Paul is right of course that all of New England did NOT "want to leave the Union in 1812" - but there WERE secessionist movements led by prominent NEw Englanders in 1785-6, 1803-4, and of course leading up to the Hartford Convention of 1814 -- the first two are treated in my forthcoming book A Wilderness So Immense: The Louisiana Purchase and the Destiny of America (Knopf, pub date APril 10).
  Details are way too long for a list-serve (the 1785-6 movement is little known and takes the better part of a chapter) but after the book is out I'll be speaking at the Library of Virginia on May 14th and would be happy to elaborate in Q&A on that occasion.
Jon Kukla

paul finkelman wrote:
> New England did not want to leave the Union in 1812, and did not; a few radical
> federalists did, and it killed their party; one of the things they hated about
> the constitution was the immense power it handed slavery and the South; by
> counting slaves for electing presidents through the electoral college, the South
> had been able to defeat Adams in 1800 (without the electoral votes from slaves,
> Jefferson loses to Adams).

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