Your challenge, should you choose to accept it, is to create a scenario in which the United States becomes a Monarchy at some point after the OTL United States Constitution was adopted. How did this monarchy come about? what form does it take? and who is that monarch?
Non-Revolutionary United States Monarchy
- Thread starter da Racontor
- Start date
Have the Bonaparte Dynasty persist and thrive, setting the precedent that commoners can make their families royal. Have Republicanism in the US be perceived to fall apart and cause chaos. Then have whatever general picks up the pieces(think MacArthur in Kaiserreich) proclaim himself Emperor.
A worse French Revolution establishing general anti-republican sentiment, and a far less functional America.
When OTL's mass Irish immigration occurs they bring Jacobitism with them and whoever is in Washington at the time decides that the Stuarts, having been their kings at one point while also not having any connection with the British government they revolted against, would be a potential fix to America's problems.
When OTL's mass Irish immigration occurs they bring Jacobitism with them and whoever is in Washington at the time decides that the Stuarts, having been their kings at one point while also not having any connection with the British government they revolted against, would be a potential fix to America's problems.
A couple of scenarios:
1) Apparently a good few members of the Continental Congress liked the idea of independence, but could not wrap their head around the idea of a ruler constantly having to be re-elected. At one point they even offered to make George Washington their king. He declined and instead managed to convince them that if an alderman can get elected for a limited term, so could the country's leader. ... but what if he had accepted.
2) Variation on that scenario: to keep both the republic-minded members of congress and the more conservative ones happy, they instead went for a prince-elector: a ruler who is elected for life from pool of eligible nobility. apparently it worked pretty well for half of the German states.... as well as for the Roman Catholic Church and the erstwhile Holy Roman Empire.
3) At the congress of Vienna, the US becomes a bonafide member of the European nation-states, in exchange for an European princeling becoming their -purely ceremonial- constitutional monarch.
4) Likewise but in exchange for (international recognition of) the Oregon territories or Alaska
5) Emperor Norton of California.....
1) Apparently a good few members of the Continental Congress liked the idea of independence, but could not wrap their head around the idea of a ruler constantly having to be re-elected. At one point they even offered to make George Washington their king. He declined and instead managed to convince them that if an alderman can get elected for a limited term, so could the country's leader. ... but what if he had accepted.
2) Variation on that scenario: to keep both the republic-minded members of congress and the more conservative ones happy, they instead went for a prince-elector: a ruler who is elected for life from pool of eligible nobility. apparently it worked pretty well for half of the German states.... as well as for the Roman Catholic Church and the erstwhile Holy Roman Empire.
3) At the congress of Vienna, the US becomes a bonafide member of the European nation-states, in exchange for an European princeling becoming their -purely ceremonial- constitutional monarch.
4) Likewise but in exchange for (international recognition of) the Oregon territories or Alaska
5) Emperor Norton of California.....
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I'm aware this is pre-Constitution by a year, but someone had to mention the Prussian scheme before too long. In my Henry of Prussia thread, I suggested having him become a war hero in the Revolution, deciding to live there after the war. During Shays' Rebellion, Washington dies of illness, and Henry steps in to lead the call for more centralized government.
The question is: just how widespread were monarchist sentiments among Americans in the immediate post-Revolution period? After that, it becomes more unlikely.
Skallagrim
Banned
If Rome -- the very poster child for republicanism, with "no more kings" as part its identity -- can end up being not only an empire but The Empire, I'm fairly sure the USA could become a monarchy, too. Between 1789 and today, your best shot is to have some truly chaotic situation erupt, which causes civil authority to collapse. A strong leader assumes command, guides the nation from anarchy and back towards order over the course of decades, and after that, it's universally considered natural that he's in charge. Monarchy ensues.