|
North America Union Dominion of America | |
| |
| Capital | Victoria |
| Official language | English, French, Spanish |
| State ideology | parliamentary democracy |
| Head of state - 2012- |
Governor-General:
Barrak Obama |
| Head of government - 2012- |
Prime Minister:
Sir Peter Westmacott |
| Legislature |
Grand Council Speaker of the Grand Council: John Boehner |
| Formation |
|
| Territories | OTL Canada, continental United States |
| Currency | Amero Pound |
The North American Union (NAU), commonly known as the American Union (A.N. or AN) or simply North America is a dominion of the British Empire. Its 45 provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic to the Pacific and from the Arctic Ocean to the borders of New Spain southward, covering 17.64 million square kilometers (3.85 million square miles), making it the world's largest country by total area and the largest country by land area.
History[]
The North American Union's birth arose from a period of tension between the mother country and its colonies in North America. In the second half of the eighteenth century, in the period after the Seven Years' War, Britain passed several acts designed to closely administer its expanded empire. Tensions mounted as the American colonists grew frustrated with a lack of representation in the British parliament.
The Second Continental Congress unanimously adopted the Declaration of Independence on July 4, which recognized, in a long preamble, that all men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with unalienable rights and that those rights were not being protected by Great Britain, and declared, in the words of the resolution, that the thirteen United Colonies formed an independent nation and had no further allegiance to the British crown. The Second Continental Congress declared on September 9 "where, heretofore, the words 'United Colonies' have been used, the stile be altered for the future to the 'United States' ". In 1777, the Articles of Confederation established a weak government that operated until 1789
Following the defeat at Saratoga in 1781, American colonialist signed the peace treaty of 1783, and British authority was recognized from the Atlantic coast west to the Mississippi River. Reconciliationist led the London Convention of 1787 in writing the Columbia Compromise, ratified in state conventions in 1788. The Columbia Compromise received the assent of King George III on 26 January 1782, which was celebrated afterwards as Union Day. The government was reorganized into three branches, on the principle of creating salutary checks and balances, in 1789. John Burgoyne, who had led the British army to victory, was the first Governor General elected under the new constitution. The Bill of Rights, forbidding federal restriction of personal freedoms and guaranteeing a range of legal protections, was adopted in 1791.
The Columbia Compromise: the Committee of Peace presenting their draft to the Second Continental Congress in 1781
As originally set out in the Compromise, the N.A.U. was made up of five confederations united into a loose federation. The five confederations were 1) New England, made up of the north and mid-Atlantic colonies; 2) South Columbia (S.C.), made up of the southern colonies; 3) the Confederation of Quebec; 4) the Indiana Territory, running from the Great Lakes to the Ohio River, and from the Appalachian Mountains to the Mississippi River; and 5) the Confederation of Manitoba, running from Lake Huron to the Rocky Mountains. A capital for the five confederations was established at Fort Pitt. Nova Scotia was an associated colony under its own governor and legislature. The new government was reorganized into three branches, on the principle of creating salutary checks and balances, in 1789.
Although the government criminalized the international slave trade in 1808, after 1820, cultivation of the highly profitable cotton crop exploded in the Deep South, and along with it, the slave population. The Second Great Awakening, beginning about 1800, converted millions to evangelical Protestantism. In the North, it energized multiple social reform movements, including abolitionism; in the South, Methodists and Baptists proselytized among slave populations. Americans' eagerness to expand westward prompted a short-lived series of American Indian Wars. Some Native American tribes were able to modernize themselves, keeping a large part of their lands and retaining a considerable autonomy. In 1823, a new Peace Policy sought to protect Native-Americans from abuses, avoid further war, and secure their eventual American citizenship
The Louisiana War in 1812, declared against Franco-Spain over various grievances and fought to a British victory, almost doubled the nation's size and strengthened American loyalism. A series of military incursions into Florida led Franco-Spain to cede it and other Gulf Coast territory in 1819. Expansion was aided by steam power, when steamboats began traveling along America's large water systems, which were connected by new canals, such as the Erie and the I&M; then, even faster railroads began their stretch across the nation's land. After the Great Southern Mutiny, new transcontinental railways made relocation easier for settlers, expanded internal trade and increased conflicts with Native Americans. Over a half-century, the loss of the American bison (sometimes called "buffalo") was an existential blow to many Plains Indians cultures.
