The American Revolution is just won. The British have capitulated and will sign a peace treaty giving the Americans just about everything they fought for.
Thirteen Colonies, now thirteen independent sovereign states. Each one possesses a state government, state courts, a state code of law, an army, a navy, a state establishment that runs things to their liking and wants to keep it that way. They all have conflicting claims to western lands, their original charters tended to claim all the land clear out to the Pacific Ocean. Each new state, born in battle, has plenty of reasons to want to retain every scrap of their hard won liberty. Each new state was plenty big enough by the standards of the 18th century to be an self sufficient independent nation.
How did these thirteen independent states manage to bury their various hatchets and form the Union? It helped that they all spoke the same language, and had fought side by side against the British. It also helped that they all correctly viewed Britain as a super power, who was just itching to get even for loosing the Revolutionary War, and the slightest sign of American disunity would bring the Redcoats back in force.
As it was, each American state had to give up important pieces of sovereignty, like the right to have armies and navies, to negotiate with foreign powers, to levy tariffs against each other, and accept laws passed by the new Federal government. Somehow, they managed to come up with a long lasting deal, the US Constitution, that they all bought into, and which has lasted to this day. They could have so easily got into a large variety of petty squabbles or not so petty squabbles like slavery, and all gone home mad and determined to go it alone. Which would have seriously changed history.
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