guaranteed not to lead to a stable government, is that amendments required UNANIMOUS consent. Look at the Impost problem mentioned by (iirc) DavidT above. 12 states agreed - and one state torpedoed it. A state like Rhode Island just isn't going to give up veto power, so no serious amendments can be made.
It's not because sane people were hit by bolts from heaven, it was because a single holdout could prevent change. And if they held out for enough changes to suit THEM, some other state would object, and the modified act would be vetoed by that other state.
But the reason the AoC was totally unworkable and was guaranteed not to lead to a stable government, is that amendments required UNANIMOUS consent. Look at the Impost problem mentioned by (iirc) DavidT above. 12 states agreed - and one state torpedoed it. A state like Rhode Island just isn't going to give up veto power, so no serious amendments can be made.
But the reason the AoC was totally unworkable and was guaranteed not to lead to a stable government, is that amendments required UNANIMOUS consent. Look at the Impost problem mentioned by (iirc) DavidT above. 12 states agreed - and one state torpedoed it. A state like Rhode Island just isn't going to give up veto power, so no serious amendments can be made.