At the very beginning of the 19th century, the New England states were increasingly at odds with the Southern states. One cause of the discontent was the sense that the slave states had too much power over the Federal government. Another was the decline in trade with Europe during the Napoleonic Wars. The Embargo Act of 1807 and the Non-Intercourse Act of 1809 sharply reduced trade with Britain and France. There was also the rivalry between the North and South, which dated to the founding the colonies.

Discontent with the War of 1812 brought things to a head. The Federalist Party in New England had been agitating for changes in the Constitution, like eliminating the three-fifths compromise. New England newspapers openly discussed secession. The Hartford Convention was a series of meetings among representatives from the New England states to discuss their grievances. The whole project collapsed with the wave of patriotism that resulted from Jackson’s victory over the British at the Battle of New Orleans.

This episode in American history has largely been forgotten, mostly because the North won the Civil War fifty years later. The winners write the history books and this bit of history has never fit the narrative. It’s also why the  Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina has been erased from the history books. Northern conservatives have made John Locke and the Scottish Enlightenment their base. The fact that Locke and Shaftesbury hoped to impose feudalism on the American South is inconvenient.

The point here is that Americans have been raised up on a history of the nation written by Yankeedom. The North won the Civil War so they became the dominant region both legally and economically. Through the 20th century, the North also came to dominate the nation culturally, writing the history books and defining the national narrative. That’s how we get nonsense about the Puritans seeking religious freedom and carving a nation out of the wilderness. Jamestown has been all but erased from the nation’s memory.

The dominance of the North over the rest of the country probably would have petered out in the 20th century, but world events changed the direction of America. Teddy Roosevelt badgered Woodrow Wilson into breaking with American tradition, with regards to getting involved in European affairs. The Yankee desire to dominate North America became a quest to dominate the world. Once the US chose to get into the Great War, the old traditional American conservatism was killed off forever. The Yankee Empire was born.

The aftermath of the Great War, the Depression, World War II and then the Cold War prevented any change in America’s domestic arrangements. These were great unifying events; in that they justified the suppression of anything challenging the established cultural order. The upheavals of the 60’s and 70’s were based in New England, the Upper Midwest and Northern California for a reason. American Conservatism was born at Yale and run out of Connecticut for the same reason. That where the ruling class lived.

All empires end eventually. Often it is from exhaustion, the cost of maintaining the empire having long ago exceeded the benefits. Other times the culture that built the empire runs its course. The empire remains as a brittle outer husk that eventually shatters. Other times, it is a slow, ad hoc retreat back to something resembling normalcy. The Soviet Empire is a good example of this. It’s not been an organized retreat, but it has been a fairly bloodless one. Russia is now back to something close to its historic norm.

America was never built to a be great crusading empire. Even after generations of cultural cleansing, Alabama is still a vastly different place than Vermont. Regionalism is still the defining feature of America. Having one region dominate the others was the fear of the Founders, which is why they struggled to craft a government after independence from the British. The solution was a small federal government that handled a narrow set of things, like war and trade, that could only be done by a central government.

America’s ruling class, especially over the last few decades, have gone to great lengths to explain why providence has ordained America as the world’s peace keeper. The usual suspects have twisted this into a foreign policy of keeping the world safe for the Jewish diaspora. The truth is, the American Empire was always built on serendipity. The total destruction of Europe and the technological backwardness of East Asia left a huge vacuum. The atom bomb locked in the gains of the victors, by locking out all challengers.

The world that birthed the American Empire is long gone. China is now taking up her historic role as the hegemonic power of Asia. Europe is fully recovered, in the material sense, from the 20th century. It is time for Europe to recover culturally and that can only happen when the Yankee Empire recedes. Whether or not the European people have the will to defend themselves from the barbarian hordes to their south, that’s not something that can be decided for them. Europe must live or die on its own.

Domestically, it is long past time for a return to normalcy. The Cold War has been over for 25 years. The rest of the country is economically and demographically in better shape than Yankeedom. The oldest and most sclerotic states in the nation are located in the Northeast and Upper Midwest. The election of Trump and the resulting chaos in Washington strongly suggest the rest of the nation is ready to step outside the shadow of Yankeedom. CalExit and similar rumblings from Progressives are another sign of change.

The fact is, America was never a singular nation. It was a hodgepodge of nations, thrown together with degrees of overlap. The regions of the country share a language and share some history, but they are significant different too. America, maybe even all of North America, is better run as a federation, like a continent sized version of Switzerland. The areas where there can be no agreement are delegated to the regions. The areas where the interests are shared are delegated to a federal state.

That can only come with the end of the Yankee Imperium.