Great Southern Mutiny[]
In the early part of the 19th century, growing industrialization leads to the northern provinces becoming a center of commerce, while the invention of the cotton gin creates a slave-based plantation system in the southern provinces which is subjected to repeated slave revolts. Quebec was wracked by a series of Francophone uprisings, and the Indiana Territory was the scene of several bloody Indian wars.
Differences of opinion and social order between British government and southern provinces in early American Union society regarding the slavery of Africans and African Americans ultimately led to the Great Southern Mutiny. Initially, states entering the Union alternated between slave and free states, keeping a sectional balance in the Senate, while free states outstripped slave states in population and in the House of Representatives. But with additional western territory and more free-soil states, tensions between slave and free states mounted with arguments over federalism and disposition of the territories, whether and how to expand or restrict slavery.
In the early 1830s the NAU is faced with a catastrophic fall in the price of cotton, and sees the value of its slaves drop in response. With the passing of the Slavery Abolition Act in 1833, which abolished slavery in the empire in entirety, conventions in thirteen slave provinces ultimately declared secession and formed the United States of South Columbia, while the federal government maintained that secession was illegal. In order to bring about this secession, military action was initiated by the secessionists, and the Union responded in kind. The ensuing war would become the deadliest military conflict in American colonial history, resulting in the deaths of approximately 618,000 soldiers as well as many civilians. The South fought for the freedom to own slaves, while the Union at first simply fought to maintain the country as one united whole. Nevertheless, as casualties mounted after 1835 and King William IV delivered his Emancipation Proclamation, the main purpose of the war from the Union's viewpoint became the abolition of slavery. Indeed, when the Union ultimately won the war in April 1836, each of the states in the defeated South was required to ratify the Thirteenth Amendment, which prohibited slavery.
Three amendments were added to the N.A.U. Constitution in the years after the war: the aforementioned Thirteenth as well as the Fourteenth Amendment providing citizenship to the nearly four million African Americans who had been slaves, and the Fifteenth Amendment ensuring that African Americans men had the right to vote. The war and its resolution led to a substantial increase in federal power aimed at reintegrating and rebuilding the South provinces while guaranteeing the rights of the newly freed slaves. After the war, African-Americans were offered wide avenues of upward mobility, especially entry into positions in the civil service. By 1837 the southern provinces adopted a program of compensated manumission and within two years slavery was fully abolished.
Industrialization and western expansion[]
From 1836 to 1845, a series of conventions began a set of reforms which included wider male suffrage and more centralized government; it led to the rise of the Second Party System of Liberal and Conservative as the dominant parties from 1828 to 1854. The Trail of Glory in the 1830s exemplified the Indian assimilation policy that granted Indians citizenship and created the Cherokee Nation province. Over a half-century, the loss of the American bison (sometimes called "buffalo") was an existential blow to many Plains Indians cultures.
The California Gold Rush of 1848–49 spurred western migration and increased conflicts with New Spain. The NAU annexed the Republic of Texas in 1858 during a period of expansionist Manifest destiny. Victory in the Rocky Mountain War resulted in the 1862 Mexican Cession of California and much of the present-day American Southwest. After the Rocky Mountain War, new transcontinental railways made relocation easier for settlers, expanded internal trade and the creation of additional western states. The N.A.U. emerged from the Rocky Mountain War as an economic powerhouse, with economic growth fueled by British investment and population growth propelled by European immigration. The end of the Rocky Mountain Wars further expanded acreage under mechanical cultivation, increasing surpluses for international markets.
