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I think it was the British who wanted the 13 states named in the treaty because they had some doubts as to whether the United States would stay together as one country.

That is some interesting insight. It makes sense. They almost didn't. Massachusetts and Connecticut were talking about seceding in 1814 at the Hartford Convention.

When New York was still debating whether to ratify the Constitution, some of them thought they could ratify it conditionally (depending on whether a Bill of Rights was added)--James Madison wrote a letter to a New Yorker saying that once you ratify, you can't secede.

That's funny, because James Madison was one of the men who approved the ratification statement from Virginia which said you *COULD* secede. If he didn't agree, he should have said so at the time.

I think the first time South Carolina threatened to secede was about a week after Congress met for the first time in 1789.

My recollection of history is that the South wasn't all that big on joining the "revolution" until after Francis Marion made them hate the British.

Virginia became strong for independence from Britain after the royal governor called for the slaves to rebel. That is alluded to in the Declaration ("He has incited domestic Insurrections amongst us..."). It was a Virginian, Richard Henry Lee, who introduced the motion in June 1776 which led to the vote for independence. North Carolina authorized its delegates to vote for independence.

Definitely there were a lot of Loyalists in parts of the South--at least in some battles it was a civil war of Americans against Americans with just the leaders on the other side being from Britain. But the Loyalists discovered that once the British left the area they were on their own.