Federal Republic of Merigo

The Federal Republic is, as the name suggests, a federal republic, located on the Northern half of the continent of Merigo and the accompanying islands. It has a diversified economy and several unique but similar culture groups, who make up the six states and the outlying island territories.

Government
The Federal Government was established in the Constitution of 1776, the same year the first president, President Relius (1776-1792) was elected. There is a Senate of 100 members, although the exact number of Senators and seats in the Senate is left to the discretion of the president. Currently there are seven Senators, one from each state and one representing the extraterritorial possessions (EP). Senators serve terms of 2 years and are elected every two years. Presidents serve for four years and are elected every four years. The Supreme Court appointments are for life, or until the justice resigns. There are no term limits for how long a president or a Senator can run for re-election, but the precedent in the nation is that the president serves as long as they can be re-elected. There are currently and have been in the past several parties of the Federal Republic.

Federalist Party (former)
The Federalist Party was founded by President Relius in 1792 as a way to groom a successor for him, as he was growing too old to serve in the government for another term. The Federalist Party ran the government for 15 terms straight, up until the Crisis of '53, at which point it became evident that the Federalist Party was no longer fit to govern the nation alone. In 1934, President Underwood and the Federalist Party leader merged with the Conservative Party to form the Federal-Conservative Party.

Conservative Party (former)
The Conservative Party was a more right wing party than the center-right Federalist Party, and was popular among the military and domestic industrialists, who favored isolationist diplomacy in order to better compete in the domestic market. In 1934, the Conservative Party merged with the Federalist Party to form the Federal-Conservative Party, cementing the already close parties into a formal alliance.

Westlian Farmer-Labor Party
The Westlian Farmer-Labor Party was started by farmers on the Westlian plains in 1815, but quickly expanded to permeate all the states and islands an a left-wing alternative to the Federalist Party and the Conservative Party. During the Crisis of '53, the WFLP maintained a policy of neutrality, however they came to side with the FP and the CP once civil war became inevitable. Currently, the WFLP is a strong contender in government and controls the Senate through a coalition with the Federal Democratic Party

Federal Democratic Party
The FDP was founded in 1901 as a moderate left wing option. It spread rapidly in the EP, but struggled to gain influence on the mainland. Currently, they control the government in coalition with the WFLP.

Dixiecrat Party (former)
The Dixiecrat Party formerly ran politics in the southern USM, maintaining effective dominance against both the right wing CP and FP and the left wing WFLP and the FDP. The Dixiecrats won considerable influence in the Senate, becoming the largest minority party by 1848. Five years later, the Dixiecrats introduced the Kettleman-Juliard Act, angered by CP and FP insistence on high import tariffs to protect domestic manufacturers, thus hurting southern consumers.

Ancient Era
In 485 BC, the city of Philadelphia was founded by Meriquinus Junius Relius of the Capitoline Tribe. Quickly, the city blossomed into a powerhouse of political, economic, and scientific activity. Within the first decade, the Capitoline Republic was formed, which employed limited suffrage of its citizens to maintain legitimacy. The CR expanded its territory rapidly, displacing or incorporating other local tribes until it had reached the borders of modern day Capitoline. However, in 113 BC, a violent coup by General Antonius Lithius overthrew the Senate, which was slow to act without an executive member. During a brutal five year civil war, the Republican forces battled Lithian legions, and ultimately Lithius and his cadre consolidated power, forming the Capitoline Empire. The Imperial period was a time both of great change and of great prosperity for Philadelphia, and indeed the Capitoline nation. Under the rule of Antonius Lithius, power was consolidated under a single executive "Emperor" and the Senate assumed an advisory role, mostly to satiate bitter nobility. In 213 AD, the Empire ultimately reached its territorial, military, and economic height under the rule of Emperor Julius Aurelius, and this period is often known as the "Aurelian Peace" as it ushered in a period of 35 years in which the borders of the Empire became relatively cemented. However, Julius Aurelius died before he could properly designate an heir, which led to minor civil wars and Imperial fracturing following his death in 178 AD. For the next 500 years, upstart tribal kingdoms like Anglica and Columbia challenged weakening Imperial authority, and the Empire's dominance eroded. Finally, in 782 AD, Philadelphia was sacked by upset Masonic legionaries, who had gone unpaid for a decade because of extensive corruption and embezzlement in the Imperial government. The sacking of Philadelphia was the final blow in what once was a glorious and mighty empire.

