When the Declaration of Independence asserted that “these colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent states,” it took an obvious-seeming but still significant step: it assumed that individual states, when united, would form one nation. The problem, though, was that the states didn’t always want to be united. This talk takes an alternative approach: what if the Founders had simply scrapped the existing state boundaries and identities and made one truly national body, the United State of America? That didn’t happen, of course, but it gives us a way to explore the implications of what did happen, from the time of the American Revolution to the Civil War—or, as some would call it, the War Between the States.

GREG NOBLES, Professor Emeritus of history, joined Georgia Tech in 1983 and spent 33 years there specializing in early American and environmental history. Nobles held two Fulbright professorships, received multiple NEH grants, and held residential fellowships at Harvard, the Huntington Library, and other leading institutions. After retiring, he was Scholar in Residence at the American Antiquarian Society and the Huntington Library. He holds a PhD from the University of Michigan and an AB from Princeton University.