| June 5 |  |
Editor says, what if the reluctance to maintain a Standing Army had led to the dissolution of the Union? Please note that the opinions expressed in this post do not necessarily reflect the views of the author(s). This story was published in the June 2012 edition of Changing the Times Magazine.
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In 1803, on this day the Jacobin sympathizer Thomas Jefferson (pictured) famously remarked that the wheel of the American Revolution must have turned full circle for British Redcoats to march into Philadelphia and New York City to protect the beleagured Northern Federalist Bloc.
This post is an article from the Midshipman George Washington thread.
Midshipman George Washington #3Because not long after the Constitutional Convention ended in farcical acrimony, New England, Ontario, Quebec, Maritimes seceded from the Union. Lofty Republican dreams turned into terrifying nightmare as the Executive Council under Hamilton, Morgan et al began to fear for the continued existence of their own mini state.
To their dismay, the bonds of Union had been fatally loosened during those heady days of Liberty which followed the end of the interregnum. Most significantly by the perfectly understandable sense of reluctance to maintain a Standing Army. The aversion to militaristic discipline during a team of peace was created during the War of Independence. Empowered with supreme authority by the Second Continental Congress, Commander-in-Chief Benedict Arnold had won the day at Yorktown but only after the loyalist Admiral George Washington crashed to defeat at Chesapeake Bay. He then used the un-disbanded Continental Army to rule the nation with a rod of iron for the next twenty years.
Perhaps the return of British power was driven by imperatives other than revenge for Yorktown. Certainly there was a strong desire in London to punish the Jeffersonians for aiding French privateers. But the simple truth was that America had imploded in the two years since the death of Benedict Arnold and Alexander Hamilton for one was starting to gain support as a possible successor. A Republican King, if you will.
Entry posted by Todayinah Editor
© Alternate Historian, 2004-.Story Tags
Permalinks: Post, Day. Browse Thread: Midshipman Washington Source: Wikipedia Labels: George Washington, Royal Navy, Admiral Vernon, America, Britain. Editor says, in this article we explore some original ideas from Steve Fisher and Scott Palter.
~ "Republican King"...isn't that what it says on Rush Limbaugh's business card? :D
~ The more extreme Federalists [Hamilton et al] would have been happy with Washington as king and a US House of Lords [with themselves as members]. They knew they could never sell it even to their own supporters. Hence the constitution we did get. It was barely adopted and can thus be taken as the outer boundary of the possible.
~ It would have been spelled "Bloc", not "Block" (though spelling was a chancy thing in eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century English). Fixed - thanks
Surely a dictarorial Benedict Arnold would have provoked a ddomestic insurrection. After all, in the early 1790s western farmers rose in armed revolt against no more than a federal tax on whiskey.
~ Arnold could be busy running up and down the seaboard stomping out rebellious fires, or he could set up his capital and let things roll (those pro or opposed to slavery) as long as taxes come in okay to keep his army fueled. Looks like this TL has an America unable to purchase Louisiana, tho, which will be a major problem for cash-strapped France (provided Napoleon's a thing).
~ This would make the French revolution a lot less likely; the US would not look like a success to be emulated, to put it mildly. And at this time, slavery was not a big deal---ISTR that most Northern states had it as, at least, legal.
~ @Eric O - depends on your theory of the French Revolution - the war of revenge by France that began after Saratoga bankrupted the French monarchy. If this caused the revolution it happens anyway. Ditto if it was just the decay of the regime. The Jacobins looked to England as much as the US for examples of republican virtue.
@Jeff- no instead Arnold unites with England and has the RN ferry American troops to New Orleans, Pensacola, St. Augustine and Havana. What we call the Undeclared War against France becomes the US entering the war in alliance with UK
© Today in Alternate History, 2013-. All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