Medieval Era
Even before the total collapse of the Empire in 782, upstart kingdoms across Merigo were beginning to form and take shape. In the far west, Alta and Westlia were able to resist Imperial control permanently, establishing their own smaller spheres of influence on nearby islands. However, as Imperial politics and the economy continued to decline, other kingdoms formed closer and within the receding Empire. In 438 AD, the kingdom of Columbia was formally proclaimed by King Saxon, and the Kingdom of Mason followed just 50 short years later. By ~650 AD, even the loyal intellectual region of Anglica formed its own kingdom in the northeast corner of the Empire, and the breadbasket southern region of Carolingia also formed its own territory. Not long after Philadelphia itself was sacked, descendents of Relius himself formed the Capitoline Kingdom in the territory that once was the Capitoline Republic.

With the collapse of the unified economy, legal system, and cultural ties, the kingdoms quickly fought each other over small pieces of land. Merigo was plunged into a dark era of brutal fighting and constant warfare, and intellectual reason and technological development largely stagnated. This period has come to be known as the "Dark Ages" in many histories of Merigo, and rightly so. Finally, around 1300 or so, a plague swept through Merigo, killing millions of people and extending the Dark Ages for another hundred years.

Medieval Anglica
After Capitoline forces abandoned Anglica in 651, local landed gentry sought to establish a permanent dynastic reign in the new country. However, the two most prominent houses of Aberg and Yorkshire disagreed on which family would take the throne. For seven brutal years, the two houses conducted retributive raids on each other, seeking to one up the last attack to discourage the other from claiming the throne. Finally, in 658, Aberg forces razed Yorkshire to the ground and claimed the throne.

For 800 years, the Aberg dynasty ruled Anglica with an iron fist, distrustful of other prominent houses and landowning elite. Because of the Aberg rulers' harsh treatment of the landowning elite, they were constantly prevented from asserting control over their own domains and expanding their influence elsewhere into Anglica. While the Abergs and the nobles sparred over influence in the counties of Anglica, the merchants in the cities developed their own unique mercantile and maritime culture. In order to check this, Queen Marcella passed the Shipbuilding Act of 820, preventing ships from being constructed in Anglica. However, the merchants were not easily deterred, and they quickly sought to purchase ships from the nearby Kingdom of Mahan. Using these new ships, merchants from New Yorkshire found lucrative markets ferrying goods and people up and down the east coast of Merigo and out to the Eastern Islands, which they slowly constructed small settlements and ports on. In 1282, Anglican merchants from the Glassblowing Guild established a small port settlement called Aberlech, and they named the island Labrach (Today it is called Labrador Island). For the next two hundred years, the various merchant's guilds of New Yorkshire established port settlements on all the Eastern Islands, and their trade across the East of Merigo flourished.

In 1462, King Adelbert finally saw the increasing power of the merchants as a threat to his dynasty but by then it was too late. For several hundred years, the Aberg policy of neglect had allowed the merchants to thrive and grow powerful. By the early 1400s, the merchants could easily check the power of the royal family. King Adelbert and his court of nobles passed the Taxation Act of 1462, which required the merchants to pay a tax on every import and export coming through New Yorkshire. When the merchants refused to pay the tax, which was only a measly 3% duty on all imports and exports, King Adelbert sent his troupe of Noblemen cavalry to collect the tax by force and put the merchants in their place. However, since Aberg was on the far side of Anglica from New Yorkshire, and ships travel faster than an army on the neglected roads of Anglica, news of this reached Anglica weeks before the Royal Army even mustered in Aberg. Flustered by this news, the New Yorkshire Merchant Guilds assembled to determine a course of action. They drafted a letter and sent it to the King by ship announcing their intent to pay the tax. However, this was a ploy to buy time, as the Merchant Guilds also dispatched ships to Mahan and Mason by way of Capitoline to hire mercenaries. Mahan was an easy sell because the Mahanian sailors and dockworkers grew very wealthy on shipbuilding contracts, and were thus invested in the success of the New Yorkshire merchants. King Dalton promised a substantial fleet of 200 barques for loan to the Merchant's Guild, a sizeable complement to the already 800 strong mercantile fleet. However, when the merchants reached Philadelphia to seek passage to Mason, they were imprisoned in the city, as no foreigners were allowed to enter Philadelphia except with the express permissions from their sovereign. The Capitoline King, King Juvius, demanded tribute from the Anglican merchants, which they didn't have of course. This ended Anglican attempts to recruit Masonic mercenaries. Back in Anglica, the combined mercantile fleet set sail for Aberg to lay siege to the city and prevent the Royal Army from moving to New Yorkshire. When the merchant fleet arrived, King Adelbert was caught completely off guard. The Merchants Guild issued a list of demands or the city would be leveled, just as Yorkshire had been. Among the demands were no taxes on the merchants permanently and mercantile advisors would stay in Aberg to oversee royal policy. King Adelbert had no choice but to accept the demands, or be killed in the barage of his city along with the other nobility. This was the final blow to the waning power of the Aberg dynasty, and soon a new dynasty would take charge in Anglica.

