To counter all the Ameriwanks here,
With, a POD after 1783, make the USA as small and the least powerful as possible!
With, a POD after 1783, make the USA as small and the least powerful as possible!
Screw the USA
- Thread starter Muwatalli'
- Start date
No Louisiana Purchase would limit the size of the U.S., although the east of the Mississippi is still a pretty respectable country.
The British somehow retaining the Old Northwest or bolstering the Indians west of the Appalachians to the point we get contained to the coast and we end up an Anglo version of Chile.
The British somehow retaining the Old Northwest or bolstering the Indians west of the Appalachians to the point we get contained to the coast and we end up an Anglo version of Chile.
Easy-peasy-lemony-squeezy!
Look at the "Balkanized USA" here...
Albeit it does kill a lot of butterflies...
Look at the "Balkanized USA" here...
Albeit it does kill a lot of butterflies...
Make it so that the US only gets the original thirteen colonies at the Treaty of Paris. Then have the new country break up into a free North and a slavery - dominated South, which can be as dystopian as you like. Voila.
Snake Featherston
Banned
Have the Chickamauga-Chattanooga campaign go very badly for the Union. Thomas dies during the fighting on Snodgrass Hill from a lucky shot, Grant then has a fatal accident when his horse starts from a train going by it. The result is that by just sitting there Braxton Bragg captures both the Army of the Cumberland and Burnside, fatally depleting the Union's ability to carry out the war. The Union thus is exhausted, its military effectiveness worn down, and Horatio Seymour succeeds Abraham Lincoln to grant peace to an eleven-state Confederacy from lack of military ability to sustain the war. Two generations later the USA is a prosperous European-style social democracy, the CSA has degenerated into a military dictatorships with a theocratic-nationalistic overtone. The CS dictatorship finally collapses into civil war and the United States finds itself drawn into a war that sees it re-absorb the entire Confederacy. The result is an Israel-Palestine on steroids with the CSA playing the role of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and the USA playing the role of Israel, incapable of withdrawing its army lest it immediately recreate a state hostile to itself, equally incapable of ever assuring again any stable political order in territory that no longer sees itself as "naturally" US.
Thus the USA becomes Anglo-Colombia.
Thus the USA becomes Anglo-Colombia.
The Articles of Confederation remain intact, with nothing replacing them after the Convention to create the Constitution fails (whatever it was called).
Eventually, the states find that they cannot stand each other any longer and disband.
Eventually, the states find that they cannot stand each other any longer and disband.
Snake Featherston
Banned
If we really want a USA-screw, have the USA handle Jackson's invasion of Florida in the worst way possible, guaranteeing a US war with the European powers who now suspect that this will be the USA's answer to anything on North America that's not itself by virtue of the combination of hubris and violent shows of arrogance. Thus the USA is broken up by its own successes in the 1820s turning into the seeds of its own destruction.
I would go for British outright victory in the 1812 war. This leads to the northern federalist states leaving the union (protected by a strong Canada).
Without the wealth of the north (particularly New York) the south never really recovers enough to challange Mexico / Spain over Florida / Texas / California.
The northern states become client nations of the British Empire and expand westward much quicker than the poorer southern states.
Without the wealth of the north (particularly New York) the south never really recovers enough to challange Mexico / Spain over Florida / Texas / California.
The northern states become client nations of the British Empire and expand westward much quicker than the poorer southern states.
Easiest would be to have the British put down the rebellious colonists to begin with. No successful rebellion, no USA at all. You can't screw us over more than that.
Failing that, have Napoleon hang onto the Louisiana territory, or sell it back to the Spanish, or even have the Brits acquire it in 1814 as part of their peace settlement. That stops us cold at the Mississippi.
Having the Brits stomp us in the War of 1812 works well, too. With a little persuasion New England will go its own way and it will be every region for itself.
A Union loss in the ACW produces a more or less permanent divison into feuding North and South, even if they are reunited at some point.
Past the ACW, an Ameri-screw isn't going to be effective for some time; we've already got the continental US and are entering our period of greatest industrial and economic expansion. The next chance is probably the present or near-future, in a period of economic collapse and imperial overstretch, but even that is unlikely.
Failing that, have Napoleon hang onto the Louisiana territory, or sell it back to the Spanish, or even have the Brits acquire it in 1814 as part of their peace settlement. That stops us cold at the Mississippi.
Having the Brits stomp us in the War of 1812 works well, too. With a little persuasion New England will go its own way and it will be every region for itself.
A Union loss in the ACW produces a more or less permanent divison into feuding North and South, even if they are reunited at some point.
Past the ACW, an Ameri-screw isn't going to be effective for some time; we've already got the continental US and are entering our period of greatest industrial and economic expansion. The next chance is probably the present or near-future, in a period of economic collapse and imperial overstretch, but even that is unlikely.
More like difficult, difficult, lemon-difficult. That guy couldn't think of a better POD than "a random fire kills the occupants of a stout brick building"?
However the Articles, unlike their replacement, actually defined the union to be formed as a permanent one and thus explicitly banned seccession.
That POD is a) plausible (the exterior of the building is brick; the interior is wood with wood furnishings, which would burn very well, especially on a hot dry summer day) and b) removes the future President and the most important Federalists from consideration, thus giving the anti-Federalists more chance to write the Constitution their way. The resulting national government is weaker than OTL, which will create problems down the road. Whether it would lead to the result he posits is a different matter, though.
Which means a different Civil War down the road, which probably leads to the dissolution of the Confederation.
French-backed slave revolt in the South during the quasi-war, with a landing of Haitian freed slaves.
New England and New York secede. France annexes most of the area west of the Appalachians on top of Louisiana.
Free-for-all North American spinoff of the Napoleonic wars turns nastily into multi-sided race war dragging on until the early thirties due to tangle with the mess in the Spanish colonies. The rump US exists as a bunch of tiny, destitute, paranoid coastal statelets united only by the intensity of reciprocal bad feelings, under constant threat by Europeans and, at times, natives.
Ok, it borders ASB.
New England and New York secede. France annexes most of the area west of the Appalachians on top of Louisiana.
Free-for-all North American spinoff of the Napoleonic wars turns nastily into multi-sided race war dragging on until the early thirties due to tangle with the mess in the Spanish colonies. The rump US exists as a bunch of tiny, destitute, paranoid coastal statelets united only by the intensity of reciprocal bad feelings, under constant threat by Europeans and, at times, natives.
Ok, it borders ASB.
With the given POD constraints, 1793 on one end, and 1899/1900 on the other, prevent the Louisiana purchase. The borders of the U.S. might still evolve a little, and there could still be border issues with the British, but the Union, if it survives, will be confined to East of the Mississippi, and South of the Great Lakes/St. Lawrence. The potential powers (if there are any) in North America could be the Mexican Empire and the Kingdom of Canada.