WI: Electoral monarchy for the USA

Skallagrim

Banned
To make this work, I think you need to tweak the pre-Revolutionary history a little. I think you need more colonial aristocrats, who are on side with the rebellion. And/or you need more involvement from either the French Canadians or some kinds of native confederacies, who believe themselves to have some kind of special relationship with the monarchy and who are thought will cause problems if they don't get a king.

A less drastic alteration might be to 'just' escalate Shays' Rebellion, so that a much more urgent need for strong and stable leadership is widely perceived. In light of what @Galba Otho Vitelius wrote earlier...

One additional point about Hamilton is that New York had withdrawn its delegation from the constitutional convention. Hamilton stayed on, so New York could be said to "participate", but really had no standing. In other words, he probably shouldn't have been there at all and his views likely to be disregarded for reasons other than being radical. His importance is exaggerated because of his writings to convince the New York convention to (narrowly) ratify the Constitution anyway.

...a particularly handy 'tweak' would be to have the rebellion spread to New York, so that after its defeat New York is suddenly all the way on board for a strong national executive, and Alexander Hamilton will have a lot more clout at the convention. That would probably make for a good POD here.


What Hamilton seems to be proposing is a President for Life who could be removed by Congress fairly easily (or resign) short of that. The critical part is the circumstances under which removal "for good behavior"is possible, and to a lesser extent the process of election.

For example, in modern day South Africa, the President -who is not elected for life but for renewable terms like elsewhere- is both elected by Parliament and is removable by Parliament, by a simple majority vote for any reason. One President has been removed in this manner, and it involved no suspicion of criminality or other type of misconduct. As political scientists have pointed out, this makes the President of South Africa more of a Prime Minister who happens to moonlight as the head of state. The point is that if you make it easy to remove the President, the ultimate effect is not very monarchical!

One big blind spot of the framers of the 1787 Constitution its hat they seem to have thought that the federal government could and would operate without political parties. That has to be kept in mind whenever you see super-majority requirements written into the Constitution. That, and the fact that both Houses of Congress had much fewer members than we are used to in the 20th century (the House settled at 435 members in 1910 and the Senate at 96, to increase later to 100). The 1790 Senate, after Rhode Island finally joined the union, had 26 members, for example, with a reasonable expectation of a half a dozen more being added shortly. With a 32 member Senate, only 21 Senators gets you a two thirds majority. So under the provisions of the Constitution, impeachment and removal of the President required only House majority and 21 Senators, certainly nothing close to the 67 at present, and the situation where the President's party would block impeachment for partisan reasons, something that happened IOTL at both presidential impeachment trials, was just not anticipated.

Astute observations! One thing we may be sure of is that Hamilton didn't intent for an executive that would be easy to remove. If the idea got to the stage of being refined, one may be assured he'd plead for distinct supermajorities in both houses being required to impeach/dethrone the chief executive.

To be clear, I absolutely agree with you that - barring a clear pre-convention POD - this kind of scheme isn't likely at all to be adopted. Hamilton's plan was just way to far removed from what most people had in mind, and George Washington was too much of a Cincinnatus to go for it, plus the fact that Hamilton had no formal say, as you pointed out. Yet it remains interesting, and with a good POD, we could butterfly all three objections away.

I envision a worse Shays' Rebellion, escalating to new York, forcing Washington to personally lead an army to stop the rebels (much like the Whiskey Rebellion in OTL). Ideally, his personal prestige leads the rebels to peacefully surrender to him, allowing him to grant blanket amnesty and see the peace restored. It doesn't get much more kingly than that, does it? After that, with the need for a strong executive starkly clear, the whole mood for the convention is different. New York is all for a strong executive suddenly. Several leading politicians explicitly beg Washington to fill that role. The recent troubles play a big role in convincing Washington that his country needs him. And then at the convention, Hamilton proposes his plan in a well-prepared way (as I outlined earlier), and then...

...well, then we're all set.
 
Just make John Adams' proposal for a more elaborate title for the US President pass (he argued the title "President" was far too frequent since you had presidents of chambers of commerce or even chess clubs and that the head of state of the United States needed a title on par with those of the monarchies of Europe) and you'll get "His Majestie, the Lord High President of the United States of America".
 

Skallagrim

Banned
The question is:

If Washington denied becoming king, who would step in his place?

