Will Kürlich Kerl
Banned
What happens if Westylvania is recognized as the 14th state of the United States of America?
A solidly Democratic-Republican state is added to the Union early on. This would likely have some political and electoral consequences. It will almost certainly cause enough butterflies to prevent the Civil War from erupting as it did IOTL, but assuming that a North-South conflict is still in the cards (and that is very plausible), Westsylvania will certainly side with the North.
Would it help or hurt Westylvania's chances if Pennsylvania does execute some people over it?Pennsylvania passed a law affirming that any discussion of the secession of Westylvania would be viewed as treason and punishable by death.
Pennsylvania will certainly be upset, will they roll over and take it or could it cause problems later?
Would it help or hurt Westylvania's chances if Pennsylvania does execute some people over it?
I think it would most definitely help. The national government isn't going to stand by while Pennsylvania executes people. It would probably mean that whoever issued the executions to be impeached, and some people who weren't executed, to be given what they desire.
Splitting a state requires the agreement of the national government and the STATE, according to the Constitution. If Pennsylvania gets to the point where theyre executing people, I cant imagine them giving permission to let the west go.
One butterfly might be that with two more Northern votes in the Senate, the Tallmadge Amendment passes, leading to a Missouri dominated by free settlers.
At the same time if they went to those extremes (which would honestly be pretty stupid on their part, and I wonder how much of those declarations were just idle threats) public opinion in the rest of the country would quickly turn against Pennsylvania, increasing political pressure for them to accept a secession deal. Even more dramatically, a massive over-reaction against state-separatist settlers would likely lead to hatred of the Pennsylvanian state government and much more support for the secession idea in the west. In other words, making their own fears come true.
If it included WV they would be Border State votes, not northern. It would probably be a slave state, though (like DE) with relatively few of them.
However, it would be firmly Unionist in 1861, and have a common border with Tennessee. So the East Tennessee Unionists are more likely to get Northern help.