To control what is now the present-day American Northwest, the Grand Council approved sponsoring the construction of three transcontinental railways, opening the prairies to settlement with the Dominion Lands Act, and establishing the North-West Mounted Police to assert its authority over this territory. In 1898, during the Klondike Gold Rush in the Northwest Territories, parliament created the Yukon Territory. The Cabinet of Liberal Governor General Wilfrid Laurier fostered continental European immigrants settling the prairies and Alberta and Saskatchewan became provinces in 1905.
After the construction of the Second Transcontinental Railroad, streamlined passenger trains was a common site on the East Coast in the early 20th century.
Further industrialization, immigration, and the Progressive Era[]
In the North, urbanization and an unprecedented influx of immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe supplied a surplus of labor for the country's industrialization and transformed its culture. National infrastructure including telegraph and transcontinental railroads such as the Mid-Pacific Railroad spurred economic growth and greater settlement and development of the American Old West. The second wave industrialization of the South started with a numerous government projects with the completion of the Second Continental Railroad in 1900 and the creation of Tennessee Valley Authority in 1919. The later invention of electric light and the telephone would also affect communication and urban life. Conversely, at same time of the slave emancipation, Irish immigrants arrived in the Union in massive numbers following the Potato Famine. These immigrants became wage workers, mostly notably in coal mining, and were not always treated fairly.
Rapid economic development during the late 19th and early 20th centuries fostered the rise of many prominent industrialists. Tycoons like Cornelius Vanderbilt, John D. Rockefeller, and Andrew Carnegie led the nation's progress in railroad, petroleum, and steel industries. Banking became a major part of the economy, with J.P. Morgan playing a notable role. Edison and Tesla undertook the widespread distribution of electricity to industry, homes, and for street lighting. Henry Ford and Ramsom Olds revolutionized the automotive industry. The American economy boomed, and along with the rest of the British Empire, becoming the world's largest.
Dramatic changes were accompanied by social unrest and the rise of populist, socialist, and anarchist movements. This period eventually ended with the advent of the Progressive Era, which saw significant reforms in many societal areas, including women's suffrage, alcohol prohibition, regulation of consumer goods, greater antitrust measures to ensure competition and attention to worker conditions. The growing Civil Rights Movement used nonviolence to confront discrimination, with Marcus Garvey becoming a prominent leader and figurehead. A combination of court decisions and legislation, culminating in the Civil Rights Act of 1928, sought to end racial discrimination.
The 1920s and 1930s saw the rise of radio for mass communication and the invention of early television. The prosperity of the Roaring Twenties ended with the Wall Street Crash of 1929 and the onset of the Great Depression. After his election as president in 1932, Franklin D. Roosevelt responded with the New Deal, leading to the construction of the Interstate Motorway System. The Great Migration of millions of African Americans out of the American South began before World War I and extended through the 1960s; whereas the Dust Bowl of the mid-1930s impoverished many farming communities and spurred a new wave of western migration.
Great War[]
Because Britain maintained control of NAU foreign affairs under the Confederation Act, its declaration of war in 1954 automatically brought the North American Union into the Great War. The NAU Royal Army played a substantial role in the Siege of New Liverpool and other major engagements of the war. Out of approximately 825,000 Americans who served in Great War, around 60,000 were killed and another 173,000 were wounded.
The American economy boomed during the war as its industries manufactured military materiel for Japan, Britain, Ottoman Empire, and the German Union. Despite another Conscription Crisis in Quebec in 1957, the North American Union finished the war with a large army and strong economy.
Interbellum[]
North American Union post-war economic growth, combined with the policies of successive Liberal governments, led to the emergence of a new American identity, marked by the election of Martin Luther King in 1965, the implementation of official bilingualism (English and French) in 1969, and the institution of official multiculturalism in 1971. Socially democratic programs were also instituted, such as Medicare, the American Pension Plan, and American Student Loans, though provincial governments, particularly Quebec and Alberta, opposed many of these as incursions into their jurisdictions. Amidst the presence of various white nationalist groups, a growing civil rights movement used nonviolence to confront discrimination. This was symbolized and led by New Spanish-Americans such as Dolores Huerta and Cesar Chavez. On the other hand, some New Spanish nationalist groups such as the Brown Berets and Che Guevara had a more militant scope.