I think that for the convention to go with this plan, Washington has to be on board. Supposing he dies between the ATL constitution's ratification and his... well, his coronation... then Congress will have to elect another monarch. Hamilton himself, so soon, seems unlikely, He's too divisive. After years of Washington carrying out relatively 'nationalist' policies, Hamilton would be a good successor to carry on that legacy. But he's not going to be the first monarch, I'd say. Adams is not very inspiring at all. Jefferson will probably have been vocally against monarchy, and will have been doing his yelling from his ambassadorial position France in any case. He's out.

Maybe, just maybe, this is where they very quietly ask Lafayette if he'd be at all interested. Unlike most US politicians other than Washington, he's widely respected and unafilliated with any of the emerging factions.
 
One could argue that the presidency was already de facto that, as some commented about the relative powers of the American president and the British king. Just replace the terminology from president to prince, and there you have it. You can even give it a tenuous Latin link. :p
 
I think that for the convention to go with this plan, Washington has to be on board. Supposing he dies between the ATL constitution's ratification and his... well, his coronation... then Congress will have to elect another monarch. Hamilton himself, so soon, seems unlikely, He's too divisive. After years of Washington carrying out relatively 'nationalist' policies, Hamilton would be a good successor to carry on that legacy. But he's not going to be the first monarch, I'd say. Adams is not very inspiring at all. Jefferson will probably have been vocally against monarchy, and will have been doing his yelling from his ambassadorial position France in any case. He's out.

Maybe, just maybe, this is where they very quietly ask Lafayette if he'd be at all interested. Unlike most US politicians other than Washington, he's widely respected and unafilliated with any of the emerging factions.

I agree with you until the Lafayette bit. Maybe after Washington's death they form a Triumvirate?
 

Skallagrim

Banned
I agree with you until the Lafayette bit. Maybe after Washington's death they form a Triumvirate?

The tricky thing about that - cool as it is - would be that they just wrote and ratified a new constitution. And then the man who would be king dies. If they believe in their system, they should be able to find another king. But Henry of Prussia is right out, now-- this system was made for a strong king, and they wouldn't trust someone like that with that mich power. I suggested Lafayette because I figure they would trust him with it.

Alternatively, there might suddenly be some amendments to the constitution, much like the OTL Bill of Rights, limiting the government's power in critical ways. And then Hamilton is pissed off, Jefferson hates monarchy, foreign nobles don't want a crown with such limitations, and John Adams becomes king after all. An uncharismatic king for an uncharismatic monarchy. Long live king John!

(And then, just because I've always thought Adams was actually a decent guy, he does pretty great and everybody kind of ends up liking him.)
 
Ooh, I like it!

George Washington 1787-1797

*John Adams 1797-1798
*assassinated by followers of Jefferson.

Anarchy 1798- John Adams leaves no heir, creating a political mess. Supporters of Adams try to elevate his son John Quincy Adams to the position of Caesar, while others support Alexander Hamilton, claiming him to be a bastard son of Washington.

Meanwhile, Thomas Jefferson was supported in the anti-war movement against France, leading to Adams dying in the first place. George Clinton and Thomas Pinckney were starting to be seen as less extreme candidates by a minority.

The Senate decides on an election, where the country will get to choose the next Caesar.

Coming soon: The Election of 1798





 
I did have an idea for an American Monarchy that come after the Revolutionary War, one involves a more devastating War of 1812 that, while America still manages to survive, falls under defacto martial law under the command of a popular general.

Now while the obvious candidate would be Andrew Jackson, you could also have William Henry Harrison and in fact I think WHH would be more interesting, simply because the whole 'Jackson as a Tyrant' trope has been done before. Plus WHH in RL wound up having living children that survived into adulthood, Jackson not so much.

Then some political shenanigans, butterflies, and dumb blind luck results in WHH pulling a Napoleon and declaring himself either 'Caesar', or 'Emperor' and restructuring the American government to suit himself.

I'm not sure how long you could keep an American Bonapartism going before it collapsed or was 'reformed' into a symbolic monarchy, but it would be a lot of fun to see.
 
I doubt the constitutional convention would choose such a system, especially because Washington himself didn't want it. But what if some years later the US experience a great crisis (obviously, the Civil War and Reconstruction Era is a choice here) and an ambitious general seizes power? This could be the begining of the slow transformation of the US into a banana republic, in which lifetime presidents, coups and corruption are quite common.
Robert E Lee married into a line descended from Washington via adoption, which could be considered close enough.
 
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