War between brothers[]
After several meetings between the Governors of New England, the 10th July, 1806, the Governors of New York, Massachusetts, and Connecticut passed and act of declaration of war to the respective State Senates.
Rhode Island, New Hampshire and Vermont had preferred neutrality. They shared the cause of the New England neighbors, but also believed that a civil war was no a solution.
The declaration criticized several Federal policies including the imprisoning of sailors on weak charges of piracy, the inability to control federal territories, and the inability to prevent the raise of tariff between states. The declaration stated that they would not recognize the authority of a federal government that cannot provide the citizens of the states some basic security and that would even condemn the citizens and states that acted to provide that security by themselves.
President King was highly disappointed. The measures that he had taken to keep the Union and prevent bloodshed between States had driven his own home state to declare war to the United States of America. But he was the president of America and not just a Massachusetts man, so the rebellion should be bring to an end.
The first measure was to call all state militias into federal service into a Federal Army. Knowing that the stronger militias were the Virginian and Georgian ones, which totalized for more than half of the militias of all the states, President King also declared that any state militia that did not attend the call would be regarded as in rebellion, and would be equally fought as the militias of New York, Connecticut or Massachusetts that had followed the declaration of war of their state legislatures.
However this call further alienated the other northern states. Rhode Island, Vermont, and New Hampshire did not wanted to fight their New England neighbors, and Pennsylvania was already in a shooting war against Virginia. The 26th July, 1806, the Pennsylvania militia took control of the Federal buildings in Philadelphia including the Presidential Mansion and the Federal Capitol. The Representatives, Senators and Government Officers, including President King, were given a safe pass to Virginia if they decided to support the Federal Government. Federal soldiers, however, were taken as prisoners of war. Pennsylvania was officially in war against the U. S. of A.
Federal representatives in other cities, like New York, Providence, or Boston, were less lucky. They all got imprisoned at the same time that all privateers and sailors were released. The land militias focused on defending Philadelphia, however a priority was to rebuild a navy.
As the fall was coming, all Northwestern territories and a great deal of western Pennsylvania were controlled by the Federal Army, but the defense of the Atlantic cities was fierce by New Englanders, who also had a great support on the new New England Navy.
Several advisors had told President King to release the sailors and privateers from Norfolk and other southern ports. President King barely issued some orders to expedite the clarification of status of sailors that did not participate in privateering. This policies soon provided New Englanders a great advantage on the Sea, as they pushed an effective blockade on all southern ports and occasional attacks and raids to military posts near the sea.
During the winter the situation was much the same. The Sea was dominated by New England and the countryside was dominated by the Federal Army. No party had the resources neither to break the economy of the other party nor to carry out an attack to the most densely populated areas. At spring 1807, it was evident that the situation was a stalemate, and morale was low at both sides. Negotiations begin.
The Federal government would grant independence to New England on the conditions that they abandon any claim to the Northwestern territory and Iroquoia, and accept the lost of the western parts of Pennsylvania and New York, as well as to pay compensations to the lost of Federal properties, including the government see.
After long deliberations, the peace treaty is signed on May 1807.
Soon, both the U. S. of A. and the Confederation of New England begin to pass laws restricting state autonomies. New England completely bans the state militias creating a Confederate Army and, officially, a Confederate Navy.
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