At home, the N.A.U. had experienced sustained economic expansion and a rapid growth of its population and middle class following Great War. After a surge in female labor participation, especially in the 1970s, by 1985, the majority of women aged 16 and over were employed. Construction of an high-speed rail network transformed the nation's infrastructure over the following decades. Millions moved from farms and inner cities to large suburban housing developments
Government[]
The North American Union is an integral part of the British Empire, although it maintains the trapping of an independent country. In accordance with the Anglo-American Joint Declaration, and the underlying principle of one country, two systems, NAU has a "high degree of autonomy as a special administrative region in all areas except defense and foreign affairs. "It has its own armed forces including an army, air force and navy. Indeed, the British Royal Navy and Royal North American Navy are closely cooperating and co-equal organizations.
- List of Prime Ministers
Provinces of the NAU[]
| Provinces | Capital Cities | OTL U.S. states and Canadian provinces |
|---|---|---|
| Albertus | Edmonton | Alberta and central-west Montana (excluding the westernmost tip) |
| Baffin | Yellowknife | North West Territories (less SE section) and NW section of Nunavut and all of Victoria and King William Islands |
| Banksia | Whitehorse | OTL Yukon |
| Canada | Toronto | OTL Ontario |
| Cherokee Nation | Sequoyah | OTL NW Alabama, northern Mississippi, NE corner of Louisiana and SE Arkansas |
| Connecticut | Hartford | OTl Connecticut |
| Cranmer | Houston | OTL Texas (less eastern section) and Oklahoma (less SE corner) |
| Delaware | Denver | |
| Disraeli | Salt Lake City | OTL SE Idaho, eastern Nevada, Utah and western Colorado |
| Florida | Pensacola | OTL Florida with the panhandle extended west to Louisiana |
| Franklin | Frankfort | OTL Kentucky |
| Georgia | Savannah | OTL Georgia and Alabama (less the coastal strip of an extended Florida panhandle) |
| Hanover | Cheyenne | OTL eastern Montana, SW South Dakota, Wyoming, eastern Colorado and Nebraska north of the Platte River |
| Hudsonia | Iqaluit | OTL Nunavut (less NW section and Victoria and King William Islands) and SE section of North West Territories |
| Illinois | Calhoun | |
| Louisiana | Baton Rouge | OTL Louisiana (less NE corner) and central strip of Mississippi, eastern Texas, SE corner of Oklahoma and SW corner of Arkansas |
| Lower California | Leesburg | OTL Baja California |
| Maryland | Annapolis | |
| Massachusetts | Boston | OTL Massachusetts and Maine |
| Miami | Columbus | OTL Ohio |
| Mississippi | Des Moines | OTL southern Minnesota west of the Mississippi River, SE North Dakota, South Dakota east of the Missouri River, Iowa and Missouri north of the Missouri River |
| Missouri | Missouriopolis | OTL Missouri south of the Missouri River, northern Arkansas, Kansas and Nebraska south of the Platte River |
| New Brunswick | Fredericton | |
| Newfoundland | St.John's | |
| New Guernsey | Madison | OTL Wisconsin, Minnesota east of the Mississippi River and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan |
| New Hampshire | Concord | |
| New Jersey | Trenton | |
| New Scotland | Halifax | Nova Scotia |
| New York | Albany | OTL New York less the western section but includes Vermont |
| North Carolina | Raleigh | |
| Ontario | Winnipeg | OTL Manitoba, NE North Dakota and NW Minnesota |
| Oregon | West Boston | OTL Oregon and Washington plus most of Idaho and NW Montana |
| Pennsylvania | Harrisburg | |
| Phoenix | Santa Fe | OTL Arizona and New Mexico |
| Quebec | Quebec City | |
| Rhode Island | Providence | |
| South Carolina | Columbia | |
| Tennessee | Nashville | |
| The Six Nations | Doshoweh | OTL western New York |
| Tippecanoe | Indianapolis | OTL Indiana |
| Upper California | Sacramento | OTL California and western Nevada |
| Vancouver | Vancouver City | OTL British Columbia |
| Virginia | Richmond | both OTL Virginia and West Virginia |
| Washington | Regina | OTL Saskatchewan and eastern Montana, Western North Dakota, NW South Dakota |
| Wilberforce | Lansing | OTL Michigan less the Upper Peninsula |
Culture[]
Sports[]
- Major League Soccer
- American Basketball Association
- National Baseball League
- American Football League
- National Hockey League
