[KarlInOhio]

I've wondered what it would be like if England had paid more attention to its North American colonies and integrated them into the motherland more. Imagine if in the early 1700s the English had started putting noble families in charge of areas so you would have Earls of Massachusetts and Virginia. Maybe Georgia would have only gotten a baron in charge. Then what if various of our Founding Fathers had been elected to Parliament. "No taxation even with representation" just doesn't have the bite the original did.

[MUDDOG]

And some viscounts.

[expat2]

The American Secession* was not directly about taxation, but about the Colonial desire for expansion westward. The Colonies expected England to pay for the defense of their territory against counter-attacks by the Indians and the French, and England had enough on its plate in Europe, and refused.

*It was not really a revolution -- see France, Russia, Cuba for real revolutions -- the turning of a society upside down [lower class on top, upper-class destroyed)

[Ribcage]

Exactly, if they had treated us less like a colony and more like an integral part of the country? We might have been better off as a part of their empire. More like Australia. More homogenous. More British.

[Sherman Logan]

Imagine if in the early 1700s the English had started putting noble families in charge of areas so you would have Earls of Massachusetts and Virginia. Maybe Georgia would have only gotten a baron in charge.

Actually, they did. The original charter of Carolina promulgated a bizarre system of government with a complete hierarchy of nobility, drawn up by John Locke, of all people.

Maryland was granted to the Earls of Baltimore, Georgia to James Oglethorpe.

Parts of Maine were handed out to proprietors.

The Duke of York was given New York and New Jersey. Also Massachusetts, which didn't take.

Pennsylvania and Delaware were famously given to William Penn

The institution of feudalism just never took root here. Conditions were just too different for it to be relevant.