The Dominion's Dilemma: The United States of British America Read Online Free PDF Page B

of a British invasion, had been demobilized.
      In March 1777, a constitutional convention called by the Congress had met in Philadelphia. Under Washington’s guidance---Franklin had returned to London with Burke as intermediary to Pitt’s government---a tentative constitution for the new “United States of British America” slowly evolved. Washington himself, along with the principal authors, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison of Virginia and the youthful prodigy from New York, Alexander Hamilton, sailed for London in the spring of ’78 to present the document for ratification by Parliament and the signature of the King.
   It was the proposition that the British American states would have direct representation in Parliament that was to be the chief obstacle to ratification, of course. The diehard Tories in both Houses could not conceive of ‘colonials’ on their benches. But the logic in Pitt’s argument that the Empire had very nearly lost its crown jewel over ‘taxation without representation’ in the end won the day. The “colonials” would be permitted one delegate from each ‘state’ to the House of Commons. The new USBA would have limited self-government, in that London would continue to set foreign policy and have oversight of the elected USBA government.
    The Crown, in turn, would accept the principle that only native born British Americans could serve as candidates for the Governor-Generalship and the various state governorships. The USBA would maintain an organized defense force in view of the threat from then-Spanish Louisiana and the increasingly difficult Indians, as well as a small naval force to help patrol the coasts. The appropriate military ministries in London would oversee both forces. Tariffs and other taxes on various products would fund the Dominion---for that was the newly-coined term for the USBA’s status in the Empire---and state governments. An initial plebiscite for the Governor-Generalship and the two houses of the first USBA Congress was scheduled for the fall of 1780. The King would then officially approve the plebiscite’s winner as G-G for a term of four years, with the potential for succeeding terms. (The principle of the King’s final veto power over the Governorship was a key element in the final agreement designed by Burke and Franklin.) 
   Franklin returned home once again to a tumultuous welcome and near-unanimous approval for the Governor-Generalship. Washington was the overwhelming choice for Vice Governor-General and was in fact actually responsible for much of the evolution of the new Dominion government during a period later affectionately labeled the ‘Era of Reconciliation.’
    It was during the Washington Administration that began in 1789 that the ‘factions’ in Dominion political life---agrarian/weak central government versus manufacturing/strong central government---began to evolve into the two-party political system that continued through the plebiscite of 1832, which the Democratic candidate, Andrew Jackson, won convincingly over his Dominion-Republican rival, Henry Clay, garnering some 765,000 of the approximately 1,325,000 votes cast. Two minor candidates had no effect on the outcome. It was of course the State Legislatures that alone had the power to elect the Governor-General. Their refusal to choose Andrew Jackson even after he had convincingly won the plebiscite in 1824, placing Quincy Adams in the Residency, had created much of the bitterness that still dominated political life in the USBA.
     

 
     
     
    CHAPTER THREE
     
     
    Georgetown, D.C.
December 20, 1832:

  Tom Wilder glanced at his pocket watch and shook his head. Twelve noon. He had spent the better parts of three mornings shifting through all the correspondence between The Residency and London dating back six months. Mention of the plebiscite, when discussed at all, was prima forma: the Dominion’s plans for organizing and securing the vote in the