The Dominion's Dilemma: The United States of British America (Devine)

Fifty some years after an American Revolution which did not occur, a prosperous United States of British America is staggered to learn Parliament in London is considering a bill to emancipate all the Empires slaves within seven years. How does the Dominion react as a whole? How does the slaveholding American South react? Can Governor-General Andrew Jackson and the Dominion government maintain order? And how does the Empires enemies react to the prospect of unrest in North America? The prosperous British Empire dominion called the United States of British America is rocked when the Duke of Wellington arrives unexpectedly to announce that Parliament is putting the finishing touches on emancipation legislation scheduled to free all slaves held in the Empire---including the American South---in seven years. Governor-General Andrew Jackson is maneuvering to keep the crisis from exploding when an unthinkable act convinces John C. Calhoun that he can save the peculiar institutionand cement the Souths weakening grip on Dominion political power. Meanwhile, Gen. Winfield Scott worries about his ability to maintain Dominion authority---in Quebec as well as Dixie---should half his professional officers go South. Will Londons decision to abolish slavery boomerang when the Empires enemies--- Russia and France---attempt to play the crisis to their own advantages? And what of that Czarist army now occupying Syriaand threatening to march on the Imperial possessions in India? A colorful cast of historical characters, including Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, Zachary Taylor and Martin Van Buren in Georgetown, D.C. collaborate and conspire with and against Foreign Secretary Lord Palmerston in London and Czar Nicholas I in St. Petersburg. They are joined by vivid fictional characters including a brash young Army intelligence aide, a tough British diplomat, a Georgetown bureaucrat with a gift for amorous espionage and a diabolical Russian secret agent. As well as their a politically- awakening Southern belle, a wealthy (and lusty) plantation widow, a frail but iron-willed Russian countess and a disreputable tavern/brothel owner. And an imposing former slave- turned-minister/freedom smuggler. As the political crisis threatens to explode into civil war, one man may hold the a disgraced former USBA Vice Governor-General (and shadowy New York political boss) Aaron Burr.