WI: American Monarchy

[lerk]

This has been an idea which has always interested me. Suppose George Washington decides to take up the offer of becoming "King George I". What happens next? How do more "radical" Founding Fathers, such as Paine and Jefferson, react to this? They both were against the idea of a monarchy altogether. Further, seeing as how Washington was likely infertile, when Washington dies how is succession chosen? His only step-son has died, but his step-grandson, George Washington Parke Custis, was 18 years old at the time of Washington's death and thus not too young to be king. It could also go to a new dynasty altogether, though I'm not too sure what that would be. What do you think?

 

[Avian Overlord]

It's overthrown in a generation ala Mexico.

 

[zaffre]

This has been an idea which has always interested me. Suppose George Washington decides to take up the offer of becoming "King George I". What happens next? How do more "radical" Founding Fathers, such as Paine and Jefferson, react to this? They both were against the idea of a monarchy altogether. Further, seeing as how Washington was likely infertile, when Washington dies how is succession chosen? His only step-son has died, but his step-grandson, George Washington Parke Custis, was 18 years old at the time of Washington's death and thus not too young to be king. It could also go to a new dynasty altogether, though I'm not too sure what that would be. What do you think?

Bit of a cold take, but in a world where Washington’s familial situation remains unchanged, him founding a monarchy is - not ASB, exactly, but up against very obvious, unsolvable issues such as the ones you point out. The big advantage of a monarchy is a clear lineal succession which Washington just does not *have*. Any eighteen year old step-grandson is a recipe for civil war, and the alternative that sometimes floats up of “er then give it to Adams I guess” is politically ludicrous and also illuminates the underlying fact that if the Founders had some backup dynasty that they wanted to crown, they would have crowned them, but they didn’t, so they didn’t.

“Washington has biological kids” gets tossed around a lot as an answer to this, frankly I think it’s probably easier to look later and have another general lead the Continental Army to victory, or have a (Protestant) foreign power actually help out with the war sufficiently that a harmless cadet branch is considered. A monarchy is still a bit doubtful either way, if only because it’s not really in the interests of the new elite created by the RW to have one, but I think it’s certainly not out of the realm of possibility.

 

[lerk]

It's overthrown in a generation ala Mexico.

That was what I was thinking. The hardcore, anti-monarchy republicans among the Founding Fathers such as Jefferson were too influential to just be sidelined like they were nothing, and the moment Washington dies and nobody finds an heir they will probably use this period of confusion to get rid of the monarchy altogether.

 

[Cevolian]

Bit of a cold take, but in a world where Washington’s familial situation remains unchanged, him founding a monarchy is - not ASB, exactly, but up against very obvious, unsolvable issues such as the ones you point out. The big advantage of a monarchy is a clear lineal succession which Washington just does not *have*. Any eighteen year old step-grandson is a recipe for civil war, and the alternative that sometimes floats up of “er then give it to Adams I guess” is politically ludicrous and also illuminates the underlying fact that if the Founders had some backup dynasty that they wanted to crown, they would have crowned them, but they didn’t, so they didn’t.

“Washington has biological kids” gets tossed around a lot as an answer to this, frankly I think it’s probably easier to look later and have another general lead the Continental Army to victory, or have a (Protestant) foreign power actually help out with the war sufficiently that a harmless cadet branch is considered. A monarchy is still a bit doubtful either way, if only because it’s not really in the interests of the new elite created by the RW to have one, but I think it’s certainly not out of the realm of possibility.

To add to this, this idea that King George was going to happen is really just based on a quite fallacious understanding of how the Founders used the term ‘monarchy’. When a lot of them write about ‘monarchy’ (after their turn away from supporting a Dominion-esque setup with Britain to republic and independence) they mean a government in which the executive power is in the hands of a single magistrate. They don’t mean heredity, and as far as I’m aware there were no serious proposals for such outside John and Abigail’s pillow talk (and of course the Newburgh Letter, but that just isn’t going to fly). Hamilton was probably the most ‘monarchist’ Founder (both in the sense of supporting the power of the King contra parliament before the Republican turn and after) and he very pointedly did not believe in hereditary succession, but a kind of elective monarchy based on the Holy Roman Empire, the image of the Roman dictator, etc - which is to say, a life Presidency. This was mainly framed in a discourse against what the Abbé Sieyès called ‘polyarchy’ (sorry Robert Dahl) in his debate with Tom Paine, which was transmitted to France from debates about having a plural rather than monarchic or singular executive.

This was quite a big thing in 18th-century political thought: it comes from Rousseau’s idea of a figure who can combine “the advantages of heredity and election” in his Considerations On the Government of Poland, the writings of the Marquis d’Argenson, Bolingbroke’s idea of a ‘Patriot King’, and to some extent an idealised and republicanised reading of Montesquieu and the English Constitution. But what it wasn’t was ever a simplistic plan to establish a Washington dynasty. So you can have a monarchist US extremely easily - but it’s just OTL or something rather like it, perhaps with life tenure.

 

[I Saw A Red Sky]

Washington as Bolivar would be cool, would probably have to be someone other than Washington though.

 

[Roger II]

Side thought-does a president with life tenure necessarily accrue the same power in the long run? Assuming the general tendency of 19th century American politics towards increased public accountability, wider franchises, and so on holds, I doubt a "life president" be seen as holding a popular mandate as in OTL especially later in their tenure, so the pressure would either be to 1) shift to shorter tenure or 2) shift more power formally or informally to Congress.

 

[Roger II]

(this now that I think about it would lead to a parliamentary or quasi-parliamentary system somewhat easily.