In 1478, the Aberg dynasty finally collapsed. In a fire at the palace, the young King Lilagagh was murdered at the ripe old age of 16, before he was able to make an heir. Additionally, the mercantile advisors who were influencing most of the decisions were also killed in the fire. This cleared the path for the Yorkshire family, which had grown powerful in New Yorkshire banking, to finally take the throne. However, instead of wasting time with the Nobility, they simply allied with the merchants and Anglica flourished.

Medieval Mahan
When Mahan became independent in 662, a new dynasty was primed to take control. King Lemarck was the first of many in the period between 662-783 of the "Good Kings" in which five good kings ruled Mahan in a row. During this period, Mahan developed considerable shipbuilding capabilities at the city of Atesham, now one of the most important ports in the Federal Republic. Additionally, the culture soon came to revolve around this industry, and also branching into the sailor culture itself and the coastal town culture. Elite shipbuilding merchants owned lavish homes on the scenic west coast of Mahan, and the cities were always lively with sailors coming in from the sea. While their trips rarely involved Mahan directly, the sailors home would always be Mahan, so most ships even owned by foreign merchants made port in Atesham at least twice a year. The renown of Mahanian shipbuilding came to a head in 1110, when a dispute over a perceived insult regarding the Queen-Consort of Columbia boiled into a full blown war. While the superior Columbian army prepared for a massive assault into Atesham, Mahanian marines stormed into the cities of Wellingsby and Oderburg on the Oder Peninsula. When news of the loss of these cities reached King Frederick I in Helmsburg, he split his army into two to address the marines. However, by the time the army arrived in the North, the marines had left and they had razed the two cities. However, Columbia would take the last laugh in the war, because they also employed Masonic mercenaries, known for their fighting ability, and together they crushed the poorly trained and poorly led Mahanian army at the Battle of Granfield. As a result, Mahan was forced to cede a small piece of land on the Columbian border and pay an indemnity for insulting the Queen-Consort. Nevertheless, Mahan's seafaring culture persisted, and soon they came to find a lucrative system of selling ships and sailors to the burgeoning Anglican mercantile empire. While they had been selling maritime equipment to Anglica for hundreds of years prior, after the Columbia-Mahan war, this industry really began booming, so much so that the entire economy soon revolved around supplying the Anglicans with maritime goods. Farmers began producing naval provisions, including hard tack and limes, Lumberjacks quickly shifted their market from construction to shipbuilding, and the few ironworks in Mahan shifted from land tools to nails and other metal goods needed to make ships.

Mahanian naval mobilization lasted for several hundred years, and it brought substantial wealth to the many merchants who were connected to this maritime trade business. However, after the fall of the Aberg dynasty in 1478, Anglican merchants began building their own ships and using only a small amount of Mahanian sailors. As Anglican fortunes rose, Mahanian fortunes declined, and the age of prosperity collapsed. Farmers went out of work, lumberjacks no longer had demand for the lumber, and the demand for nails and copper was almost entirely eliminated. However, the Atesham dynasty later found clever ways to reignite the Mahanian shipbuilding industry, this centuries-long decline in the Mahanian economy, morale, and culture can still be felt in many places of the country today.

Medieval Columbia