WI: Articles of Confederation remain US constitution.

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?
 
"John Kaminski, the long time director of the well-respected Documentary
History of the Ratification of the Constitution project, has argued that
Congress should have accepted New York's counter-offer as to the 1783
impost and that if it had, the country would have moved in salutary
directions.141 Rhode Island vetoed the 1781 proposal for a 5% federal
impost and Virginia then quickly retracted its prior approval. But the
desperate Congress returned again in 1783, this time limiting the 5%
impost to a 25 year duration and dedicating the money only to the existing
war debts.142 By May 1786, all of the states, except New York, had
ratified the 1783 proposal, including both Rhode Island and Virginia, the
vetoing states of the 1781 proposal. By 1786, however, New York had
established its own state impost on traffic through New York harbor, and
it was unwilling to cede nationalization of the impost without conditions.

"In response to the 1783 impost proposal, New York made a counter offer.
Payments would be made in New York paper dollars, discounted if necessary
to their worth in specie. Merchants would have procedural rights including
the right to jury on contested issues. Congress considered the conditions
unacceptable and asked New York to reconsider. In February 1787 the New
York Assembly refused to alter its stance.143

"Professor Kaminski argues that Congress should have accepted New York's
counter offer or continued conciliatory negotiations, as, for instance,
James Monroe recommended. 144 'Had Congress followed this advice,'
Kaminski says, 'its financial needs would have been met and no federal
convention would have been called to meet in Philadelphia in the Spring of
1787.'145 With the impost and sale of western land, the federal government
could have made the minimal payments on the war debts until imports grew
important enough to carry the debt comfortably. Kaminski believes that
confederation form of government would have been better for 1787 America
than was the strong national government the Constitution ordained. He
believes that Congress would have evolved into a Parliamentary form of
government with John Jay, as prime minister.146 The Founders would have
avoided an imperial President, modeled on the King.

"The Congress, however, rejected New York's conditions. The Federalists
interpreted the New York conditions as pretextual, tantamount to veto. New
York delegate, Melancton Smith, made a case for accepting the conditions,
which did not describe them as vetoing,147 but the Federalist
interpretation was that New York was vetoing the national impost, in bad
faith, just to keep the revenue from the New York harbor for its own
selfish purposes. 148 'The dominant party in New York' Madison would say,
'had refused even a duty of 5 percent on imports for the urgent debt of
the Revolution, so as to tax the consumption of her neighbors.'
Neighboring Connecticut reacted angrily at having to pay a New York state
impost on goods passing through New York harbor bound for Connecticut:
'Those gentlemen in New York who received large salaries,' editorialized
the Connecticut Courant, 'know that that their offices will be more
insecure.. when the expenses of government shall be paid by their
constituents, than while paid by us.'149 When New York responded to the
1783 impost, every 'liberal good man,', it was said, '[wished] New York
[should rest] in Hell.150

"A polity that is built on consensus and unanimity needs to negotiate to
work out the differences and needs to compromise to pull in all the votes.
In 1787, Congress was too angry at New York to perform its function within
a consensus system and to negotiate any further and it did not care to see
any reason in New York's counter-offer. One does not need to believe that
New York was right on the merits or that the Articles would have
evolved into a superior form of government to accept that some other
factor, such as anger, was necessary for the rejection of New York's offer
that in fact occurred. The need for the impost did not strictly require
rejecting the unanimity norm, but to get the impost from New York, the
nationalists would have had to let go of their anger, and negotiate,
as Monroe put it 'with temper to conciliate.'151 The Federalists went to
the Convention instead. As Hamilton truly wrote, 'Impost Begat
Convention.'"
https://groups.google.com/d/msg/soc.history.what-if/RQglKDaK4s0/LJH41-_Rof0J
 
The US falls apart, the US Constitution was created for a reason.

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".
 
Could a sustained Articles of Confederation ever lead to something that makes the nation devolve into something approaching the early-mid 19th century Argentine Civil Wars?
 
Anyone care to speculate on how the absence of a strong federal government could affect the course of settlement on the frontier? I'm assuming settlers will continue to try to occupy Native American lands within and beyond the borders of the original 13 colonies. Would each colony have to fight its own "Indian Wars" without help from a regular military? Or even set up its own standing army?

Would new states be admitted to the Confederation or would it be easier for the existing states to annex territory for themselves?
The latter practice would suggest some interesting possibilities as they jockey for control of key resources.

It is of course plausible that the risk of conflict with either France or Britain by the early nineteenth century forces a closer union anyway. Turning the Confederation into something like the USA but twenty years later.
 
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.
 
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.

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.
 
Given the widespread support for reform, how do you not get a stronger central government than the Confederation? Why does it fail in a manner to cause the US to end up gnawing on the bones of greatness?
 
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.
 
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.

Remember, the Northwest territories were divided up under the AoC just fine.
 
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".

I tend to think the Articles were far more likely to end in disaster then pull out a success largely due to Congress' inability to pay the veterans of the war. This led to Congress being forcibly evicted from Philadelphia and, of course, Shay's Rebellion. Washington might have been able to keep the lid on things, but once he died? Well, with out major reform it would have gone very poorly.
 
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'd say, with some modest reforms, certsinly. Other than the Mexican Cession. Not 100% convinced the AoC government would be up to the task of deciding to invade their neighbor.
 
I bet the US would not be offered the Louisiana purchase in this case.. Also think that the "Five civilized nations" plus Iroquis will remain east of the Mississippi as there would be no other territory to relicate them to.

I imagine the US in this scenario to be something like the German Confederation, with Virginia (encompassing also West Virginia and Kentucky, possibly also parts if the Northwest Territory:Ohio, Indiana and Illinois competing with New York and Pennsylvania (with Delaware)
 
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.
 
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.
 
Turtledove wrote a book about this, The Disunited States of America. Basically, under the Articles of Confederation, the US never unites, it becomes a series of nation-states constantly warring with each other. It is a very dark book.
 
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.

So it can be replaced wholesale, but a less drastic set of reforms will not make it? That seems a bit odd. If a single holdout could stop changes how did we get the Constitution in OTL?
 
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.

So it can be replaced wholesale, but a less drastic set of reforms will not make it? That seems a bit odd. If a single holdout could stop changes how did we get the Constitution in OTL?
 
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