The roots of organized sports in North American Union date back to the 1770s. NAU's official national sports are ice hockey, American football, baseball, and basketball. The market for professional sports in the NAU is roughly $69 billion, roughly 50% larger than that of all of Europe, the Middle East, and Africa combined. Popular spectator sports in North American Union include soccer and American football; the latter is played professionally in the American Football League (AFL). Baseball has been regarded as the national sport since the late 19th century, while basketball and ice hockey are the country's next two leading professional team sports. These five major sports, when played professionally, each occupy a season at different, but overlapping, times of the year. Golf, tennis, baseball, skiing, cricket, volleyball, and rugby union are widely played at youth and amateur levels, but professional leagues and franchises are not widespread.
College football and basketball attract large audiences. Boxing and horse racing were once the most watched individual sports, but they have been eclipsed by golf and auto racing, particularly NASCAR. In the 21st century, televised mixed martial arts has also gained a strong following of regular viewers.
The North American Union has participated in almost every Olympic Games since its Olympic debut in 1900, and has hosted several high-profile international sporting events, including the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal, the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary, the 1994 Basketball World Championship, the 2007 FIFA U-20 World Cup, and the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver City and Whistler, Vancouver. The men's national soccer team has been to the past six World Cups and the women are first in the women's world rankings.
Demographics[]
Education[]
According to a 2012 report by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the North American Union is the most educated country in the world; the country ranks first worldwide in the number of adults having tertiary education, with 51 percent of American adults having attained at least an undergraduate college or university degree. NAU spends about 5.3% of its GDP on education. The country invests heavily in tertiary education (more than 20,000 AME per student). As of 2014, 89 percent of adults aged 25 to 64 have earned the equivalent of a high-school degree, compared to an OECD average of 75 percent.
American provinces and territories operated and are responsible for education provision, regulated by the United States Department of Education through restrictions on federal grants. In most states, children are required to attend school from the age of six or seven (generally, kindergarten or first grade) until they turn 18 (generally bringing them through twelfth grade, the end of high school); some states allow students to leave school at 16 or 17.
Infrastructure[]
Transportation[]
Transportation in the North American Union, the world's largest country in total area, is dedicated to having an efficient, high-capacity multi-modal transport spanning often vast distances between natural resource extraction sites, agricultural and urban areas. 20 major international airports, 400 smaller airports, 72,093 km (44,797 mi) of functioning railway track, and more than 300 commercial ports and harbors that provide access to the Pacific, Atlantic and Arctic Oceans as well as the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence Seaway.
A solar-powered charging station in Yorktown. As of 2016, electric cars make up 40% of cars in the NAU.
Personal transportation is dominated by automobiles, which operate on a network of 4.87 million miles (6.4 million km) of public roads, including one of the world's longest highway systems at 68,000 miles (91,700 km). The world's second largest automobile market, the North American Union has the highest rate of per-capita vehicle ownership in the world, with 765 vehicles per 1000 Americans. About 40% of personal vehicles are vans, SUV's, or light trucks. The average American adult (accounting for all drivers and non-drivers) spends 55 minutes driving every day, traveling 29 miles (47 km). The construction of the Trans-Texas Corridor, part of the North American Super Corridors, has increase the flow of continental traffic in goods and people.
