Changes: United States of America

Revision as of 23:00, 27 August 2007

The Salem Witches Institute is in Salem, Massachusetts, USA.
Quidditch is played, but the similar sport of Quodpot is more popular.

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 [[category:countries]]
-Wizards and witchs in the United States are often more likely to act like [[Muggles]] than anywhere else on the planet, including a majority in the American wizarding community.   Those who are more traditional (i.e. non-Muggle-like) are called Orthodox, and the American majority who combine elements of Muggle culture and society with the use of magic are branded Modernists.  The Orthodox are most frequent in the New England and the South, while the number of Orthodox in proportion to Modernists declines as one heads westward in the U.S.  Witchs and wizards in the U.S. are governed under a political system, the Magic Commonwealth of America, since 1801.  Between that year and 1776, the wizarding community in the 13 American colonies, possibly inspired by American Muggle rebels fighting against the British Muggle government, decided to similarly rise up against rule by Britain's [[Ministry of Magic]].  Finally, the British and American magical communities, with the International Confederation of Wizards as a neutral third party in negotiations, decdided on creating the independent Magic Confederation of America, governed by a Parliament elected by the wizarding community with legislative powers(originally with 99 members, but by the 1990s decade with 400 members), a Lord Protector elected by Parliament (with the candidate with a majority or plurality of the vote being elected, as members of Parliament often vote for from five to 15 candidates) with executive powers, a Privy Council headed by the Lord Protector and with members (serving one-year terms of office) elected by Parliament as a judicial body and an executive advisory council to aid the Lord Protector, and a paramilitary/law-enforcement arm called the Magic Militia headed by the Lord Protector.  Both Parliament and Lord Protector, first elected in 1801, serve seven-year terms of office(although a Lord Protector may be removed from office due to death, resignation, or if the Privy Council determines he or she is mentally or physically incompetent, in which case the Privy Council-not the Parliament-randomly selects one of their own as acting Lord Protector to serve the remainder of the term of office).  The Magic Commonwealth of America is governed by the Charter of 1801 (amendable by three-fifths vote of Parliament), and the Privy Council, acting as a sort of supreme court, can veto bills passed by Parliament if they violate the Charter.  The Privy Council also serves as a court of law for trying members of the U.S. magical community accused of wrongdoing.  In the 19th Century, the Magic Commonwealth of America engaged in vocal, international, even occasionally violent conflicts with France, Spain, Mexico, and Russia over control of the Louisiana Purchase, Florida, the southwestern U.S., Alaska, and Puerto Rico over control of said territories, contending that the Commonwealth had sovereignty over any witch, wizard, or other magical creature where Muggle United States authority was exercised.  By 1900, the International Confederation of Wizards had finally agreed with the American side in such conflicts.  During the early 20th Century, the division in American wizarding society between Modernists and the Orthodox became pronounced, as Modernists adopted such Muggle inventions as radio, automobiles, television, refrigerators, typewriters, etc. powered by magic instead by Muggle means like electricity or gasoline.  During the decade of the 1920s, the United States suffered under the tyranny of [[Grindelwald]], which lasted, like with wizards and witchs in many nations in the world, until this [[Dark Arts]]  practitioner was defeated in [[1945]] by [[Albus Dumbledore]].  Some American witchs and wizards of Orthodox orientation supported Grindelwald during the three decades of the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s, including his promotion of domination over Muggles, but Modernists and some Orthodox proactively opposed Grindelwald.  In the decade of the 1960s, a radical nationalist party, the Free Wizards of America, preached that the magical community in the United States should unilaterally declare it's independence from the International Confederation of Wizards, which the FWA portreyed as intrusive busybodies.  In 1975, the Free Wizards of America actually won a majority in the Magic Commonwealth of America's Parliament, and the firebrand Sid Meyerson was elected Lord Protector.  Of course, during this time, this was the time of the [[First War]] with [[Voldemort]] and his [[Death Eaters]] waging a war against [[Muggle-born]] people with magical abilities in the worldwide wizarding community.  In 1976, the Magic Commonwealth of America declared the laws of the International Confederation of Wizards null and void on U.S. territory, taking advantage of the Voldemort threat.  However, with two months, an international army of wizards and witchs from many countries, with the sanction of Dumblebore as Chief of the International Confederation, which occupied the United States and forced the Commonwealth government to recind the order.  Lord Protector Meyerson was killed in 1977 by Voldemort because he was a Muggle-born.  Meanwhile, the Magic Commonwealth waged a three-way battle pitting violent extremist elements of the FWA party and against American followers of the Dark Lord.  When Voldemort was stopped in [[1981]] when he tried to use the [[Avara Kadavra]] Killing Curse on the infant [[Harry Potter]], his followers in the United States were usuallly executed after trials by the Privy Council.  Meanwhile, the Free Wizards of America, after it's more moderate elements were voted out of office in 1982, gradually took an increasingly radical stance as the party as a whole waged a geurilla to this day against the International Confederation of Wizards' magical police forces who enforce ICW authority and international wizarding law.  Although most American witchs and wizards are strongly anti-Voldemort, they are not necessarily that pro-Dumbledore or pro-Potter, often regarding both as overrated.