Mass transit accounts for 15% of total NAU work trips. Transport of goods by rail is extensive, though relatively low numbers of passengers (approximately 31 million annually) use intercity rail to travel, partly because of the low population density throughout much of the U.S. interior. However, ridership on Amtrak, the national crown corporation intercity passenger rail system, grew by almost 37% between 2000 and 2010. Also, light rail development has increased in recent years. Bicycle usage for work commutes is minimal.
The civil airline industry is partially privately owned and has been deregulated since 1978, while most major airports are publicly owned. The three largest airlines in the world by passengers carried are NAU-based; Pan Am is the largest air carrier and its flag carrier, and is number one after its 2013 acquisition by Union Airways. Of the world's 50 busiest passenger airports, 16 are in the North American Union, including the busiest, Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport, and the fourth-busiest, O'Hare International Airship Port in Astoria. CHC Helicopter, the largest commercial helicopter operator in the world, has 142 aircraft and WestJet, a low-cost carrier formed in 1996, is third with 100 aircraft.
- North American Transport Security Authority (NATSA)
- North American Railroad Administration (NARA)
- National Railroad Passenger Corporation (Amtrak)
Energy[]
The North American Union energy market is about 29,000 terawatt hours per year. Energy consumption per capita is 7.8 tons (7076 kg) of oil equivalent per year, the 10th highest rate in the world. In 2005, 30% of this energy came from petroleum, 23% from coal, and 22% from natural gas. The remainder 35% was supplied by nuclear power and renewable energy sources. The North American Union is the world's largest consumer of petroleum.
For decades, nuclear power has played a limited role relative to many other developed countries, in part because of public perception in the wake of a 1979 accident. Between 2007 and 2009, 13 companies applied to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for construction and operating licenses to build 30 new nuclear power reactors in the North American Union. The Union has 27% of global coal reserves. It is the world's largest producer of natural gas and crude oil.
Renewable energy in the North American Union accounted for 20.44 percent of the domestically produced electricity in 2015, and 18.1 percent of total energy generation. American wind power installed capacity now exceeds 72 GW. This capacity is exceeded only by British China. The Alta Wind Energy Center in Upper California, N.A.U. is the largest onshore wind farm outside of China, with a capacity of 1,020 MW. Shepherd's Flat Wind Farm in Oregon is the second largest wind farm in the world, completed in 2012, with the nameplate capacity of 845 MW.
- Standard Oil of North America (SONA)
Economy[]
- Third Bank of North America
Military[]
Royal North American Army[]
The Ceremonial Guard is made up of NAUAF members from the Royal American Army and Royal American Air Force
The Royal North American Army is the largest branch of the North American Union Armed Forces and performs land-based military operations. It is one of the seven uniformed services of the North American Union and is designated as the Army of the American Union in the Union Constitution, Article 2, Section 2, Clause 1 and American Union Code, Title 10, Subtitle B, Chapter 301, Section 3001. It is designed to complement the British Army and provide support in foreign and domestic wars.
[]
The Royal North American Navy is the naval force of the North American Union. It is modeled on the Royal Navy and operated closely with the older service. While the RNAN's primary functions were the defense of the NAU and as a coast guard, it was a true deep water navy with vessels as large as armored cruisers.
Royal American Mounted Police[]
The Royal American Mounted Police (RAMP) is the national police force of the North American Union. It had jurisdiction in crimes of an inter-provincial nature including the smuggling of contraband such as illicit drugs and firearms into the NAU.
The RAM Police had detachments in major NAU cities with individual officers or teams of officers available to investigate crimes in smaller towns and the countryside. Each province had a section chief who was responsible for all RAM officers in that section. In addition, the RAM had a large, specialized headquarters staff in Victoria which were available to the provincial sections. These officers were experts in specific legal areas such as forensics or in particular crimes or criminal organizations such as the Sons of Liberty.
